Comments by "Tony Wilson" (@tonywilson4713) on "Space-Based Solar Power is Dead" video.

  1. AEROSPACE ENGINEER HERE: This is what I am now calling a "Zombie Technology" which is a reference to "Zombie Economics." Those are the Economic Ideas that no matter how many times they fail a few years later they come back with a new name. A Zombie Technology is one that has been irrefutably dismissed for one or more fundamental reasons AND YET it keeps re-surfacing every decade or after people have forgotten WHY it was dismissed. Elon Musk's Hyperloop is a good example. Trains in Vacuum tubes were first proposed 100 years before Elon insinuated that he invented it by the father of modern rocketry Robert Goddard. Yes - trains and/or pods look really cool in sci-fi but the practical operation of such a system makes them utterly impractical. The most basic one is how many people they can actually move per hour. Here in Australia where I live the proposal for a high speed rail network going from Brisbane to Sydney to Canberra to Melbourne ahs gone through multiple studies, reviews and estimation projects AND EVERY TIME its the same answer. Out population is too small and the distances are too large making it cost too much. There's several good videos here on YT covering that AND YET I know that in a few years somebody will to the zombie thing and give it life again. Another great one is Space Tourism, which is also popular to throw up here in Australia because we already have a large tourism industry. Its all hype, hype and more hype that just never adds up. Ask Richard Branson who started with technology that actually works and still hasn't started regular flights over a decade later. Ask the people of Arizona who paid a mountain of money for the space base Virgin Galactic would use and years later still isn't doing a thing. Just a few days ago the Victorian State Government announced it would spend $37 million supporting an American Company do Space Tourism. YES Watch this space for that one to fail as well. Orbital Solar power stations were first proposed decades ago and quickly dismissed for some very basic reasons like the cost of flying that much stuff into orbit and then maintaining it. After that comes the entire issue of a beam of energy with power measured in GIGAWATTS being beamed down through the atmosphere. What part of that did people keep dismissing? NOTE: How every time someone reinvigorates a ZOMBIE TECH they dismiss previous issues with claims of "we have a new method" RIGHT BEFORE they hold their hand out looking for investors.
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