[saalweachter]

> Assuming you can point the orbiting panels at the sun and remain direct, you lose 80% of your power through the atmosphere (from angle and day/night). On the ground you lose 25% even if your panel is directly below the sun pointed exactly at it, which is never the case in many latitudes.

When people say "you don't lose that much power on the ground", it's in the context of cost.

So a solar panel is 5x more efficient in space. You solve that in the ground by buying 5x more solar panels.

Solar panels cost -- rounding up -- $10/kg.

Lifting things into space costs -- rounding down -- $1000/kg.

For the same amount of money, you can put 100X solar panels into a ground based array as a space based array. You don't lose that much power on the ground. You aren't overcoming that difference because solar panels are more efficient in space.