CONCLUSION Contemporary civilization has successfully unlocked the high frontier— space — which promises to lead to the extension of human activities beyond the confines of the Earth's surface, opening up new opportunities which today can be perceived only in broad outlines. High technology brings new options within reach and broadens the limits constraining society. The ultimate limits are those imposed by human creativity and imagination. The significant progress that has been made as a result of broadly based technical, economic, environmental, and societal studies on the SPS is resulting in the growing consensus that the SPS is one of the promising power-generation options which could contribute to meeting global energy demands in the 21st Century. Its successful implementation, together with energy conservation measures and solar energy applications on Earth, could lead to the elimination of energy-related concerns. The SPS could provide not only the impetus for peaceful cooperation among nations, but help this civilization to achieve the inevitable transition to renewable sources of energy. REFERENCES 1. P.E. Glaser. Power From the Sun: Its Future, Science 162, 856-861. 1968. 2. U.S. Department of Energy, Satellite Power System (SPS) Concept and Development Program Plan, July 1977-August 1980, DOE/ET-0034. Available from Superintendent of Documents. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington. DC 20402, Stock No. 061-000-00031-3, February 1978. 3. U.S. Department of Energy, Program Assessment Report Statement of Findings, DOE/ER-0085. and Satellite Power System Concept Development and Evaluation Program-System Definition Technical Assessment Report, DOE/ER/10035-03. Available from NT1S, U.S. Department of Commerce, Springfield, VA 22161, December 1980. 4. National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences, Electric Power from Orbit: A Critique of a Satellite Power System. Washington. DC. July 1981. 5. Office of Technology Assessment, Solar Power Satellites, OTA-E-144. Congress of the United States, Washington. DC, August 1981. 6. J.W. Freeman, ed., Proceedings of International Symposium on Solar Power Satellites, Toulouse. France, June 1980, Space Solar Power Review 2, Nos. 1 & 2, 1981. 7. W. Hafele. Energy in a Finite World. Ballinger Publishing. Cambridge, MA. 1981.
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