The Solar Power Satellite and NASA’s Changing Perception of Near-Earth Space

Article

“The Solar Power Satellite and NASA’s Changing Perception of Near-Earth Space” by Luca Thanei
Published in Quest Volume: 31 #3 (2024)

Winner: 2023 Sacknoff Prize for Space History

Abstract

This article investigates how the Solar Power Satellite (SPS) concept decisively changed NASA’s perception of near-Earth space. Following the SPS from its beginning in 1976 to its abandonment in 1982, this article traces how NASA’s perception of near-Earth space changed from being a rigid and uniform background for technological visions to constituting a limited, finite, and potentially self-depleting resource for spaceflight. The article begins by recounting the SPS’s formation. It then explains how feasibility studies for the SPS’s planned solar harvesting platforms raised worries about human-made remnants in near-Earth space. It then follows how NASA abandoned the SPS while worries about human-made remnants gained more attention and became institutionalized into NASA’s Orbital Debris Program Office.

Citation

Thanei, Luca. “The Solar Power Satellite and NASA’s Changing Perception of Near-Earth Space.” Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly 31, no. 3 (2024): 9-24.