
Brief Review of our Previous Course - although it isn't necessary to do this course: 'The Future of Energy - The Probable Future of Energy' it is a valuable asset to understanding why SBSP is one potential solution that we should seriously consider. Here we look at some of its key findings e.g. future oil crisis, dependency on fossil fuel, the weakness of terrestrial renewable energy systems etc..
The Terrestrial Solutions - Here we note again from our previous course: 'The Future of Energy' the three major solutions to the future's energy crisis. We also note the factors that affect these solutions including Net Energy, population growth, and how consumption rates are important to understand as the major factor influencing demand. This is where we discuss the 'forever solution' where EROIE no longer really matters.
Solutions cont.d - Here we look at what is the ideal solution to the energy crisis?
Space Based Solar Power - Here we look at arguments FOR Space based Solar Power being on the table as a potential solution for now and long into the future as we expand into the solar system and beyond.
Hurdles & Challenges in Brief - a review of what SBSP must develop in terms of technology
Looking Forward - what we will cover in our next two lectures
History of Space Solar Power - The early history of Space based Solar Power from its fictional beginnings to the first proper designer: Peter Glaser.
History of Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) - This lecture covers the invention of technology used to transmit mm waves back to Earth.
Achieving Orbit - how we went from the German V2 to Spaceplanes and everything in between. In this concise summary we'll look at the development of the rockets and re-useable spacecraft, vital for SBSP to become a reality.
History of Space based Solar Photovoltaics
Solar Satellites to Stagnation - how Space Solar Power was part of the agenda and why it failed to materialise earlier in history.
Rebirth - How SBSP got going again. The use of robots.
Summary of all of the above.
Introduction: Design & Applications Options - covering the solar energy available to ground vs space solar PV. We also discuss the Earth's atmosphere in terms of transparency.
Orbit & Orientation - these are fundamentals to Space Based Solar Power. LEO, MEO and GEO and how one angles the panels to the sun as they orbit changes the amount of energy being received.
Methods of obtaining Orbit - Rockets and reusable rockets and space planes (some in development). This goes to the very heart of the costs of getting payloads into orbit to make SSP a reality. Later on we'll look at rockets in more detail in our FREE rocket course presentation. This is a more in-depth powerpoint so we'd advise you not to skip forward as of yet.
PV and Solar Dynamic - There are two types of designs of Space Based Solar Power - we tell you about how both work.
Types of Power Transfer
US Navy Model Experiment 2020
The Mathematics of Space Solar Power - This is important to the next section, but is not mandatory. If you don't like maths then maybe have a look at the presentation on its own and consider the conclusions.
Surface based Receivers - types used, size and military applications
Main options for applications. This is also covered in more detail later in this course.
Space based Power Designs - the major current designs from USA, UK and China
Climate Change - Here we look at why Lithium and cobalt two key components of the advocates of the Renewable Energy Economy and Hydrogen fuel cells, could be problem - and why Space Solar Power may help to get around these issues providing a more sustainable solution.
Optional Lesson - 2000 years from Now - a creative look into the deepest future of what might happen after we have developed orbital space solar power
Cost - the arguments 'for' and 'against' Space Based Solar Power' based on cost
Levelised Cost Analysis - here we look at applying LCOE to SSP using Professor Sergio Pellegrino's example
Technical Challenges - Heat loss, LEO - the Armada Problem - and Radio Interference
Dispersed Laser Weapon - what it is and why it can be made not to work by design
Space Debris - The biggest problem for SSP at LEO or MEO to a lesser extent is debris in orbit
Energy Return on Investment - This is a method we outlined in our previous course. We will give you an overview here as it applies to SSP
Rocket Physics - The key to SSP's development, the cost of getting into space is crucial. Understanding the means to do this is critical. This lecture comes with a FREE rocket course ppt and calculation looking at how we can achieve GEO orbits for less velocity.
Primary & Secondary Markets - a quick definition, and a look at markets and demand.
