| abstract | - An executive summary is
- I have faith in the ingenuity of private action, individual determination and free market innovation. I think it is important to have private enterprise and not blur into the realm of public-private partnerships. Public-private partnerships bring businesses desiring the protection offered by government's legalized force together with government agents that want the power that comes with economic control. Rather, the power of economics and the force of government must serve as a check and balance on each other; combining the two isn't American. Free enterprise is lost amid subsidies, incentives, tax-breaks, and insider privilege, and with it goes the notion that the customer is the final determiner of how resources are allocated in production. I individual members of our society do
- A digital democracy is a new form of governance. It is similar to the government set forth in the US constitution, embracing the core concepts that have made America the most prosperous country in existance. It embraces popular sovereignty and the philosophical views of liberty that underly the success of that government. It displaces the current power structure by eliminating the ability for the government to grant special favors to particular interest groups at the expense of the general public. Taxation is performed in the simplest way possible, and is dedicated to the essential functions of government, namely the enforcement of contract and the execution of criminal law. Real taxation should be in the three to five percent range, falling equally on all working citizens. This taxation may be a national sales tax, an income tax or a taxation through inflation of the currency. These three methods have their individual merits and dangers, but the key feature here is the role of taxation and the dedication to collecting these taxes in the simplest way possible. All full citizens are treated as equals under the law. A protected citizen, a minor or dependant indivudual, may become a full citizen at the point that they can demonstrate self sufficiency. Again, the manner in which this is demonstrated is unimportant to the conversation. Protected citizens are not entitled to all of the liberties associated with full citizenship because they are under the care of another, which must act as their proxy to the legal world. Children should be able to become full citizens at any point that they can demonstrate that they can shoulder the responsibility that liberty requires. Citizens are required to contribute to the betterment of society, but the direction of their contribution is determined solely by the individual. All individuals pay taxes to support their government... military, police and essential government functions. This contribution is directed. Beyond this taxation, contribution is undirected. A person shall be required to contribute 10% of all original income from $20k to $200k. Past $200k, an individual is required to contribute 20%. This contribution is collected and set into a trust, which gathers interest during the time that the funds are undistributed. All interest on contributions adds to the individuals contribution pool. An individual may allocate these funds in any manner they wish. For example, a person making $120k in a year must contribute $10k to society. They may choose to dedicate every dollar to the protection of the environment. They may wish to contribute to efforts to improve the technical infrastructure of the city in which they live. Just twenty years ago, this type of system was unmaintainable, but the widespread availability of instantaneous communication empowers citizens to implement this type of system. While imperfect, this system compares very favorably to the current system whereby 535 people, all seeking political advantage, are given the power to distribute the enormous pool of involuntary taxation. A trusted senator can achieve magnificent progress for mankind by developing a thoughtful portfolio of contribution for his or her constituents. If a person does not wish to take the time to distribute their own contribution, they can voluntarily adopt the portfolio of their state, their district, or their best friend. Effective leaders will be able to direct enormous resources, while ineffective demogogues will not inspire their constituents to follow. A person can likewise adopt the portfolio of a friend or a trusted expert, but the aspect of compulsion is effectively eliminated. Congress is still tasked with the job of creating and refining legislation, but that legislation must be subject to additional safeguards. First, any legislation must have an intended goal in two, five, and ten years. That goal is tied to the law at the time of passage. If that goal is not realized, then the law may be repealed by the people by a simple majority vote. New laws must be passed by a two thirds majority. This is because most of the laws that are beneficial to society have no problem with meeting this requirement. Destructive laws are most often passed by a narrow margin, giving the 51% power over the 49%. Laws which are passed must meet a standard of purity. The bill that proposes the law must contain no clauses that are disconnected with the intent of the bill. No riders are allowed... ever. The judiciary is modified by empowering juries to rule on the constitutionality of an individual law in an individual case. A brief survey of history tells us a few things about the effect of this rule. The intent of the judicial branch is not hindered by this rule. The judiciary is designed not only as a fact finding instrument, but as a judge of the law itself. The current system places discretion of constitutionality in the hands of a single judge, who is no more or less a member of society than a member of a jury. The judge is a government employee, and the tendencies of such an arrangement alter the incentives to administer justice, and being that men are driven by incentives, we must be