Serdar Baycan with John C Mankins, an ex-NASA official who is an expert in space-based solar power. Credit:Joe Armao "The nation that develops space solar power first will have the upper hand," said John Mankins, director of SST. "If one country dominates the development and establishes the standards … they will have a very strong first-mover advantage in the industry." As a physicist at NASA and the California Institute of Techonology, Mankins knows more about space solar power than anyone. He literally wrote the book on the technology: The Case for Space Solar Power. Such a spacecraft could capture solar energy, convert it to radio waves and beam it back to receivers on Earth called rectennas – creating a continuous source of power. Its efficiency outstrips land-based photovoltaic solar panels – and, being parked in geo-synchronous orbit (GEO) 35,800 km above Australia, the power would be limitless and unwavering.

What’s more, there are a fixed number of slots available in GEO, making the desire to get the platform there an urgent one, lest China send theirs into orbit first. The possibility of space solar power comes as NASA seeks closer ties with Australia's burgeoning space sector and the nation's newly opened space agency. Whether SST or the China venture succeeds, big factors on earth are making such projects possible and more probable: climate change and advances in launch technology – but also an increased appetite for risk driven by political rivalry. China’s challenge to the West, US President Donald Trump’s aggressive response to Beijing’s trade practices, and a reassessment of globalisation have combined to encourage a more strategic approach to trade, economies, science and technology. National concerns are starting to drive economic decisions. So it is with space-based solar power, said SST founder Serdar Baycan and respected Melbourne architect – co-owner of the business with Mankins. SST has held talks with business and government figures on both sides of the Pacific.

"We have requested of our government to make it a national priority to leapfrog other nations to become the first nation, in partnership with the US, to implement this tech and set the standard," he said. The goal is "to set the standard in a way to where we are able to influence the peaceful use of this technology." The response to the company from government and private sector groups has been "extremely positive", said Mankins during a visit to Melbourne in August. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video Wielding influence over the cutting edge of new technology is increasingly important in this more strategic world. This is why there is a "race" for artificial intelligence and quantum computing between China and the West.

Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Malcolm Davis said China sees the potential for space-based solar power, too, because of the political benefit it would give them. "The country that achieves a viable space solar power satellite network first can potentially reshape global energy markets and, in turn, have much greater control over economic activity on earth from space," Davis has written. Energy-hungry China could gain access to a limitless supply of clean power, easing its dependency on fossil fuels – but it could also use the technology to direct energy captured in space to client states on earth. "There are strong astro-political implications if China can dominate this technology," said Davis. A successful Australia-US space-based solar-power project could do the same, granting this future-shaping power to democracies.

'Surfing' the wave of falling launch-costs Though ideas for space-based solar power date back to the 1960s, launch and construction costs have only recently fallen to a level in which such projects are feasible. Launch costs have dropped from $US20,000 ($30,000) per kilogram to $US1500 ($2200) per kg over the past 10 years and they're still dropping, thanks to SpaceX and Blue Origin developing reusable rockets. "We’re surfers," said Mankins. "We’re riding the wave of low-cost launch."

The ability to generate electricity in space would also create new possibilities. Increasing the availability of power in space to would aid in the construction of other orbiting structures. Hoisting the solar stations into space would require hundreds of launches, despite being built with lightweight materials that didn’t exist decades ago. The structures would extend 6 km in diameter when fully deployed, eminating from an axis stem 13 kilometres long. Loading The plan calls for three stages of development. Ground testing would precede a proof of concept phase which involves launching the unit into low earth orbit (to occur by 2023). The final stage would see the platforms placed in geo-synchronous orbit which could – if testing and funding went to plan – be completed by 2027 for the first orbiting station. Project costs would easily run into the billions, although Baycan and Mankins are quick to point out that the end result would save billions: endless, clean energy.

In the more immediate future, SST would be largely constructed in Australia giving its growing space industry and local employment a boost. Loading The technology exists, the competition between East and West does as well, but whether those conditions would provide the catalyst to bring the project to life is another question. The last time there was such sustained political will, and funding to match, for ambitious space programs was during the race to the moon. China’s competition with the West today is a different one. "Today’s battle is much more of an economic one so the national will for competition might not be there as forcefully," said Rutgers University history professor Neil Maher, author of Apollo in the Age of Aquarius – which chronicles how protest politics shaped and were shaped by NASA's moon launch program.

Rather than an existential battle for ideological supremacy, what’s urgent today is the ongoing impact of climate change, Maher said. "The climate crisis is the only thing I see allowing people to actually transcend the … economic nationalism of the current moment with China and to think more globally about this crisis and to work together, for instance, to create new technology to redirect solar power back down to earth." The 'whole earth' Although green-energy from space might seem an odd fit, space and environmentalism aren’t strangers. In the early days, space exploration itself was seen by some as an extension of terrestrial ecological awareness. The universe was simply more of nature, Maher's book explains. Pictures of the "whole Earth", taken from the moon on Apollo 8 were instrumental in raising global awareness of the limits and fragility of the environment.

The crew of Apollo 8 captured this view of Earth in December 1968, which helped galvanise public awareness of the planet's fragile ecology. Credit:NASA In those days, the US had a nationalised, government-directed space program – like China does currently, Maher said. Today, in the West, a lot of space technology "is very much based on a market model," Maher said, adding that SpaceX, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin are spearheading much ground-breaking activity. "They’re taking space out of the public sphere." "How do we create the national will to jump back into a space race with China when our space efforts are led by three billionaires and their companies?"

To a degree, the lack of coordination simply reflects the norms of the West’s tech industry after three decades of globalisation. In this way, China has a political advantage, because it can carry through multiyear planning without the approval of the public, said ASPI’s Davis. "China’s government doesn’t answer to its people," he said. "It makes it decisions and carries them out and people have no say in what happens." Yet crises tend to force the hand of a democracy. Not so long ago, the notion that Australia would need to pass laws to protect its political system from its largest single trade partner would seem absurd. Reconsiderations about China and technology in the West, has invited a soul-searching about the relationship of technology to democracy.

Tech billionaire Peter Thiel recently castigated Google for working with the China on artificial intelligence while spurning work for the Pentagon. There was more discussion about the national interest around atomic energy when it was first discovered in the 1940s than the implications of artificial intelligence today, Thiel said in a speech. Mankins agreed that the discussion on national interest and technology had been lacking in recent years. "It’s absolutely true that when you have a fundamental advance in technology in a new field, it’s extremely important that thought be given to how it will be applied," he said. Loading If energy from space one day becomes ubiquitous, Mankins said, it’s very important for SST to be at the forefront of how it will be done, and to be aware of who benefits and who controls it.