“A Pentagon-chartered report urges the United States to take the lead in developing space platforms capable of capturing sunlight and beaming electrical power to Earth.”

[ Link to Full Report ] from the excellent “Space Solar Power” blog.

There are a few obvious connections to the space security debate (ex. increasing dependence on space assets, or increasing the potential for resource conflicts) but there’s also the potential for the system to be used as a sky-sweeping, death ray which definitely takes the debate in a new direction.

Well, O.K., not really but the report does touch on the force-application potential and its clearly a military system so I’m adding it to my regular keyword watch: Space-Based Solar Power.