Solar Impulse 2 successfully completed the first global solar flight on 26 July 2016. Will Peter Glaser’s vision of space solar power soon provide energy to earth? Image: nasa.gov.

Solar Impulse 2 has landed: successfully completing a flight circling the globe, without using a drop of fuel. Not a non-stop route, the trip required 17 legs, beginning where it ended: Abu Dhabi. Not far from the airfield, one might find another model for a solar, and energy-efficient, future: Masdar Institute of Science and Technology. Developed in partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with the guidance of Dr. Fred Moavenzadeh as President and a team of experts including Dr. David H. Marks, the campus uses 70% less electricity, 70% less potable water, and runs on solar and other forms of clean energy. Abu Dhabi welcomed Solar Impulse 2 partners Andre Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard who took turns piloting the plane during historic  40,000 km (26,744 mile) achievement: the aircraft holds only one person, and that pilot sleeps only 20 minutes at a time. July might be remembered for another historic record; in 1969, the first humans piloted Nasa’s Apollo mission to the moon. Peter Glaser was project manager for the Apollo 11 Lunar Ranging Retroreflector Array. Will Glaser’s design, and current initiatives of Lucien Deschamps, for space solar power deliver the energy of the sun to the earth?

Thanks to Fred Moavenzadeh, David Marks, and Sheila Turney on Masdar; Jean Louis Bobin and Lucien Deschamps on new forms of energy.

Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License