ogy must await progress in large-scale electrical storage capacity if it is to substitute appreciably for base load power. Fusion has a potential of substantial benefit as a long-term source, but has yet to be shown to be technologically feasible.” The NRC Committee positions on the subject of an SPS research program are indicated in the report by the following statement: “In our current circumstances the prudent course for the next few decades is to keep a variety of long-term energy options open through research or development efforts in rough proportion to their expected promise,” but the report then goes on to observe that “for SPS, whose promise is both uncertain and far in the future, periodic review and evaluation of relevant advances in related programs would serve the purpose.” The question arises, in view of the uncertainties discussed in the previous paragraph: What crystal ball has the NRC committee used? It is difficult to see how the committee concluded that no program of research on the SPS be undertaken on the basis of the report of the Working Group on Space Systems to the NRC committee which states: “We recommend that NASA continue conceptual studies on promising new SPS concepts. We recognize, however, that a meaningful SPS option will in fact be foreclosed unless sufficient research development and testing are conducted on the main elements of a future SPS to provide a basis for sound assessments of feasibility and cost.” The NAS report omitted the historic quotations which were selected by the Working Group on Space Systems to introduce sections of its report. For example, the statement “Space-travel is utter bilge” by Sir Richard van der Riet Wooley, the Astronomer Royal, 1956, preceded the discussion of the SPS “Probable Technical State-of-the-Art in the First Decades of the Next Century,” which intended to show that lack of vision is not uncommon even among renowned scientists and VIPs. Based on the information presented in the reports submitted by several of the working groups to the NRC committee (contained in the Appendix to the NAS report), and the evidence presented in the comprehensive study of the SPS completed by the DOE and NASA which, as the report indicates, was ”... a well- conceived and well-managed study in which an exhaustive number of aspects of an SPS were examined,” the NRC committee could have endorsed an SPS research program. The NRC committee report illustrates the aptness of Robert Goddard's belief: “It is difficult to say what is possible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.” On the basis of existing information, research on the issues associated with the SPS can be justified in the broader context of a space program where the development of technologies for space transportation, space construction, and power conversion could support future mission goals represented by the SPS.
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