Using SSP to make Synthetic fuels rather than electricity
Pacific Islands - Why Pacific Islands are an ideal market for SSP
Desalination - The cost of desalinating water is massive. Instead of using ground based energy we could use Space Solar Power creating water on demand where it is required
Electric Propulsion - SSP might create a demand for electric propulsion to move payloads from LEO into GEO
Spaceplanes - from the SR71 Blackbird to Skylon
AI and Robots - This discusses the types of AI that is required
Solar Sails - the birth of solar system and interstellar transport
Space Elevators - how Space elevators might help to reduce costs
Airships - Here we discuss two kinds of futuristic airships - one for transport - the other for beaming energy to earth
Weather Forecasting Drones - The use of high altitude aircraft drones that fly all day and all night powered by SSP is discussed here. Cheaper than satellites these craft might one day evolve into small passenger aircraft
Earth Defence System - SSP is one possibility in creating a defensive system for planet earth against rogues asteroids, and visible comets. (However, it might not be able to stop black comets.)
The First Roadmap - a Roadmap is a strategic plan for engineers and policy makers to use to develop new technology.
Flaw in the 1980s Plan
China and the West - Who is leading to become the Saudi Arabia of Space Solar Power? We have also included the most recent British study on SSP which concludes it is viable!
Space Defence System Roadmap
How can the World finance SBSP? Below is an example of prize based financing. Write down the pros and cons of using it. We won't give you any answers as financing isn't science, so there are probably no really wrong answers if you are logically assessing it.
Rather than giving you a longwinded summary we thought you'd be far better doing an exercise. We've added a download of John C Mankins famous book on the Case for SSP. You might enjoy reading this book over the next few weeks. However, in order to do this task, think back over the course, look up in this book things you consider 'objectives for SSP' and apply it to an overall design that can turn Earth resources e.g. water into liquid fuels utilising SSP. Create a roadmap based around this idea.
We've also added a special link to the 1st International Workshop on Space Solar Power for Net Zero. These contain a number of videos that will be of interest to you we hope now you have gone through our course.
Final Lesson - Use the skills you have learned from this course. We've also included some links to help consolidate some of your learning. This includes a Powerpoint presentation.
WELCOME TO THE FUTURE OF ENERGY - A FUTURE IN SPACE
Why and who should do this course?
We want to encourage people to get into STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths - even if it isn't your background. This course is designed for non-science as well as those who enjoy scientific subjects. Space Solar Power is very likely to be the future, because the Chinese know that they need a grand solution to their heavily coal polluting energy economy. If you are an investor, CEO, businessman or woman, journalist, or simply have an interest in new ideas that are mind blowing, this is the course for you.
What is Space Solar Power?
Space based Solar Power (SBSP) or Space Solar Power (SSP) is a technology to harvest 24 hours a day, energy from outside the atmosphere of the Earth and beam it safely to Earth. This would, its proponents argue, lessen, or even replace the need for fossil fuels or terrestrial renewable energy. This has knock on effects for social and economic justice because it lowers the need to extract harmful chemicals to make batteries and other technologies if the SSP is built to make hydrogen based liquid fuels. Space Based Solar Power would also change the way energy is distributed. If energy is required in a disaster zone, then mobile receiving systems could be deployed rapidly. The scale of SSP is both large and small, with minimum impact on the Earth's environment.
Space Solar power also has its detractors, with many people failing to understand that comparative approaches are alright if one understands that one has to try to compare like with like. Even proponents often make erroneous comparisons such as SSP with solar power in North African deserts or Southern Spain. These comparisons often do injustice to SSP which is a technology that will have far reaching effects.
Whomever controls SSP will become what Saudi Arabia is to the world of oil supplies. We hope though the SSP will be a commodity owned by the world for the world, in a truly egalitarian way. Therefore, this course is so much more than a technology course. It's a course that will touch upon the economics of energy and wider long-lasting impacts on a range of new technologies and markets yet to be created. It is a course about a vision that has been the lifelong work of John C Mankins and his predecessor, Peter Glazer, NASA scientists to whom we owe so much.
Is this course suitable for you?
Anyone can do this course because we have created to be flexible. Some of you who do not like mathematics can skip these sections entirely and still gain a huge understanding of Space Solar Power. If you enjoy maths, then we have enough of that to satisfy your needs. If you want to be a pioneer of robotics, space flight, economics, futuristic renewable energy, and solve climate change, then this is the course you need to do. SSP is the cutting edge of the future, and ignorance of it will leave you behind in a rapidly changing world. The value of this course to your career is that you will know about a technology that is the future.
What are you interested in?