wary. Judges are also just as prone to individual bias as the common man. Many judges use their position to 'crack down' on particular crimes. These judges, being human, have given us many reasons to question their effectiveness at limiting government power. Whereas a judge may find an interracial marriage to be illegal, it must fall on the citizens sitting in judgement to reconcile their judgment of facts with their judgement of the rights of man in general. Judges have on countless occasions sided with government in obvious suppression of human liberty, both in America and abroad. The executive is prohibited from enacting new laws under the guise of executive orders. War may not be declared by the president and congress may not delegate this function to the executive. War costs must be paid by the citizens at the time that the war is in effect. We can no longer allow a generation to go to war at the expense of the next generation, who had no say in the declaration. War must only be undertaken with the greatest consideration, and the pay-now provision requires the appropriate level of commitment to the goals that the war is intended to promote. Military spending will be limited to the total spending of the two greatest threats to our sovereignty. A country will always spend every dollar they are allowed to spend on the military. We must have an effective military, but that does not suggest that funding equals effectiveness or that each additional dollar we spend makes us that much safer. We are defended by major oceans on each coast, and on the north and south we are bordered by countries which pose no threat to American sovereignty. Therefore, our physical location makes us one of the most secure nations on the face of the planet. It is unreasonable to spend more on our military than our sovereignty requires. If China and Russia, the two largest militaries apart from America, spend $150B on their combined militaries, being in the midst of continental enemies, then to spend more than that amount is to declare the impotency of the American military. It wastes resources and impels the military to use the might that they have consolidated... sometimes for political, spurious and destructive purposes. We will lend our military might to the United Nations if that organization requests and the public gives its assent by a two-thirds majority. We cannot afford to be the police of the planet. Historically, we haven't done a great deal of good in this pursuit. While some may say that we have stabilized this our that country with our presence, the costs of such action are ignored. Once we take up the sword, we automatically assume that the intended outcome could not have been achieved in any other way. And by so choosing, we eliminate the possibility of discovering if our assumptions are correct. Military force must never be used for political gain, and yet it is most often used for this purpose. Legislators do not worry over the consequences of military engagement, but rather calculate whether a vote will better their prospects for re-election. By giving the decision to the public and placing the consequences of that decision directly upon them, we will enter engagements with more wisdom than we see in the current political climate. Popular sovereignty is made a centerpiece in a digital democracy. Moral prohibitions enacted in law are illigitimized, because they do not achieve the goals that they are intended to achieve. Whether the laws have to do with gay marriage, drug control or consentual sex among full citizens, these laws cause FAR more harm than the evils they are intended to combat. Those imprisoned for these offenses will be released. An individual is given complete liberty to engage in any action or enter into any contract that does not significantly abridge the equal liberty of another. All special privilages are revoked in a digital democracy. No corporate welfare. No personal welfare. No special privaleges for labor and no special protections for business. All laws unnecessarily impeding the freedom of liberated citizens to direct their own effort for their own purposes are revoked. There will be no duties or tariffs. There will be no price controls. There will be no arbitrary limitations to business. There will be no minimum wage or maximum number of hours worked. No subsidies. No corporate bailouts. Current economic research indicates that under most circumstances, immigration is a net positive for a country and its economy. We will increase our immigration quota and auction off citizenship to the highest bidders. This ensures that those intending to integrate with our society begin on a positive note. The money collected from these auctions is placed in the general contribution pool. The general contribution pool is allocated to programs in exactly the same proportions as individual citizens allocate their personal contribution. The fee for citizenship, therefore, is not a fund that will enrich any particular group or individual, but rather a token of good faith from those immigrating that enriches the society that they are preparing to join. America will be, hands down, the best place for a responsible individual to reside. We may require the citizenship fee up front or allow an immigrant to pay the citizenship fee over the course of five or ten years. Americans can also decide to help pay this fee for their friends abroad, for particular groups, or for any person or reason that their concience dictates. The general contribution pool, mentioned above, will also be funded by punitive damages assessed by the court. Personal damages will remain unaffected, but when the court decides that a further penalty must be assessed on a corporation or individual, that wealth must not be allowed to fall arbitrarily into the hands of the plaintiff or counsel, for its existence is not intended to reward the litigious, but to provide a deterrant to the company or individual that violated the law. An indivual assessment