Off-world Power Generation Crowdfunding

Social media outlets:

• Freespace.energy website
• indiegogo - cannot offer securities but can offer memberships!
• kickstarter - must offer a product
• subreddit
• stack exchange
• twitter
• instagram
• facebook
• youtube

Form a company

Will it be a nonprofit? An electric co-op? Traditional C-corp? Multiple entities?

Name ideas: Freespace Energy, a Division of Miller Power

Tagline Proposals

Possible bits:

• indiegogo video intro:

   when it comes to climate change, we don't have to choose panic or denial.
   looking around us, we see that human engineering has solved so many of 
   our most challenging problems.  It's brought us to an age of comfort and leisure.
   when it comes to climate change, the human race isn't going to give up - we will engineer a solution.
   here's our proposal...
   ....
   there are plenty of people making a fortune extracting and selling fossil fuels.  and why wouldn't they?  
   they can pull fossil fuels out of the ground for free, owning it as it's tapped from our earth's crust.  it's an extremely valuable energy source.
   One sure way to slow the rate of humans siphoning fossil fuels from our shared thin carbon-based layer of life on Earth... is to make it too expensive to extract.
   Harvesting enough sun power for humanity's energy needs will by definition make fossil fuel extraction uneconomical.

• Join us in a DIY effort to develop a new power source large enough to impact the world's economy and help solve climate change.
• Imagine making oil, coal and fracking obsolete. humankind needs to look to the virtually unlimited freely available resource of solar power. It's everywhere around us. It fills space.
• Feeling helpless about our dying planet? Frustrated by the ceaseless plundering of Earth by the coal, gas and oil industries? Tired of waiting for a plan? Well we're going to actually do something about it. Miller Offworld Power will send solar panels to space and beam the collected energy back to earth with lasers. yeah. frickin' lasers. 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, non-stop power. We have a working prototype and want to enter phase 2 - optimization and scaling up. Join us in the fight for our planet.
• In another world, Earth isn't dying, it's prospering. And the inhabitants have access to unlimited offworld free energy. With your help, We can make that our reality.
• The level of safety and precision that will be required for this project is high, and will be the primary focus during development,along with efficiency. We must be able to safely beam energy across millions of miles to a precise point, within a precise time frame, with no chance of system failure or third-party tampering.
• The shells and exxons will aggressively attack this project. They are used to winning, and will find a cooperative effort like this reduces their power. We may get into patent battles; any patents we are forced to fight for will be made public and available for all. As a species, we have embraced a competitive capitalism to the point where we have forgotten how to share. This will be required at a global level to solve our larger problems. Let's all put a tank of gas money into this and get the ball rolling.
• Safety: there will be a very small number of people who will want to weaponize any form of power. Safeguards must be in place to prevent this. There will be a larger number of people and corporations that want to maintain the old guard power monopoly, and will inflate the dangers, as a deterrant to change. These exaggerations must be scientifically disproven.
• No human beings will be required to enter space.
• It will be an electric utility co,-op, in space
• We are not interested in a large marketing advertising or sales team. We don't want the financial burden of a large workforce drawing on donations. We want financially-driven collaboration to be focused solely on improving the project plans. This will be open to be done by any scientifically minded and DIY people who share our passion.
• The concepts presented here are not new, and have likely been significantly refined already by corporate and government entities. The difference here is openness. Every bit of progress will be made transparently, together, and as a result no progress will ever be undone or reversed. It is time for humans to rediscover collaboration, to bridge our pathway to survival.
• Greed is a virus. Kindness is the antidote. Let us be kind and good and wise, together.

Script of 2-3 min Video Pitch

(tabled for now as Indiegogo "concept" projects do not typically have substantial success)

Intro overview

 - Concept
   - Possible styles:
     - Whiteboard style, but fast real-time good-enough; hires, so whole whiteboard can be seen; minimize BS drawing, just zoom and pan; intersperse with NASA/offworld footage
   - Sun power capacity
   - Lagrange points
   - Laser (vs microwave)
   - Self assembling and adaptable
   - Size estimate "nebraska"
     - Zoom way in, to show it's not that bad; include Earth edge for perspective (how?)
 - Philosophy
   - Annual crowdfunding
     - One year contract hire based on raise
     - Board will make no contracts not funded by raise or organic revenue; that means the project will never die, at worst it will slow but never stop.
   - This will be an open collaboration of a global collective.  Software and hardware specs will be open source and available online.  Third party contributions will be welcome.

