So a couple of pentagon think tankers were kicking the old peanut around and came up with an interesting idea. Space based solar energy. This is not a new idea.
Recently, officials with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) announced that scientists and other personnel at the National Security Space Office (NSSO) of the U.S. Pentagon might study SSP in the future with the idea of using satellites to collect solar energy for use on the Earth.
For this idea to work, space-based satellites in orbit around the Earth would need to be in geosynchronous orbits (that is, an orbit that has the same orbital period as the Earth so that an observer on the ground would see the satellite fixed at one location above him) or sun-synchronous orbits (that is, the satellite would always face the Sun so that the satellite passes over a given point on the Earth’s surface at the same time with respect to the Sun).
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Such a SSP system would use photovoltaics (PV) to convert energy from the Sun. PV technology consists of solar cells to convert solar energy into electricity. Then, energy collected from the Sun would be transmitted to the Earth with the use of microwave technology. Microwaves are electromagnetic waves with wavelengths in the range between 30 centimeters and one millimeter. The use of microwaves is commonly found in kitchen microwave ovens.
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I wonder if they would try and turn this into some sort of space based solar death ray? Never mind that NASA did a study like this in 2000 and found that it would be pretty damn hard to do.