against a telecommunications firm may be pooled into the general contribution fund or earmarked for a portion of that fund that is more appropriate to emeliorate the damages caused by the telecommunications firm in question. In this example, ten million dollars may be assessed against the company and earmarked for programs that provide auditing for businesses in general or auditing for the telecommunications industry in particular. The funds will be paid out to organizations which the public have selected for their personal contributions in exactly the same proportions. Crimes that betray the public trust for personal gain will carry stiff penalties, dictated by the jury rather than a judge, by virtue of the fact that the jury also represents the victims of the criminality. The liberty fund will be established. This is a collection of $20 from each full citizen, dedicated to the rewarding of those citizens who serve their country in exceptional ways. With 150 million participants in this fund, the collection will amount to three billion dollars which will be distributed to those citizens that the public wishes to reward for their excellence, courage, and commitment. This is similar to the Nobel prize, but it is rewarded by the public at large, rather than by a collection of the elite. Prizes from one to twenty million dollars will be distributed as awards to recognize the contributions of those who we wish to acknowledge. This is important. While the individual numbers and manner of voting can be modified, this program will highlight the best in us. I can scarcely imagine a more effective system for keeping people honest than to offer a ten million dollar reward to anyone who can pinpoint corruption and take steps to remedy it. Almost every form of corruption requires two parties to collude. If each party knows that the upsides of this collusion is less than ten million dollars, then they will distrust any collusion, fearing that the other party may cash in on the reward for uncoverring the foul deeds. For those who contribute in other ways, other awards will be offerred. The liberty prize for excellence in physics, for excellence in education. A liberty prize for envitonmental science or pharmaceutical research, going not to the companies involved, but to the indivuduals responsible for the innovations. A liberty prize for the arts, a prize for the best teachers and best politicians. The ways we can leverage this type of program are practically limitless. It is a merit based lottery, where society rewards those who reward society. The preservation of the environment will finally be fundamentally integrated into the economic system. It is only through the economic system that our environmental concerns may be appropriately addressed. A very simple mechanism can be leveraged to bring our needs as consumers into balance with the environment that our consumption affects. With any product or service that we consume, we will pay an offsetting fee to mitigate the damage that our consumption produces. This fee must be born by the consumer for a couple reasons. Cap and trade is moderately effective, but suffers from many of the weaknesses that plague other government programs. We succeed in collecting money and reducing pollution, but the amounts and types of pollution that we mitigate become a political decision. These must be economic decisions, because effective decisions can only be made in an economic framework. As citizens, we select a pollutant we wish to reduce. We then select how much we are willing to pay, on average, to reduce this pollutant. We produce, on average, six tonnes of CO2 per person in America. Let's say we are willing to spend an average of $120 per year to reduce this number. This gives us $1 per hundred pounds of CO2. If we buy a pair of shoes that produces 10 pounds of CO2 during its manufacture, then we pay ten cents extra for that pair of shoes. That ten cents is similar to the normal contribution that each citizen pays. If a factory in China produces a pair of shoes for less, but releases 300 pounds of CO2 during it's manufacture, then we effectively pay $3 more for that pair of shoes. This puts economic pressure on companies to reduce their pollution to make their products more attractive to consumers. Even if the shoes from China are still cheaper than a comparable pair of shoes from California, a conciencious consumer may still buy the more expensive pair in order to help the environment. The key is to communicate the damage done by every product that we consume. The environmental charge becomes a usage charge for damaging the environment. The higher we make the charge per pound of CO2, the more pressure we place on manufacturers to reduce that pollution. You will note that this system affects foreign companies and domestic companies alike. It forces us to take note of the total effect of our consumption, and in tandem, gives us a real way to emeliorate the damage we have caused. Over time, the price per pound of CO2 that we charge will approach the actual cost of sequestering that CO2 back into solid form. It gives an economic advantage to clean energy sources if and only if those alternatively sources are actually cleaner when viewed holistically. The cleaner the energy, the greater the economic advantage. Usage chages will be assessed for all services that were previously supplied by government. For example, road maintenance will be paid for by those who gain advantage from use of those roads. The fee may be assessed through charges on gasoline or by digitally tracking road usage on an individual usage basis. You use it, you pay for it. No exceptions. Education will not be legally mandated. However, the dedication of Americans to education will insure that education does get supplied to those who seek it. While the legal framework will not provide for education, the availability of broadband internet access and the free market will supply education which is far superior to that which we currently