Starship Asterisk*

Solar panels in space but coal and nuclear on the ground with a world at war over oil.
Forward thinking in space and backward thinking on the ground.

That is because there is no address to bill to in space. Energy resource capitalists can only rape you when you're on the planet’s surface.

“For the love of money”…… (Hi Randall )

I think that being on the ground allows us to be backward here. There are very few options though when it comes to power sources in space. Fuel is a required element and transporting it up there is costly. So solar and nuclear are about the only viable "Current" options available.

I guess some of the products do make there way down to Earth; so to speak. http://www.seds.org/technology/spinoffs.shtml Maybe eventually man may wake up and work on some clean energy for down to Earth in a positive way.
Orin

Orin,
There are other Spinoffs too.
Things that have been created in science fiction novels that have found their way into modern life. Things like Robots, and Androids. Space ships. Travel to other planets. Space probes. Artificial Mechanical organ replacements. (From Star Trek) Flip open communication devices (Cell phones with push to talk technology), Bio beds (being tested), Transparent Aluminum (Star Trek 4), electronic space ship shielding (plasma shields), etc.

Life will, in time, imitate art.

Nikola Tesla demonstrated that electricity can be harnessed and broadcast like radio waves and other wireless networks directly from Earth's electro-magnetic field.
Imagine every house and vehicle with a built in receiver and usage meter.No more brownouts,no more environmentally destructive dams flooding agricultural land.As long as the Earth spins there will be power.

You are right about that aardvaark. I read about a test using large ammounts of wire and poles that the wire was strung up on. As the earth rotated, the wire generated electricity. the only problem was that the electricity generated was 2 cycles in a 24 hour period and our usage is designed around 60 cycles per second.
Maybe we could get Harley Davidson to rev up those cycles???

That's true BMAONE23; without sifi there would also be a lot less interest in the universe. Also space travel; and the probability of EBs and other types of life.
Orin

I wish it weren't necessary to waste money on human spaceflight to generate money for astronomy. Spinoffs are just spin. They are technologies that would have been developed anyway for the military or health care because they are useful, or they aren't particularly useful.