Virtus Solis Technologies

So you want to live in space? Its going to take a lot of packing. Assuming you have a comfortable spot to go to, without recycling, a lifetime of supplies of air, water, and food would require about 572 metric tons, or about 26 fully filled cargo containers. [1] This works out to 22.4 kg of supplies a day - most of which is water, at 20.9 kg. Food is 0.6 kg per day, air is 0.9 kg per day, and drinking water is 1.8 kg per day. If there is good recycling and plenty of energy, then the cargo requirements drop to about 53 metric tons [2], just under 1000 times more mass than a typical human. In the near term, the real requirement to live off planet will be somewhere in between these two numbers. Regardless of how much material is required, power is going to be needed. The lowest mass and most resource efficient way to get the 24/7 power required in space will be solar in the right location. For any surface, that mean beaming power from an orbit to the ground. Virtus Solis Technologies #deeptech #hardtech #cleantech

Its going to take a lot of material, intelligence and energy to open the high frontier to humanity. To see what is needed to open the heavens, the only long-term reference is the 450 ton ISS. It supports 6 people continuously [1] in cramped conditions at 7.5 tons per person with constant resupply missions. The solar panels produce an average of between 80kW and 120kW or between 13 and 20 kW/person. [2] In 1977, NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration sponsored the 'Summer Study' [3] on space habitats. This study estimated what was required to build a habitat comparable to living on Earth in an urban setting. They concluded it would require about 63 tons of materials per person to live perpetually in space without resupply. For a typical 70 kg person, about 10 tons are required for the habitat structure and 53 tons for everything else. [4] The power estimate is between 6 and 12 kW per person for both residential, industrial and agricultural lighting. Power to drive industry and computation would be even higher. To build a habitat for 1 million people, the total numbers become 'astronomical'. For 1 million people, roughly 63 million tons of refined materials would need to be moved to an assembly point in orbit. To get that 63 million tons, multiple of that will need to be moved on the moon or from an asteroid. Making 10 million tons of Aluminum on the moon will require moving almost 100 million tons of soil and something like 170 TWh to refine it. [5] That still only takes care of part of the job. A lot more is required. There is still the 'small' task of creating the software to manage both the manufacture and the operation of such a system. This is unlikely to happen by doing things the way they are done on earth. Launching from earth doesn't scale. At 200 tons per launch for #Starship, it would require almost 1/2 a million launches to get that much material into low earth orbit, much less to its assembly point. Refueling Starship to take the materials elsewhere would require millions more launches. Something else needs to happen. Cole Nielsen-Cole and Orbital Composites have it right. Self-amplifying machines (those that can partially reproduce) and self-reproducing machines will be needed to refine, move, and assemble environments in space, if that is to be our destiny. Virtus Solis Technologies #deeptech #hardtech #spacetech #checkmymath

Meet Virtus Solis Technologies: Bringing solar power down from space! Imagine solar panels that never see night, powering Earth 24/7. This company is making it a reality with space-based solar power and revolutionary microwave transmission. Curious how this could solve global energy poverty? Read our exclusive interview with CEO John Bucknell, PE: https://lnkd.in/gqKkjYSF #cleanenergy #sustainableenergy #spacetechnology #ecoaero #spaceenergy

Some #startup math. At Virtus Solis Technologies, we're building physical hardware as part of our development work. Using analysis software (e.g. #simulation) is faster and cheaper than building and testing #hardware, especially once the scale gets too big for the lab. Simulate requires computation. This leads to "make versus buy" decisions on getting that compute hardware. We decided we needed about 100 cpu-cores for turn-around times and problem scale. Purchasing refurbished servers, we found 40 cores machines with 1Tb hard drives at a good price. With power conditioning and other items for less than $1000 each or roughly $25/core. Purchasing the equivalent through a service provider runs between $0.01 and $0.10/core-hr. So, ignoring tax implications, electricity, IT, and HVAC costs.... the break even is between 250 and 2500 hours of computation. Call it between 2 and 20 calendar weeks of continuous usage. The main advantage with scalable service provider is that we can go big quickly. But we don't need that today. The down side is that we end up with continuous outgoing expenses. Doing it in-house, the advantage is lower cost (after enough usage) and the machines can be repurposed if/when needed. We decided to purchase. Now, its time to execute the plan... #checkmymath #deeptech #hardtech #spacetech

The Big Apple goes with big ideas. Today was last stop on a whirlwind tour by our CEO, John Bucknell, PE, meeting lots of new people to demonstrate our progress with wireless power transfer (#WPT) and how it enables our vision of clean, firm, renewable power from #space. (#SBSP) Virtus Solis Technologies #deeptech #hardtech #spacetech

#Startup life. Loving it. Upgrading demo hardware in the living room and kitchen before a week of travel to meet new people and share our vision for a cleaner, more abundant future. The good thing is that each improvement and new connection brings our vision of space based solar power (#SBSP) closer to reality. Virtus Solis Technologies #deeptech #hardtech #spacetech

Northern Europe is a great market for space solar. https://lnkd.in/eQRV9GPB covered our tech today. #Spacesolar #sbsp #solar

Hear the latest discussion on space based solar power (#SBSP). John Batchelor hosted, Dr. David Livingston, John Bucknell, PE and me for his latest podcast. Its a fun, fast paced 10 minute discussion on #energy and #space. The John Batchelor Show / #HOTEL MARS: Space-based solar power and its believers in Europe. John Bucknell, Ed Tate, Virtus Solis Technologies Inc. David Livingston, - https://lnkd.in/evU-uFm9 Broadcast 4214 Hotel Mars w/ John Bucknell, Dr. Ed Tate on SSP | The Space Show - https://lnkd.in/ehCKEsHP Virtus Solis Technologies #deeptech #hardtech #spacetech

The dawn of the industrial revolution involved a virtuous circle between improved steam engine efficiency, lower transportation costs, and more coal availability. [1] It seems like there is a similar dynamics at the dawn space industrialization. There is now a virtuous circle between lower launch costs, faster launch paces, greater use of space, better space communications, and lower cost of space applications. The industrial revolution led to mass production of almost everything powered by readily available energy. This first step in space industrialization is driven by data. However, as space access costs decrease, energy and robotics look like the keys to driving the real space revolution. Virtus Solis Technologies @deeptech @hardtech @spacetech

Our CEO in Germany this week talking energy from the sun. #SBSP #SpaceSolar #solar