If you have interests in entrepreneurial projects of the future, economics, Sustainable architecture, Climate Change, Corporate Investment Responsibility, Leadership, Business Strategy, Business Analysis, banking, project management, journalism, science, robotics, aircraft, rockets, markets for space technology, the Great Reset, Greening our economy, space, moon bases or you like Star Trek, this is a course that you will enjoy!
What will you learn?
This course will recap some of the Future of Energy course you may have already completed. If you haven't completed it, we highly recommend it as it will assist your learning experience but it is not a pre-requisite. We have sold that course in various forms to over 20,000 customers on and offline, and it is our best seller here on Udemy. However, it should be noted that this course will not dwell too much on that course. We'll briefly recap its main points and move rapidly on to teach you about Space based Solar Power.
Energy from Outer Space - what you'll learn
By the end of this course, you will have a knowledge of: -
Space based Solar Power
How Space Solar Power works
What are its major advantages?
What are its major drawbacks?
Which nations are developing it and why?
An idea of what it costs to get into orbit
Rockets, how they work, with some mathematics if you want to go into detail
Orbital Mechanics and how this is relevant to SSP
Wider future market opportunities, including direct and indirect markets both new and to be developed
Why Space Based Solar Power will be an investment in the future
Space Based Solar Power weapons - are they feasible? Can we make them safe?
A wider knowledge of the economics of energy and how SSP can change it
What we don't teach you includes impacts on Net Zero targets because such ideas are for you to figure out. We won't dwell much on carbon savings as CO2 isn't the only greenhouse gas, and in any case it is the general policy of 'The Future of Energy College' not to dabble in Climate Change, as it seems to be a subject fraught with accounting difficulties. We will however point you to studies and workshops that look into this matter in more detail and leave it up to you to make your own conclusions. The European Space Agency for example have hosted a workshop which we have provided on this course which is all about the plan to move to Net Zero utilising Space based Solar Power.
Opening doors
In the modern world knowledge is not always power, otherwise we'd have much better governments than the semi-educated, mostly unscientific bankers puppets we have right now. However, knowledge is the ability to gain paid employment, and the difference between one candidate and another is not always only their schooling, college or university degree. What matters is often knowledge you have gained yourself. That's our mission: to give independent knowledge to our students. Most universities are sadly connected to the oil industry and thus are compromised by these connections. We here at the Future of Energy College are proud to say we have no such connections. We tell you the science ,maths and history in the most objective way possible. We consulted a wide range of scientists to create this course:-
Consultants involved in our Project to bring SSP into Public debate
Consultants who we have approached to do this course and our film in co-operation with Perimetr Films:-
Professor Naoki Shinohara, Kyoto University - expert on SSP and Wireless Power Transfer
Paul Jaffe, US Naval Laboratory - interview on Space Solar Power
John C Mankins, ex-NASA - lectures, talks and books on SSP Alpha - the godfather of SSP
Michael Loweth, Oxford Space Systems, UK - expert of foldable technology
Melissa Thorpe, Director of Spaceport Cornwall, UK
Pre-tested by students
To test this course, it's creator has presented it to a group of 1000 live students to make sure it answered all their questions. Parts of the FREE Rocket course have been removed - particularly parts on aerodynamics - which were found to be difficult and time consuming, and in any case, these were only part of the additional FREE rocket course (which is a separate Presentation). This means you have a course that will suit all needs, without compromising on the content. The rocket course has been added as a ppt presentation that is not mandatory.
Why this course?
This is the only course of its kind online on Udemy in the world at present. It comes to you at a low price because we want to spread the word about Space Based Solar Power. We have also teamed up with Perimetr Films to produce a documentary film called "Valery Danko Discovers Energy from Space". This film will be produced in 2022. It will provide you with special extra information from exclusive interviews with Professor Shinohara of Kyoto University and Paul Jaffe of the US Naval Research Laboratory in the USA.
This course builds upon the previous course: the Future of Energy. It tackled issues such as Energy Return on Investment of Energy, Exponential loss of resources, and what kind of energy economy would be the most suitable for the future. However, you do not have to do that course to complete this one, though it might help you to understand some of the concepts. This course is packed with information and short lectures. These are designed to give you bit size chunks of information, so that you can quickly assimilate the material.
There are links taking you to the latest Net Zero workshops by the European Space Agency involving scientists from all over the world including NASA and the Chinese Space Agency. This course also has graphics and data from some of the latest designer of SSP including CASSIOPEAI from the UK and the UK government assessment on the viability of SSP for the UK.
