Carnival of Space #35: Bonus!

Like missing socks that somehow show up behind the dryer, a few more posts were just forwarded to me. They aren't exactly "post-deadline papers" since they were actually submitted pretty early. I decided to make this a new post rather than editing the previous one - that way it will show up separately in the various feeds and perhaps some earlier visitors will take another look.

Advancednano reports on space based solar power: There are two efforts to develop larger scale low earth orbit solar power. Currently the largest solar power systems in space are hundreds of kilowatts. The new plans are for a megawatt to tens of megawatts of power. The difference is having several smaller (260 meters instead of several kilometer square) receiving stations on the ground.

Brian Dunbar of Space for Commerce asks an intriguing question: Could the gold standard be the killer app driving space development? And he makes a good point: You can't trust politicians about energy policy, but you can trust in wealth creation.

Speaking of intriguing questions, Selenian Boondocks has a commercial message from the future: "Is the unreliability of lunar transportation getting you down? Are you tired of going splat just because someone forgot to tighten a bolt? Now unintentional lithobraking can be a thing of the past!" The answer: lunar ejection seats, of course!

Clark at HobbySpace.com was looking back at 2007 and came up with a list of events, announcements, hardware progress, financial news, and other developments that occurred in 2007 in the NewSpace industry and community.

Robot Guy was also looking back at 2007, and he summed it up with a great top ten space stories list (Ed, I still didn't get your email, so I hope this was the post you wanted to submit - it's a good one).

And finally (I think!), as 2007 was drawing to a close, instead of looking back, Stuart Atkinson of Cumbrian Sky was wondering what wonders and surprises 2008 will bring. It looks like this will be another exciting year in space!