“Yes, sir,” Brad said. “I recently found out that Sky Masters Aerospace in Nevada has put out a request for proposals to universities and companies for a new generation of space projects. It seems that companies like Sky Masters have been working with the Phoenix administration, because the president just proposed the very same thing in his address from Armstrong Space Station. Sky Masters wants—”
“Did you say, the president addressed the nation from the military space station?” Nukaga asked incredulously. “He is up in orbit right now?”
“Yes, sir,” Brad replied. “He just concluded a press conference too. He was feeling pretty good, weightless and everything. I guess his Secret Service guy didn’t do as well.”
“What in the world is a president of the United States doing on a military space station?” Nukaga remarked rather bitterly. “It seems extremely irresponsible to me. There are a thousand incidents that could happen and a hundred illnesses he could contract, some of which could affect his mind, and he is the commander in chief of a nuclear-armed military. It’s madness.” He fell silent for a moment, then waved a hand, erasing the topic from his mind. “Please continue, Mr. McLanahan.”
“We are requesting computer-, mechanical-, and aerospace-engineering-lab space and resources for twelve weeks this summer for a project that hopefully can be put into orbit and tested before the end of the year,” Brad said. “We call it Project Starfire.”
Nukaga’s eyebrows raised in amusement. “Your name, I assume, Mr. McLanahan?”
“It was mine, sir,” Lane Eagan said proudly.
“Of course, Mr. Eagan,” Nukaga said, hiding a slight smile behind two fingertips tapping against his lips. He had at first distrusted the young man—boy, really—because his parents both held multiple doctorates and were very wealthy, aggressive, hard-charging research scientists, and he believed Eagan’s success was mostly due to his parents’ strong, driving influence. But that definitely did not turn out to be the case. Although young Eagan slipped back easily into a teenager’s persona now and then, he truly was a gifted young man who would no doubt hold his own collection of doctorates, exceeding his parents’ impressive credentials, before long.
The professor erased all hint of a smile, turned stony once again, then said, “Indeed. So why don’t you continue the presentation, Mr. Eagan?”
“Yes, sir,” Lane said without skipping a beat. Just like that, the teenager was gone, replaced by a serious young scientist-to-be. “As you well know, sir, the idea of generating power from the sun from a spacecraft in Earth orbit and transmitting the electricity to Earth has been proposed for many years, but we think we’ve overcome the technical hurdles and can design a commercially feasible space-based solar-power station.”
Nukaga looked at Casey and Jodie. “Since your team has Miss Huggins, I assume your spacecraft uses some sort of directed energy, such as microwaves,” he observed. “Miss Huggins?”
“Not exactly, sir,” Casey said. “Most research on the subject of space-based solar-power production used microwaves or lasers to transmit the solar-collected electricity to Earth. Lasers have some political roadblocks. Microwaves are very efficient and can transmit a lot of energy very quickly. But microwaves require a large nantenna, or transmitting antenna—as large as a square kilometer or more in area—and an even larger rectenna, or receiving antenna, perhaps ten times as large as the transmitting antenna. Our associates around the world and we here at Cal Poly have developed a maser: a microwave laser. We are able to wiggle and collimate a beam in the microwave spectrum so it’s possible to squeeze a lot of energy into a smaller, more focused beam. It has some of the best characteristics of a microwave and a visible-light laser, using much smaller antennas, and is far more efficient. In addition, maser rectennas that transform the microwave energy into electricity are smaller, fairly portable, and can be set up almost anywhere.”
“Besides, sir, the main components and power-generation equipment are already up on Armstrong Space Station,” Brad said. Nukaga looked at Brad and narrowed his eyes disapprovingly at the interruption, but let him continue. “The Skybolt laser is a free-electron laser pumped by a klystron powered by a magnetohydrodynamic generator. We can introduce the microwave cavity into the laser itself, and use the collected electricity from Starfire to power the laser, so we don’t have to use the MHD. We can even use Skybolt’s aiming and control systems.”