Interesting details

 - Tech
   - optimize free space power transmission in lab conditions using currently-available consumer electronics
   - create a solar panel array with robotics that can self-assemble
   - create robotics that can precisely and safely aim laser energy to a distant target
     - use a real-time handshaking protocol that includes a constant low-power return laser
     - use an outer lower-powered tripwire laser that rotates around the main beam, providing safe cutoff on any interference
   - determine the cheapest possible option to launch a payload from Earth and navigate it to a final stable destination (lagrange or Earth orbit)
   - determine the requirements to receive laser power at an Earth-based power plant
   - crowdfund the project

 - project plans
   - Power delivered to any willing utilities, worldwide; no bias towards any race Creed nationality etc
   - Price point always set at no more than 95% of fossil fuel price, adjusted monthly
     - when sufficient power comes online, it will automatically render the extraction of fossil fuels from the Earth's crust economically infeasible
     - Lower price points may be provided for countries or regions in greater need, at the discretion of the board
   - Team
     - Can we give teasers? Eg "Xamarin maniac, Rubik's cube destroyer", "ee maker, 100mph fpv racer", "physics PhD, astronaut-in-training"

Engagement

 - Long term plan
   - This is a lifetime pledge from us to you
 - Opportunities for involvement
   - Project challenges will be posted for any contributors to engage
   - Annual crowdfunding and hiring

Rewards

Escalating!

   - access to podcast
   - Name etched in SPACE on a solar panel
   - tickets to launch event
   - tour of our lab (travel not included)
   - tour of our lab (travel included)
   - tour of first laser collection station (glasses provided)
   - t-shirt, mug, bumper sticker, plaque
     - Get the Frak off our Planet
     - escalating
   - widget perks (~ riffs on components)
     - laser pointers (diff strengths, diff colors)
     - solar panels
     - solar panel with charger/battery
     - full kit with solar collector, laser transmitter, solar receiver, load (lightbulb/battery)
   - free space power transmission lab prototypes
     - expensive
     - per component
   - Incentives
   - Memberships
   - Discounts??
   - Energy credits, not to be promoted on crowdfunding sites

Alternative: Harmon 8-step circle story

• emotions
  • Fearful
  • hopeful
  • empowered
  • future/children
  • justice/collaboration

30 hopeful 5 fear 60 all (hopeful/empowered/future/justice) 10 hopeful 

8 steps of story circle:
1) 5 sec human beings have a lot to be thankful for today 
	security, leisure time/entertainment/games, amazon deliveries...
2) 10 sec climate change may disrupt our lives (beach erosion, deserts, nature decimation,
	ocean pump stopping and total breakdown, permafrost acceleration, miami flooding…) 
	I think we need 5 hardcore weather examples that are still fresh 
	and 5 global problems: permafrost, ocean pump, coral reef death, glacier melt accelerate
3) 20 sec we are having trouble figuring out how to fix it, how can we?
	Other failed ideas: carpooling, hybrids, 
4/5) here is a proposal: …..
	70 seconds we want to take action, we are not helpless
6) it will not be easy, must be crowd-funded, powerful enemies
	This is a long-term moonshot to save humanity – but will take contributions from many
7) but if we can pull it off we will get back to safety
8) and even more of what we love about now
	imagine what unlimited energy could do for humanity
	transportation, climate control, water desalination, automation of most tasks

Use Existing Social Media to crowdsource solutions for the 8 components

• Get feedback on social media
  • AskScience has substantial eyeballs and talent
    • Post generic questions about science behind 8 components
  • stack exchange communities
    • Space Exploration
    • Physics
• Harvest info
  • Possibly capture publishable quality into Authorea