tolerate. Education is critically important to an individual to give them options in life. It can not, however, be said that the education of every individual is essential to the smooth operation of a nation. Those who wish to become educated will be provided with the tools to achieve this goal, as well as the increased rewards that education provides that individual. It is perhaps our greatest expression of hubris to assume that a free individual will not educate himself or herself when the benefits of that education are clearly communicated and the tools to achieve that education are provided. It is for us, the concerned public, to provide the tools, but neither the incentives nor the curriculum, which must be embraced by the individual. We are not a nation that ever sought to indoctrinate our young, but through our complacency and pride, that is exactly what we have obtained. We spend more money per pupil than any other nation, and yet we rank at the bottom of all OECD countries in educational outcome. If education is our goal, then an understanding of the purpose of education must be cemented in our minds. Education satisfies the curiosity of an individual and prepares that individual to contribute in our dynamic economy. Public education fails because it does not leverage the natural curiosity of children, and at the same time, it steals from them the time they would naturally devote to such pursuits. It does not prepare students for employment because in a rapidly evolving economy, there is no single set curriculum that can prepare a child for such a task. Compound this with the damage the the prohibition of apprenticeship causes, and we cripple the potential of our next generation to become productive members of society. We set ourselves firmly against child labor and simoltaneously require them to go to work for 9 months out of every year in their childhood. Our children would be better served by allowing them to apprentice with an electrician or a computer programmer if that is the path that their passions drive them to. Two years apprenticed to any trade is far more valuable to a child than any number of arbitrary courses mandated by the government. Should a free individual decline the opportunity to educate themselves, then we must allow them that right. There is room in a robust economy for any level of skill that the population finds itself in possession of. Even so, there is no indication that free people will decline this educational opportunity if given the chance. Students rebel, rather, against an authoritarian hierarchy that tries to cram facts down their throats only to stack rank them against one another in a maniacal game that many of them would not play if given the chance to decide. Students see that primary benefit they derive from education is a sheet of paper that the government has endowed with a superficial and false level of significance in this evolving world. If a student does not view education as a personal benefit, they will derive no good from it. If they see education as a benefit, then they should not be required to learn what others deem appropriate for them. Public education leads to far more harm than it can ever hope to claim as benefits over personal freedom. Abolishing public schools is NOT abolishing education, but rather refining it better serve the goals of education. Freedom in education, as in other areas, is the most promising way we have found to meet this challenge. Health care is not defined by government. Health care organizations must compete for customers on the same grounds that any consumer service must compete. The AMA can no longer limit the number of students admitted to medical school, and it can no longer engage in implicit profit sharing agreements with other areas of health care. The government can no longer dictate what medicines are legal or illegal, but must rather place the responsibility in the hands of the individual consumer. Consumers are not mindless drones, and deserve to be treated with respect. These are not the 1900's, where information was scarce and only trained professionals had access to the information relavent to making a medical decision. There are several organizations that perform the function of the FDA without any ability to compel a single citizen. Arm the people with knowledge, and they have everything they need to make their own informed medical decisions. To protect one person from themself at the expense of the liberty of nine others who are responsible for their actions is to harm the many for the advantage of the irresponsible few. No requirements must be placed on medical care by the government, other than those fundamental to securing freedom of contract and freedom from fraud. A consumer must be given the choice of going to a doctor with twelve years of medical training, paying a premium for this level of expertise, or to obtain service from a general practicioner or nurse, who they may decide posesses sufficient knowledge to meet their needs for a correspondingly lower cost. No tax incentives will be given to companies to provide health care for their employees, because individuals must have affordable health care that does not tie them to any particular employer. Health care costs only began to skyrocket when the individual consumers were sidelined by collectivist implementations of health insurance. For those who wish to go only to "board certified" doctors, they are free to do so. If others choose a different level of health care, either from choice or need, then they must be able to secure those service in a free market, as cheaply and efficiently as possible. Consumers can choose to obtain services only from doctors whose insurance indemnify them against error. Insurance companies have a direct financial motivation to make sure that those they insure are safe. Let them pay the costs associated with researching an individual doctor's medical history, rather than leaving such decisions to the political process.
