Server Sky - Energy in Space, Information on Earth

National Space Society, Seattle Chapter

Sunday September 9, 2015 700pm to 830pm

Red Barn, Museum of Flight

9404 East Marginal Way S, Seattle, WA 98108

http://server-sky.com/SeaAbstract web slide presentation

Space activity is growing too slowly. Meanwhile, the global semiconductor industry grew from the first planar integrated circuit in 1960 to 335 billion dollars in 2014, five times the size of the space industry, 5000x growth since Apollo. Gigabits are more valuable than grams and watts. Space solar power is worth 10,000 times more than grid electricity if converted to information before shipment.

What if we bet our space future on new transistors, not new rockets? Server sky proposes to radically increase the value per orbiting kilogram. Internet for the developing world, and new space-based small businesses, will rapidly expand launch rates, the only proven way to lower per-kilogram launch cost. We will help billions move from poverty to space-based entrepreneurship.

Server sky will deploy billions of 5 gram plate-sized "thinsats", aluminum foil satellites with 5 watts of solar cell on the front, and ultrathin silicon chips on the back, converting sunlight into computation and communication. 8000 thinsats deploy into stretched geodesic ellipsoids 100 meters across. Millions of arrays share a 6411 kilometer altitude equatorial orbit. Thinsats are propelled and steered by light pressure, like a solar sail, and radiate heat into deep space. Arrays communicate to phased array antennas attached to cell towers below.

We have built an international team, developed a business plan, and found new applications and opportunities, including the tracking, capture and reprocessing of space debris. A 10 kilogram experimental deployment of thinsats, Hitchhiker, will test concepts and technologies, and attract next-round investment.