I think this is a brilliant idea, that like many brilliant ideas has only cost as its main obstacle... but what are people's thoughts about what it would take to get our nation to actually pursue this?

http://www.universetoday.com/14646/harv ... rom-space/

http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/

Also there are some more minor issues, such as the fact that our current methods of bringing things into space aren't exactly environmentally friendly... but I don't think that'd be worth the tradeoff if space-based solar power were to be implemented sooner rather than later... and that'd be something to work on for later.

Space based solar is a really cool idea, and I think it’s definitely a long term stable solution. The second article is wrong when it says that it doesn’t provide easy targets for terrorists - the ground station that the power is beamed to would have to be incredibly well protected to avoid a power hostage situation.

I don’t know whether it’s just cost, though, but this feels like the sort of project that we as a species will tackle after a bunch of other things (primarily peak oil), get resolved. We’ll see.

How many geosynchronous spots are available? It’s getting cluttered up there.
I’d also be really curious to see an LCA of launching something into space - the emissions from the fuel itself are fairly benign, but production of liquid oxygen and others is probably energy intensive.

Obligatory statement: Space elevators would be cooler!

We could put the solar array in that Lagrange Point between the earth and the Sun, and make it HUGE, so that it does some amount of solar blocking! That way, it'd be part geoengineering and part actual solution!