- !EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Consistent with the US National Security Strategy, energy and environmental security are not just problems for America, they are critical challenges for the entire world. Expanding human populations and declining natural resources are potential sources of local and strategic conflict in the 21st Century, and many see energy scarcity as the foremost threat to national security. Conflict prevention is of particular interest to security-providing institutions such as the U.S. Department of Defense which has elevated energy and environmental security as priority issues with a mandate to proactively find and create solutions that ensure U.S. and partner strategic security is preserved. The magnitude of the looming energy and environmental problems is significant enough to warrant consideration of all options, to include revisiting a concept called Space Based Solar Power (SBSP) first invented in the United States almost 40 years ago. The basic idea is very straightforward: place very large solar arrays into continuously and intensely sunlit Earth orbit (1,366 watts/m2) , collect gigawatts of electrical energy, electromagnetically beam it to Earth, and receive it on the surface for use either as baseload power via direct connection to the existing electrical grid, conversion into manufactured synthetic hydrocarbon fuels, or as low-intensity broadcast power beamed directly to consumers. A single kilometer-wide band of geosynchronous earth orbit experiences enough solar flux in one year to nearly equal the amount of energy contained within all known recoverable conventional oil reserves on Earth today. This amount of energy indicates that there is enormous potential for energy security, economic development, improved environmental stewardship, advancement of general space faring, and overall national security for those nations who construct and possess a SBSP capability. NASA and DOE have collectively spent $80M over the last three decades in sporadic efforts studying this concept (by comparison, the U.S. Government has spent approximately $21B over the last 50 years continuously pursuing nuclear fusion). The first major effort occurred in the 1970’s where scientific feasibility of the concept was established and a reference 5 GW design was proposed. Unfortunately 1970’s architecture and technology levels could not support an economic case for development relative to other lower-cost energy alternatives on the market. In 1995-1997 NASA initiated a “Fresh Look” Study to re-examine the concept relative to modern technological capabilities. The report (validated by the National Research Council) indicated that technology vectors to satisfy SBSP development were converging quickly and provided recommended development focus areas, but for various reasons that again included the relatively lower cost of other energies, policy makers elected not to pursue a development effort. The post-9/11 2001 September 11 situation has changed that calculus considerably. Oil prices have jumped from $15/barrel to now $80/barrel in less than a decade. In addition to the emergence of global concerns over climate change, American and allied energy source security is now under threat from actors that seek to destabilize or control global energy markets as well as increased energy demand competition by emerging global economies. Our National Security Strategy recognizes that many nations are too dependent on foreign oil, often imported from unstable portions of the world, and seeks to remedy the problem by accelerating the deployment of clean technologies to enhance energy security, reduce poverty, and reduce pollution in a way that will ignite an era of global growth through free markets and free trade. Senior U.S. leaders need solutions with strategic impact that can be delivered in a relevant period of time. In March 2007 2007 March, the National Security Space Office (NSSO) Advanced Concepts Office (“Dreamworks”) presented this idea to the agency director. Recognizing the potential for this concept to influence not only energy, but also space, economic, environmental, and national security, the Director instructed the Advanced Concepts Office to quickly collect as much information as possible on the feasibility of this concept. Without the time or funds to contract for a traditional architecture study, Dreamworks turned to an innovative solution: the creation on April 21. 2007 2007 April 21, of an open source, internet-based, interactive collaboration forum aimed at gathering the world’s SBSP experts into one particular cyberspace. Discussion grew immediately and exponentially, such that there are now 170 active contributors as of the release of this report - this study approach was an unequivocal success and should serve as a model for DoD when considering other study topics. Study leaders organized discussions into five groups: 1) a common plenary session, 2) science & technology, 3) law & policy, 4) infrastructure and logistics, and 5) the business case, and challenged the group to answer one fundamental question: //Can the United States and partners enable the development and deployment of a space-based solar power system within the first half of the 21st Century such that if constructed could provide affordable, clean, safe, reliable, sustainable, and expandable energy for its consumers?// Discussion results were summarized and presented at a two-day conference in Colorado on 6-7 September 2007 September 7 graciously hosted by the U.S. Air Force Academy Eisenhower Center for Space and Defense Studies. Over the course of the study several overarching themes emerged:
* The SBSP Study Group concluded that space-based solar power does present a strategic opportunity that could significantly advance US and partner security, capability, and freedom of action and merits significant further attention on the part of both the US Government and the private sector.
* The SBSP Study Group concluded that while significant technical challenges remain, Space-Based Solar Power is more technically executable than ever before and current technological vectors promise to further improve its viability. A government-led proof-of-concept demonstration could serve to catalyze commercial sector development.
* The SBSP Study Group concluded that SBSP requires a coordinated national program with high-level leadership and resourcing commensurate with its promise, but at least on the level of fusion energy research or International Space Station construction and operations.
