control should be in the hands of an international body which can be especially set up to pursue the project for the benefit of mankind as a whole. There is general agreement that the recent Moon Treaty passed by the United Nations provides a sound basis for fruitful international cooperation among the developing and highly industrialized countries. Such an international body is also necessary to resolve conflicts resulting from the development and utilization of SPS. It is generally felt that although private enterprises can contribute significantly to the realization of this concept, their contribution should be channelized through an international agency with powers to enact and enforce the necessary laws. In most of the Third World countries, knowledge of the SPS is practically nonexistent. It is only during the last 2 or 3 years that some attempts have been made to publicize the concept and show its relevance for development. For most of the educated and elite, the SPS idea seems distant, fictional, and irrelevant. Less than 5% of the people attending a conference on SPS in Bombay in January 1980 could find it useful, understandable, and essential for the country’s development. There is an important task ahead for those who believe in the future of SPS, to disseminate the concept, and its relevance and necessity. Furthermore, it is urgent that several studies related to SPS as applied to the Third World be initiated immediately. International scientific manpower studies have shown that cooperative researches between the advanced and developing countries are not only mutually beneficial and creative, but they can be conducted at a very low cost. It is well known that the cost of research with more or less an acceptable quality can be conducted at one-fifth of the cost in less-developed countries. Such cooperation will eliminate much of the suspician and ignorance now prevalent in these countries. In short, there is no doubt that there is an important task ahead for the community of scientists and engineers interested in the future of SPS; that they disseminate all the available information systematically and regularly to the educated and even the general public. But the most crucial point, which we have decided to discuss only at the end, is the question of the cost of development, operation, and maintenance. Because of the shortage of capital most of the developing countries can hardly contribute to such a massive project, for which even the demonstration cost may be around $30 billion or $2600/kW. It is inevitable that once an operational system is designed, the cost of subsequent constructions will be significantly reduced, probably to half the original cost. At this stage no country seems to be ready for such a mammoth investment despite the fact that with all the poverty in the world, all the nations put together spend at least $450 billion on their military budgets. Hence, a cooperative venture, with varying degrees of investments by different countries, working on different aspects of the SPS development should be initiated. Even a small contribution on the part of Third World countries would make them feel integral to the project and create a climate of cooperation among nations for the pursuit of peaceful and humanitarian objectives. These countries are caught between poverty and underdevelopment. This cruel cycle must be interrupted and those who have been examining the potentials of SPS feel that it offers an exceptional challenge and opportunity for accelerated developments in these countries. Some of the critics feel cynical about the intentions of the highly advanced countries. They say that if much of the investment for the SPS development will be made by the highly-industrialized countries, why should they share its benefits with the poor countries while they are not even ready to reduce their present energy consumption even by 1%? True, we are far from an equitable world and most of the advanced countries do not plan to share the global energy resources with poor countries, but
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