The British Company Putting Solar Panels in Space

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Tom and Calum visit Space Solar at Harwell to meet co-founder and co-CEO Sam Adlen, who’s attempting to solve Britain’s energy crisis by putting massive solar arrays in geostationary orbit and beaming the power down as microwaves. No new physics required—just the unglamorous work of becoming the Toyota of space infrastructure.

In the episode:

* Why space-based solar delivers 13 times more energy than ground panels and provides baseload power 24/7, making it economically competitive with terrestrial solar even at today’s launch costs,

* The technical solution: kilometere-scale satellites made of hundreds of thousands of coffee table-sized modules that beam power down using phase conjugation, with no moving parts and power density a quarter of midday sun (safe enough that birds won’t cook),

* How Space Solar’s system works like a “giant interconnector in space”—instantly switching beams between countries to balance grids, support renewables when wind dies, and redirect power where it’s needed, potentially saving over a billion pounds annually in UK energy system costs,

* Why they’re not trying to invent new physics but rather optimise industrial process—the challenge is manufacturing a million modules, perfecting logistics, and automating assembly in space using robotics that construct truss structures in orbit,

* Britain’s fatal flaw: brilliant at innovation, terrible at scaling, with orders of magnitude less investment going into space than AI or fusion despite space being “bigger than AI” and strategically critical as the new waterways for global power,

* The regulatory reality: UK space regulators have been “superb” and energised, even on grid connections that normally take 15 years—the real bottleneck is financing early-stage infrastructure rather than venture capital’s preference for low-capex software,

* Sam’s vision for 2075: Britain as a leader in space infrastructure, power no longer a constraint, and a generation with genuine abundance ahead—but only if we move now, because “there’s no second mover role” when barriers to entry spike after first movers climb the cost curve,

* Why Starship’s success is the step change moment for space: 24 launches in 24 hours transforms everything from orbital data centers to asteroid mining, and Britain needs to commit two orders of magnitude more investment immediately or watch others colonise the economic high ground.

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