* The SBSP Study Group concluded that should the U.S. begin a coordinated national program to develop SBSP, it should expect to find that broad interest in SBSP exists outside of the US Government, ranging from aerospace and energy industries; to foreign governments such as Japan, the EU, Canada, India, China, Russia, and others; to many individual citizens who are increasingly concerned about the preservation of energy security and environmental quality. While the best chances for development are likely to occur with US Government support, it is entirely possible that SBSP development may be independently pursued elsewhere without U.S. leadership.
* Certain key questions about Space-Based Solar Power were not answerable with adequate precision within the time and resource limitations of this interim study, and form the agenda for future action (a complete description of these questions can be found in Appendix A – Space Based Solar Power Design Considerations and Tradeoffs). The fundamental tasks/questions are:
* Identification of clear targets for economic viability in markets of interest
* Identification of technical development goals and a roadmap for retiring risk
* Selection of the best design trades
* Full design and deployment of a meaningful demonstrator The study group determined that four overarching recommendations were most significant:
* Recommendation #1: The study group recommends that the U.S. Government should organize effectively to allow for the development of SBSP and conclude analyses to resolve remaining unknowns
* Recommendation #2: The study group recommends that the U.S. Government should retire a major portion of the technical risk for business development
* Recommendation #3: The study group recommends that the U.S. Government should create a facilitating policy, regulatory, and legal environment for the development of SBSP
* Recommendation #4: The study group recommends that the U.S. Government should become an early demonstrator/adopter/customer of SBSP and incentivize its development Several major challenges will need to be overcome to make SBSP a reality, including the creation of low-cost space access and a supporting infrastructure system on Earth and in space. Solving these space access and operations challenges for SBSP will in turn also open space for a host of other activities that include space tourism, manufacturing, lunar or asteroid resource utilization, and eventually settlement to extend the human race. Because DoD would not want to own SBSP satellites, but rather just purchase the delivered energy as it currently does via traditional terrestrial utilities, a repeated review finding is that the commercial sector will need Government to accomplish three major tasks to catalyze SBSP development. The first is to retire a major portion of the early technical risks. This can be accomplished via an incremental research and development program that culminates with a space-borne proof-of-concept demonstration in the next decade. A spiral development proposal to field a 10 MW continuous pilot plant en route to gigawatts-class systems is included in Appendix B. The second challenge is to facilitate the policy, regulatory, legal, and organizational instruments that will be necessary to create the partnerships and relationships (commercial-commercial, government-commercial, and government-government) needed for this concept to succeed. The final Government contribution is to become a direct early adopter and to incentivize other early adopters much as is accomplished on a regular basis with other renewable energy systems coming on-line today. For the DoD specifically, beamed energy from space in quantities greater than 5 MWe has the potential to be a disruptive game changer on the battlefield. SBSP and its enabling wireless power transmission technology could facilitate extremely flexible “energy on demand” for combat units and installations across an entire theater, while significantly reducing dependence on vulnerable over-land fuel deliveries. SBSP could also enable entirely new force structures and capabilities such as ultra long-endurance airborne or terrestrial surveillance or combat systems to include the individual soldier himself. More routinely, SBSP could provide the ability to deliver rapid and sustainable humanitarian energy to a disaster area or to a local population undergoing nation-building activities. SBSP could also facilitate base “islanding” such that each installation has the ability to operate independent of vulnerable ground-based energy delivery infrastructures. In addition to helping American and allied defense establishments remain relevant over the entire 21st Century through more secure supply lines, perhaps the greatest military benefit of SBSP is to lessen the chances of conflict due to energy scarcity by providing access to a strategically secure energy supply. Despite this early interim review success, there are still many more questions that must be answered before a full-scale commercial development decision can be made. It is proposed that in the spirit of the original collaborative SBSP Study Group charter, that this interim report becomes a living document to //collect, summarize, and recommend on the evolution of SBSP//. The positive indicators observed to surround SBSP by this review team suggest that it would be in the US Government’s and the nation’s interest to sponsor an immediate proof-of-concept demonstration project and a formally funded, follow-on architecture study conducted in full collaboration with industry and willing international partners. The purpose of a follow-on study will be to definitively rather than speculatively answer the question of whether all of the barriers to SBSP development can be retired within the next four decades and to create an actionable business case and construction effort roadmap that will lead to the installation of utility-grade SBSP electric power plants. Considering the development timescales that are involved, and the exponential growth of population and resource pressures within that same strategic period, it is imperative that this work for “drilling up” vs. drilling down for energy security begins immediately.
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