I think (and fear) some slashdotters may miss the reference 'sit in the back of the bus'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Parks

yes, there were laws about that kind of thing, racial segregation laws aka Jim Crow laws
Oh, and the place was of course the great nation of freedom, USA.

Of course there is. Java's GC sucks too.

Unless you assume the program is then run on real hardware, with possibilities of failure and unexpected behaviors.
Formal proof verifies that it corresponds to the specifications, which means it won't be the algorithm's fault if the result is wrong. It leaves many other possibilities for failure (including problem in the specification proved, or hardware troubles).

I don't have time now to read your comment, but I think you should read the article.

The earth atmosphere is quite transparent to what humans usually call light. that is, visible light. a very tiny portion of the spectrum.

But, the sun emit much more than visible light. If you can use UV or higher frequency, or perhaps a wider spectrum, then you get a lot more energy than the equivalent setup on earth.

And, I agree with the other parts. Once you have your nice space-based energy collector, then you have a lot of energy, in space. it would be nice to find a way to take it back to places that use energy, preferably without frying too many birds, planes, satellites, humans, and without having that nice 'death ray from the sky' option in the hand of industrials looking for profit.

But, let's be realist. If some people are ready to invest in so hard to use energy, why would a governement refuse to take a look at an intimidating weapon system ? And the same energy-redirecting system can be used on lower orbit to cover more ground, since you don't need a fixed receptor ...

That's because they are beta. Everyone knows that once you release a 'finalized' version, bugs appear