Page 289 - Maxwell House

Chapter 5 269

both troops and civilians in a range around one kilometer. Such “EM energy gun” does not kill
people and does not produce after-effect harm.

Space-based solar power collection, converting the produced by solar cells DC power into RF
wave. The latter is transmitted through the satellite focusing array to the receiving array (called
rectenna, short for Rectifying Antenna) on the Earth surface. Each element of rectenna is not
only the receiver but also converter of RF signal back into DC. We know that RF beam from
the satellite can be electronically redirected to another rectenna. If so, the electric power can be
delivered to any area that needs it most. Although, this idea was first suggested in 1941 by the
American writer and Professor Isaac Asimov in his story “Reason,” even today it sounds like
science fiction. Since then, many elements of such satellite system have been tested
successfully, and their feasibility was confirmed. Rectenna conversion efficiencies exceeding
95% have been demonstrated. So now we are technically quite able to build and launch such

Figure 5.6.10 Focused beam application illustration: a) Solar and microwave array (flat
circular panel on the bottom of funnel-shaped solar structure), b) Directed-energy
weapon
power station. The main hurdle is a huge cost. However, the idea is too attractive to refuse it
because one square kilometer of solar cells in space can collect enough energy to power the
entire United States. So it came as no surprise that NASA in 2012 gave Artemis Innovation
Management Solutions company some seed money to look deeper into inexpensive satellite
project to beam solar energy back down to Earth via Arbitrarily Large PHased Array (ALPHA)
shown in the artistic drawing of Figure 5.6.10a . In 1964, a microwave-powered small remote
31
controlled helicopter received from a microwave beam all the power it needed for flight.
Recently, NASA granted funds to study electrically powered vehicles like Unmanned Aerial
Vehicle (UAV) and unmanned combat aerial vehicles. Currently, the endurance for UAVs is
limited by the fuel amount or onboard battery capacity. By the way, in 1898 Nikola Tesla
successfully demonstrated how a light bulb could be powered from 30 miles away through
microwaves.

The highly focused RF beam emitted by a Directed-Energy Weapon (DEW) [24] structure
can transfer its energy to target sensitive electronics and “fry” them without harming people or

31 Public Domain Image, source: John Mankins,
http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/early_stage_innovation/niac/mankins_sps_alpha.html