Public Money So Far
How much public money has gone into space solar power, and what has it bought?
Chapter summary
little, compared with other energy technologies.
Key takeaways
- 1
Public spending worldwide on space solar power since the 1970s probably amounts to a few billion dollars in today's money at most, spread over decades of studies, ground experiments and a handful of flight experiments.
- 2
The US programme of the late 1970s spent tens of millions of dollars of that era on the reference system study.
- 3
Since then, funding has come in short bursts: NASA studies in the 1990s, Japanese research over decades, the US Air Force Research Laboratory's programme, ESA's SOLARIS preparatory work, UK innovation grants and Chinese research.
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