0191 -9067/81/010001 -03$02.00/0 Copyright 1 1981 SUNSAT Energy Council EDITORIALS At the close of a decade that brought the long-term perspective of a shortage of fossil energy supply to the foreground, a worldwide effort has been launched in the fields of research and development to enable man to master technologies that will permit him to employ renewable energy forms based directly or indirectly on the energy generated by the sun’s influence on our environment. Among these new energy forms can be cited wind energy, the various types of sea energy, and, of course, solar energy. Numerous projects are under study. Yet, in the end, their utilization will depend on technological discoveries which will constitute the basis of their success on the economic level. The largest possible range of choice should be available so as to provide a satisfactory solution to a problem of such enormous influence on the future of our civilization. In this respect, the idea of solar power satellites — theme of the symposium organized in 1979 by the CERT in Toulouse, France — may be ambitious, in view of the sheer scale of the realization and exploitation problems it raises. The CERT symposium deserves credit for its contribution to taking an inventory of these problems. There is still much research to be done before, in the near future, man comes up with an answer to the question posed: can we envisage exploiting solar energy through the use of geostationary satellites? Whatever the answer may be, the vast amount of reflection and development it will require will inescapably bring about a beneficial innovation in numerous fields of activity, among which could be cited ground level recuperation of solar energy as well as space activities as a whole. Dr. Aigrain Secretaire d’Etat aupres du Premier Ministre Charge de la Recherche Paris, France The genesis for the International Symposium on Solar Power Satellites was a discussion with Dr. Marc Pelegrin, Director of the Centre D’Etudes et de Recherches de Toulouse (CERT) in the Spring of 1978, on the status of the Solar Power Satellite (SPS) concept. The SPS is based on the conversion of solar energy in space for use on Earth to generate baseload power; and it is gaining increasing international interest as a potential major option for meeting future global energy demands. The impetus for serious consideration of the SPS concept by the scientific and technical community was the SPS Concept Development and Evaluation Program being undertaken by the
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