China Is Building a Solar Station in Space That Could Generate Practically Endless Power

It’s coming to a cosmos near you in 25 years!

• China is currently planning to build a gigantic solar power station in space.
• To get parts of the array out of our atmosphere, scientists are working on a reusable heavy lift rocket called the Long March-9.
• The solar array project is just one small part of China’s larger space mission.

The Three Gorges Dam—located on the Yangtze River in China—is the largest hydroelectric dam in the world. Though there is discourse over whether the dam has negative ecological effects, it is an impressive hydropower project, with over 20 times the energy-generating capacity of the Hoover Dam. Now, China wants to build another revolutionary energy source: a solar array in space.

“It is as significant as moving the Three Gorges Dam to a geostationary orbit 36,000km (22,370 miles) above the Earth,” Long Lehao, a rocket scientist and member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), said in a lecture reported by the South China Morning Post. “This is an incredible project to look forward to.”