Dr. Peter Glaser was a private contractor working on the Apollo 11 Lunar Ranging Retroreflector Array when he published his first paper on the Solar Power Satellite in 1968. He was granted a patent on the concept in 1973.
The solar power satellite was one of the ideas that the old
L5 Society was founded on. L5 was originally founded to promote the space colony ideas of
Dr. Gerard K. O'Neill. O'Neill wanted to build solar power satellites from lunar material to save the cost of boosting everything from Earth.
NASA and DOE did an intensive study of SPS in the late 1970s. The project was not continued after the 1980 election. The L5 Society was merged with (was 'assimilated by') von Braun's National Space Institute to form the National Space Society. There's a long story behind both developments; maybe I'll write it someday.
In any case, it looks like Space Solar Power is going to be another of those concepts in the: "invented here, sold there" category! The US will continue to drill in deeper waters, covering our coasts with oil; blow the tops of the last mountains in Appalachia to get at the coal, and poison our water supplies with fracking fluids before Big Carbon allows us to spend money on alternative energy - including SSP.
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