carnival of space 35 bonus

Carnival of Space #35: Bonus!

Like missing socks that somehow show up behind the dryer, a few more

posts were just forwarded to me. They aren't exactly "post-deadline

papers" since they were actually submitted pretty early. I decided to

make this a new post rather than editing the previous one - that way

it will show up separately in the various feeds and perhaps some

earlier visitors will take another look.

Advancednano reports on space based solar power: There are two efforts

to develop larger scale low earth orbit solar power. Currently the

largest solar power systems in space are hundreds of kilowatts. The

new plans are for a megawatt to tens of megawatts of power. The

difference is having several smaller (260 meters instead of several

kilometer square) receiving stations on the ground.

Brian Dunbar of Space for Commerce asks an intriguing question: Could

the gold standard be the killer app driving space development? And he

makes a good point: You can't trust politicians about energy policy,

but you can trust in wealth creation.

Speaking of intriguing questions, Selenian Boondocks has a commercial

message from the future: "Is the unreliability of lunar transportation

getting you down? Are you tired of going splat just because someone

forgot to tighten a bolt? Now unintentional lithobraking can be a

thing of the past!" The answer: lunar ejection seats, of course!

Clark at HobbySpace.com was looking back at 2007 and came up with a

list of events, announcements, hardware progress, financial news, and

other developments that occurred in 2007 in the NewSpace industry and

community.

Robot Guy was also looking back at 2007, and he summed it up with a

great top ten space stories list (Ed, I still didn't get your email,

so I hope this was the post you wanted to submit - it's a good one).

And finally (I think!), as 2007 was drawing to a close, instead of

looking back, Stuart Atkinson of Cumbrian Sky was wondering what

wonders and surprises 2008 will bring. It looks like this will be

another exciting year in space!