Asteroid Mining

[a completely inoffensive name]

1: Who said anything about power for the earth?? remember I was talking about powering one piece of equipment

Then you don't even need the collector. Just attach solar panels to the equipment in question.

2: the collectors merely harvest energy there are a number of ways that could later be used to power equipment.

Not feasible. You are now talking about putting giant batteries in space. Battery technology is woefully lacking as well, otherwise a lot of issues regarding power consumption would not exist today. Plus they would be very heavy and cost a ton to ship up there along with the solar panels.

3: low earth orbit is hardly where we would place such equipment now is it

Then you have higher transportation cost and the efficiency of transporting such energy through a beam would go down, because the inverse square law will apply.

[HopAlongBunny]

ATPG sums it up nicely.

Until you actually use space to its potential you are shooting blanks; if you create in space, you have given birth to something exceptional.

[gaelic cowboy]

Then you don't even need the collector. Just attach solar panels to the equipment in question.

If you remember the original idea was collecting energy for a space elevator sometimes it would be in shadow so it would require IF you wanted 24hr energy more than one harvesting site.

Not feasible. You are now talking about putting giant batteries in space. Battery technology is woefully lacking as well, otherwise a lot of issues regarding power consumption would not exist today. Plus they would be very heavy and cost a ton to ship up there along with the solar panels.

No need for batteries at all ACIN although you could do it by that method if you liked or you could also use microwaves sent to a central collection point or lasers or you could reflect sunlight to a single solar orbiting farm there are lots of possibilities. There is no need to send the energy to earth which I think is where we getting crossed purposes here.

Then you have higher transportation cost and the efficiency of transporting such energy through a beam would go down, because the inverse square law will apply.

I never said it would be highly efficient but it is the only free or at least free-ish source of energy in orbit.

[HopAlongBunny]

I never said it would be highly efficient but it is the only free or at least free-ish source of energy in orbit.

Solar wind? And no, I have no clue where they have managed to get with that idea so far. It just seems that an infinite source of highly charged particles ought to be persuaded to share some of that energy.

[Tellos Athenaios]

It does share Fortunately, we have a magnetosphere and distance to protect ourselves from that: round our parts the Sun's power output is diluted by a factor of 1.5 * 10^9 due to distance alone, diluted further the farther we get from the Sun. Which means within the Earth's magnetosphere it's not at all a useful source for propulsion. To be sure that is better than the alternative, without such protection solar storms could fry the electronics of the craft before it even got going.

[a completely inoffensive name]

If you remember the original idea was collecting energy for a space elevator sometimes it would be in shadow so it would require IF you wanted 24hr energy more than one harvesting site.

A space elevator is going to be one long rail from earth's surface into low/high earth orbit. It is going to look like an orange with a pin sticking out of it. The earth is going to be rotating and thus the space elevator is going to be whipping around 360 degrees every 24 hours. You are not going to have a single solar collector be able to harvest energy and beam it directly to the elevator at all times, I don't think it is possible to maintain the orbits I am imagining in my head. Yeah, I don't think it would be physically possible. You would need at least two such solar collectors, which means at any given point, one is sitting there doing nothing, just being expensive to maintain its orbit.

No need for batteries at all ACIN although you could do it by that method if you liked or you could also use microwaves sent to a central collection point or lasers or you could reflect sunlight to a single solar orbiting farm there are lots of possibilities. There is no need to send the energy to earth which I think is where we getting crossed purposes here.

What I am saying is that all energy harvested by the solar collector(s) must be consumed immediately, otherwise the energy is wasted. Any sort of "collection" or "storage" involves batteries. You need to take what ever energy you are not using and immediately turn it into potential energy somehow or you just lose the energy outright. A storage of potential electrical energy is practically the definition of a battery. So unless we want all excess energy wasted, or we somehow managed to have the space elevator maintain a constant energy usage at all times, we will need batteries up there.

I never said it would be highly efficient but it is the only free or at least free-ish source of energy in orbit.

I don't see anything wrong with what NASA has been doing with its long range space craft for decades. Putting a small-medium size nuclear reactor to power the equipment for decades. Voyager 1 and 2 are still active, albeit with many systems shut down to conserve what it left.