The space industry still has too much the mentality of a 'niche industry'. Let away the initial cowboy style sky race, it's role was #exploration, #science and observation/communication. Last centuries the agencies were working hard justifying their expenditures with the invention of the #teflon pan, the battery drill and satellite TV. We all remember.. Becoming a major player in the #energysector , would significantly change its role and perception in the public. GREETINGS FROM HISTORY: in 1858 the first successful drilling for crude oil was done in Wietze, Germany. However, Oil Creek near Titusville, Pennsylvania, is popularly considered the first modern well. This, because Americans understood to make quickly a business out of it. Now, a progressive, but small, underfunded agency program ESA SOLARIS is trying to open the path for "drilling the sky" for #green, baseline #solarenergy . Future will show, what Europe' industry learns from history.
We've been in Brussels these last two days spreading the word about #Solaris and #SBSP at the 16th European Space Conference where most of the leaders from agencies, institutions and industry in European space were gathered to discuss and debate on the theme "Fuelling the European Space Ambition, Empowering a Vision". We heard lots of discussions on stage about Europe's future ambitions and priorities in space and wishes for Europe to develop into a capable space power in the world. Unfortunately, there was no explicit mention about the topic of #EnergyFromSpace despite much declared interest in developing the space economy, closing capability gaps and utilising space for dealing with urgent societal challenges like the #climatecrisis and #energysecurity. Recent studies have repeatedly shown that #SpacebasedSolarPower could be a major driver of European space development in all the key capability areas that are considered as needed to level-up Europe to being a global space power. These include low-cost, high-cadence launch, high-power energy generation, very large-scale infrastructure development, robotic assembly/manufacturing, wireless power beaming, in-space transportation, servicing and recycling as well as 'workers in space' and the industrialisation of the Moon for the production and launch of Solar Power Satellite hardware. And all of this in service of addressing the very top concerns and challenges of European society for which solutions are being sought after now. The programme on Day 2 included a substantial element on the subject of Defence & Space, where high-level military officers spoke about the increasing need to evaluate the needs and prepare for defence operations in space. Interestingly, this topic could be relevant to SOLARIS and SBSP since massive GW-scale Solar Power Satellites could be classed as critical national infrastructure, potentially needing consideration of passive (or potentially active) defence capabilities. It certainly is a concern we have seen regularly expressed when people first hear about the concept. We've not been able to address this so far in our work at ESA, but studies will be needed to be undertaken by the appropriate stakeholders at some point sooner than later to understand better what could be done to address this concern. Overall, this event was a good networking opportunity to help continue our awareness raising efforts with decision-makers in Europe so that sooner than later, this important topic becomes included in such high-level strategy and policy discussions about the future of Space in Europe. #future #energy #innovation #technology