FREE Rocket & Orbital Mechanics Course
John Clarkson who wrote this course has also included a FREE rocket and orbital mechanics course included to provide you with extra value. This allows you to work out the velocities required to get to higher orbits. This is not mandatory but a special extra to help you understand how rockets and their costs are affected by how missions are planned to place SSP in their chosen orbits.
Skills you will Develop
The skills you will pick up on this course will be as follows: -
Unprecedented knowledge of a unique potential energy technology of the future
Critical analysis of projects and plans
The ability to see beyond what looks economically impossible at present.
Course Structure
The course is divided into lectures as follows: -
Lecture 1 – An Introduction to Energy from Outer Space
Lecture 2 – A brief history of Space based energy systems
Lecture 3 – What are the options?
Lecture 4 – Challenges – a look at the hurdles that such technology must overcome
Lecture 5 – Market Opportunities
Lecture 6 – Roadmaps – a plan for the future
Lecture 7 – Conclusion - an exercise to help you put your knowledge together and inspire you
At each stage you will be given questions to answer to enhance your learning experience and cement your knowledge.
At the end of the course, you can listen to a 2-day workshop hosted by the European Space Agency. This is also additional extras to help those who want to know more. This material will be updated as time moves on, making this course an invaluable tool to you as you develop your career.
Who is the Future of Energy College?
We are an independent online college run by John M Clarkson, who has written most of this course. It is part of a wider project involving a film called "Valery Danko Discovers Energy from Space", and "Valery Danko Discovers Easter Island" both produced by Perimetr Films our partnering company.
We are independent despite being approached by a number of major energy companies to make courses for them on energy. We have refused all such offers and rely solely on your payments to make more courses. With your help we'll produce more courses on a range of different kind of Zero carbon technologies that are not mainstream yet and have the ability to change our world.
Why don't you get accredited?
People want us to be like universities and carry a whole load of useless accreditations. Accreditations are meaningless pieces of paper. I know because I've been upfront and personally involved in accreditation bodies, and not one of the accreditors knew anything. It's a government racket. We don't believe in government bodies or the governments we currently have: they are the manifestation of the banking, financial sector and auditing elites who rule them as puppets. Accrediting bodies often have shareholders who are related to the government of the nation the operate within.
We won't tolerate this kind of corruption and villainy. This is so much in our make-up that we have sponsored a film called: 'The World Stripped Bare' by Perimetrfilms one of our partner companies. Instead you can make up your own mind whether this course is any good or not and give us a fair rating. That's all we ask from you.
We live in the Barnstorming Space Age
We live in the barnstorming age of space flight. Barnstormers were early pilots who flew people on joy rides and delivered post in 1920s and 1930s America. They were called 'Barnstormers' because their planes were often housed in barns rather than hangers. As time goes on though technicians are working towards making space travel as normal as air travel. However, flying and larger forms of transport will require fuels. This means new technologies will soon be involved in developing a renewable energy that can produce liquid fuels. Understanding the future helps you to adapt to it more rapidly than others. This gives you huge opportunities in the job market and as a consultant.
Why should I purchase this course from you?
This course has been 2 years in the making. It's the only one of its kind in the world. The videos are concise and to the point. You can learn it fast and you can learn it slowly, going through the additional documents and links. It's also got a FREE rocket course with a Rocket Calculator that will give you immense satisfaction as you consider how you can get your SSP design into higher orbits. You can in theory even model a rendezvous with a satellite from a moon based ferry to accelerate your payload to GEO orbit.
The question is: have you got anything to lose by doing this course?
Credits
Course Writer: John M Clarkson BA(Hons) MSc
Course Presenter: Tatjana Anders, actress & presenter (London)
Video: CASSIOPEIA SSP project, Kris Holland of Pure Realism and MAFIC Studios (Canada), Valery Danko Discovers Energy from Space: a film about SSP in production by Perimetr Films, and Perimetr Films film editing.
Materials: gathered from a wide range of specialists around the world (see References document inside the course for more details).
Music: Elena Pehle, award winning composer from Germany and Belarus
Copyright (c) The Future of Energy College, John Clarkson (2021) All Rights reserved. Copy or illegal distribution of our videos or materials are strictly prohibited.