A friend of mine just sent me a copy of the invitation to the May 22 AIAA Atlanta Dinner Meeting, where Darel Preble, president of the Space Solar Power Institute, is going to present “Space Solar Power – A Strategic Overview”.
Space-based solar power receiving antennae (rectenna) absorb wirelessly transmitted energy from space, and allow sunlight and rain to pass through so that the land underneath can still be utilized for farming or ranching.
I hope many of my former co-workers attend the dinner and learn about the potential of space-based solar power to be a game-changing technology in our energy future. In a partnership with Georgia Tech, Lockheed Martin seems like such a good fit for leading the United States in the commercial development of space-based solar power. They build rockets and satellites, do very large scale systems development and integration, conduct research green energy technologies . . . and they like to make money!
Lockheed Martin should be a charter member of the proposed public-private Sunsat Corporation, and lead the way to our energy future. There certainly is precedent for such a venture, e.g. the Railroad Act of 1862 and the Communications Satellite Act of 1962. I sincerely hope we don’t have to wait until 2062 to see a Sunsat Act come to fruition.
The dinner meeting will be at Scalini’s, one of my favorite Atlanta-area Italian restaurants!
Citizens for Space Based Solar Power 
Solar panel technology is the only way for this country to use clean power and electricity.