By Mike Snead, PE
The fragility of America’s continuing dependence on oil and natural gas for our national energy security, overall economic prosperity, and political stability has again been exposed by the war with Iran. It highlights the fact that America must undertake an ORDERLY transition to PRACTICABLE sustainable energy for America to become permanently energy secure — energy security that only space solar power-supplied astroelectricity can achieve! This brochure explains why.
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Since 2008, I have been researching America’s sustainable energy needs and options for undertaking an ORDERLY transition to PRACTICABLE sustainable energy. (Yes, I keep emphasizing “orderly” and “practicable”. Why? Because these two critical engineering considerations are absent when others — generally, politicians and environmental activists — advocate to end the use of fossil fuels quickly to “go clean”. The brochure explains why such advocacy is unrealistic.)
- I published my first comprehensive assessment in 2008. It was called: “The End of Easy Energy and What to Do About It”. This blog post provides an executive summary of that report.
- I published my most recent assessment in 2025. It is called: “Assessment of U.S. Sustainable Energy Needs and Transition Options”. I also wrote a “Summary & Conclusions” report. Both of these are discussed in this blog post. (Those with a serious interest in this topic are encouraged to read the Summary & Conclusions report. It takes about 20 minutes and is formatted to be tablet-friendly.)
I post my papers to my ResearchGate profile. These are available for free download at researchgate.net/profile/Mike-Snead/research.
The key points of the assessment are summarized in this “elevator speech” phone & tablet-ready PDF. If you are unfamiliar with space solar power and, especially, if you do not fully appreciate why America must BEGIN NOW to build the nearly 900 Manhattan Island-size space solar power platforms America will need to “go clean”, I encourage you to read this PDF. You can download it and share it with your social media friends.
In closing, I wish to emphasize two key points:
- At current U.S. per person total energy demand, America will need to build out a space solar power system of nearly 900 Manhattan Island-size platforms in geostationary orbit (GEO) and 900 astroelectric plants within the contiguous United States probably by the end of this century. To undertake this, America must become a true human spacefaring nation mining the Moon and asteroids for the roughly 50,000 tons of space-manufactured products each of those 900 GEO platforms will need. Within decades, thousands of Americans must be working throughout the central solar system to make this happen.
- The initial supplies of sustainable energy and CO2-neutral carbon fuels and industrial feedstocks coming from this SSP system must be ready by the time America’s domestic production of oil and natural gas peaks and begins to decline. If not, America will revert to being energy insecure with all of the “troubles” that will bring — troubles that will make the current war with Iran a footnote in the history books by comparison. For this reason, undertaking the development of space solar power must begin NOW as a national energy security priority.
If not already following this blog, please click the “subscribe” button at the top left to sign up. Receiving notification via email is best to ensure that you do not miss a new posting. Sending notifications is the only use of your email address. It is not sold or used elsewhere. Besides, you can always unsubscribe. Please forward these postings to your friends who share your spacefaring interest. Also, please check out the Spacefaring Institute’s YouTube channel and the Spacefaring Institute’s page on LinkedIn.
James Michael (Mike) Snead is an aerospace Professional Engineer in the United States, an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and a past chair of the AIAA’s Space Logistics Technical Committee. He is the founder and president of the Spacefaring Institute LLC (spacefaringinstitute.net) which is focused on space solar power-generated astroelectricity and the astrologistics infrastructure necessary to enable the spacefaring industrial revolution that will build space solar power energy systems. Mike Snead has been involved in space development since the mid-1980s when he supported the U.S. Air Force Transatmospheric Vehicle (TAV) studies, the National Aerospace Plane program, and the Delta Clipper Experimental (DC-X) project. In 2007, after retiring from civilian employment with the Air Force, he began to study the need for (and politics associated with) undertaking space solar power. Beginning in the late 1980s, he has published numerous papers and articles on various aspects of manned spaceflight, astrologistics, and energy. His technical papers are located at https://www.mikesnead.com and https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mike-Snead/research. His eBook, Astroelectricity, can be downloaded for free here. He can be contacted through LinkedIn or through email sent to spacefaringinstitute@gmail.com. Mike Snead also publishes two newsletters on LinkedIn called “U.S. Astroelectricity” and “U.S. Astrologistics”. This is located on the Spacefaring Institute page.
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