United States is now ready to start on it. It needs only the United States President and Congress to say “do it.” Ecospace dictates that the United States has now tightened the economics through scientific research and development costs to “do it” quite sufficiently alone with photovoltaic cells and microwave transmission to Earth. My paper and others at the recent Princeton/AIAA/SSI/MIT Fifth Outer Space Conference in May 1981 give the details. The world outer space scientists here at the 32nd IAF in Rome are much in agreement that the United States can “do it” now, if the U.S. leadership chooses to do so, now. R&D can improve on past R&D forever, but we now have the U.S. Space Shuttle and at some point one opts for practical operations, and that time is now for the United States and SPS. What are the U.S. options? One is for the United States to do it alone. The second is for the U.S. to do nothing, and let the U.S.S.R. take world leadership in SPS. The third option is to do more R&D, as the National Science Foundation of the United States recommended some months ago! The fourth option is a truly international Shuttle-Salyut SPS project, funded one-half by the United States and one-half by the U.S.S.R. Alternatively, it could be funded one-third by the United States, one- third by the U.S.S.R., and one-third by other governments, including the LDCs. If on a joint U.S.-U.S.S.R. basis, NASA and the U.S.S.R. can follow the pattern of the successful Apollo-Soyuz operational agreements for the Shuttle-Salyut project. Such a joint U.S.-U.S.S.R. project of such vast magnitude (approximately sixty billion U.S. dollars) could be now set up on a Shuttle-Salyut Executive Agreement basis. It is a six or ten year project. After the recovery of all costs by the U.S. and U.S.S.R. and the creation of another prototype SPS, then the pollution free SPS sun electric energy could be sold to other countries on a first come, first served, full cost basis to those nations providing their own receiving rectennas, bearing in mind the contributions of those who created the SPS stations, as well as the needs of other countries and the LDCs. The principles and truths presented herein are enumerated for purposes of discussion. A comparison of them with Resolution 32 of the XXII Conference of the Inter-American Federation of Lawyers at Quito, Ecuador on March 20, 1981, entitled “The Twelve Stages of Solar Energy” emphasizes this discussion. The truths and principles presented herein are not to be attributed to any person or organization, other than the author. Suggestions from those professionals studying this matter will be welcomed by the author. A study of the above principles and truths and their economic and legal implications shows that they fit into the four basic types of international law concerning outer space; namely, (1) law which applies solely to outer space; (2) law which applies to the Earth, airspace and outer space as an environment; (3) law which applies to functions performed in outer space and occasionally including airspace; (4) law which applies essentially to activities performed on the Earth as a consequence of the exploration and particularly the uses of outer space. During the past dozen years, there has been considerable professional agreement both in the United States and the U.S.S.R., and other countries, that (4) above particularly, but not exclusively, applies to the SPS proposals. Therefore, the above principles and truths are founded in the roots of international law and economics applicable to SPS. The basics contained in this paper are far better accepted today by outer space professionals than the very controversial “The Twelve Stages of Solar Energy” referred to above, with which many governments do not agree.
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