“ The Defense Department this October quietly issued a 75-page study conducted for its National Security Space Office concluding that space power _ collection of energy by vast arrays of solar panels aboard mammoth satellites _ offers a potential energy source for global U.S. military operations. It could be done with today’s technology, experts say. But the prohibitive cost of lifting thousands of tons of equipment into space makes it uneconomical. That’s where Palau, a scattering of islands and 20,000 islanders, comes in.
