9. SPS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM The stage is set to embark on a more intensive evaluation of the SPS option, including key terrestrial tests required to support system studies, to define the SPS development and operational phases, and to initiate supporting space experiments that will provide crucial information on which to base decisions concerning required technology development and its impacts. The objectives of the near-term SPS program are to: (1) Identify and assess issues that could constrain successful SPS development, and (2) Seek ways to resolve these issues with a combination of analyses, system studies and experiments on Earth and in space. The SPS development program can be divided into three overlapping phases, as follows: • Phase 1: Concept Feasibility Studies — The objective of the present studies, which started in 1972, is to establish the overall feasibility of the SPS concept through system definition studies and environmental and socioeconomic evaluations so that development program directions can be defined. These studies are based on existing and projected information and are planned to be concluded by 1980 (3). • Phase 2: Technology Evaluations — Significant advancement of the technology for the SPS will require laboratory investigations, terrestrial testing, limited space experiments, and continuing in-depth evaluation of environmental effects, economic factors, and institutional arrangements to reduce program risks and uncertainties and to define future SPS development program directions. • Phase 3: Demonstration Projects — Demonstrations of the functions of critical elements and operational readiness of the SPS will require space projects to be carried out on an appropriate scale and with increasing space capabilities to provide information necessary for a decision to proceed with a full-scale demonstration of the SPS. Demonstration is projected to be achievable by 2000. Once the feasibility of the SPS concept has been established, other countries may be interested in joining the technology evaluation and demonstration phases of the development program, including space experiments which are to be conducted on future space shuttle missions. International participation in the development of the operational SPS would permit the sharing of the significant development costs of the SPS by the countries which could also expect to benefit from the power which would be available to them. International participation on a scale approaching that of communication satellite projects would also ease the obtaining of international agreements, including frequency assignments and synchronous orbit positions, and provide assurance of the peaceful nature of the SPS and adherence to environmental standards and availability of generated power on a global scale.
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