Japan eyes solar station in space (AFP)

Way to go japs, good job

I'm not sure they have enough tinfoil.

if they have the capabilatys,go for it!4dh421,beats paying the r**h*** $50+per barrel for oil to produce energy

This question was raised at the 1979 World Administrative Radio Conference WARC79 held by the ITU in Geneva. I was the chairman of the committee that studied the question. It was unanimously rejected. Later in the Plenary of the conference it was also unanimously rejected. The reason, is that bringing in collossal amounts of energy from space in addition to what is naturally being pumped in will disturb the balance of the energy of Earth, which will help more quickly and therefore disastorously in the now on-going process of increasing the temperature of Earth.
So I pray the government of Japan not to indulge in this activity and to look for the United Nations resolution on this in the documents of the ITU WARC79
Prof. Dr. Omar Shabsigh

I think if they can pull it off and not damage anything than do it.

maybe we need to develop some sort of laser or microwave machine to collect solar energy and beam it , as a humanitarian act, to the middle east. OOPS we cooked a few thousand. well we were trying to do a good thing... HONEST!!!

I don't know about anybody else, but isn't this the sort of thing NASA should be doing? Hopefully this will shame NASA into doing something useful, instead of attacking the moon at taxpayer's expense.

When they say, "eight Yen per killowatt hour", is that the true cost including all the R & D and the cost of launching all that hardware into space? I suspect they will hide all those extra costs in the form of government subsidies so that their project appears to be competitive with existing technologies.

Seems like it would be pretty easy to destroy this part of a nations infrastructure in a time of conflict. I don't see the advantage over land based systems. Initial costs would be orders of magnitude greater than land based systems. Solar energy sounds swell, but it is in no way an economic solution.

Its a true shame that we have to become excited for someone else's space program.

Command ATH

at least some one is on the ball..........

that's great, i will be alive by that date and hopefully I'll see the program launch, but that birds issue should be resolved!!

I use a magnifying glass to heat my fireplace. On cloudy day, I just use wood. Its a marvel how much energy can fit in a LASER beam!

Question: Why hasn't Amercia done this? We have the technolgy and the people to do it, it would be a stimulus that pays back AFTER they come out of office it's not politically important enough to protect our children's future. The problem is, the money in energy owns the politicos, on both sides. Can we say, "We've been sold out!"?

hope every think possible.

If that's what they plan to do, I beleive they will find a way to get it done ~ Lord Willing

The Japanese can pull it off if anybody can. I don't visualize that adventure being pursued here in the US considering all the oily footprints in the halls of Congress.

Yeah... sure.
If that's what the slant eyes say.

Am i missing something here,,They want to beam (microwave) several hundred thousand wats of energy back to earth and turn it into electricity,,How many wats is the microwave in your kitchen ? and how do they propose getting past the heating effect in our atmosphere weather its a laser or microwave ,, i think its a bad idea and i think its a terrible weapon to put in space,,Yes I said weapon,, Stay on earth and work out the small problems of connecting several hundred thousand stations across the equator and distributing the power from there first

ya right this has nothing to do with it

Fantastic!!!!

"We" haven't done this because we're p*ssing billions of dollars away in Iraq and where-ever. Will they ever pay us back ? H*ll no !

Great idea...but, wouldn't it be much cheaper to use the core of the earth to produce power?

We already have that energy right here.

With holes drilled in the earth and water pumped down them, being turned into steam, which is then used to drive generators. Wouldn't that be cheaper? And we already have the source here.

But what the hell do I know. Plus the power producing companies wouldn't be able to monopolize it quite as easily.

Wow, I remember when America would do things like that. You know go to the moon because it's there. Now if it does not turn a profit financially, it is not even considered.

those microwave transmissions from space will cause aircraft to crash,,pacemakers will go crazy ,some dog on 5th and elm gets fried when an errant wave gets magnified in strength,
and the lasers getting hit by space debris start frying people sitting by their satelite antennas

They better not,. Al Gore will say it's doing something to our planet.......
unless they pay him carbon credits,then it will be OK
Beats the heck out of what we are doing in our country (Pushing for Socialism) The oldest waste of time on the planet.

I totally saw this anime. It was great!

LOL it's called a Low Orbit Ion Canon

If America did this, everyone would be saying it was for WAR!!!

It's not that hard to turn an instrument of peace into one of war. I can imagine it already. Our soldiers calling in laser strikes.

Sorry, but there are times where "fantasy" should be called.... "fantasy". The intentions are good but the practical implementation is dubious. If you want cheap energy, invest 1/10th of the cost towards the next generation of nuclear power. That might actually have a chance of working.

I love all the Hollywood drama I'm reading on here about "space weapons", and "dogs getting fried".
here are several reasons why your drama is LAME & scientifically baseless:

1)You are all currently bathed in microwave emissions of all kinds, sent by the technology that surrounds you, and yet you aren;t effected by it.

2) When emitting energy from a space-based transmitter to earth, the choice of frequencies would fall within a non-ionizing and thus non-biologically damaging frequency range, meaning that most radio frequencies would be feasible.

3) the collector array on the ground would be huge, from 1-5 miles in diameter, allowing the beam energy to be dispersed across it. This means birds, animals & humans wouldn't be injured passing thru it.

4) an immense ammount of energy could be beamed to earth safely, 24/7/365, rain or shine, with an %85 efficiency. Your car's engine is about %15-20 efficient, by way of comparison.