The Solar Cube and The Flying Solar Wing:

The Solar Cube aired on ABC News on January 6th, 2001, I suggest reading the following article first:

ABC News - Solar Energy Cubed

As the article states this is a small cube about the size of a Rubik's cube. It produces 200 watts of power, storing hydrogen fuel for use in a self-contained fuel cell for producing electrical power 24 hours a day. Estimated production cost of these cubes is $200 per cube, and it would take about ten of these cubes to power an average home; so $2000 could power your home I calculate.

Related ABC News Articles:

• 'Green' High-Rise Going Up in NYC - Luxuriously Green - Environmentally Friendly Building Planned for Manhattan
• World Solar Power Use Up - Use of Solar Cells Up 40% World Warms to Solar Power (1998)

SunPower Corporation: - home page

• Pegasus Bifacial High-Efficiency One-Sun Silicon Solar Cell
• Helios Solar Plane

AeroViroment - home page

• Solar/Electric Aircraft-Based Telecommunications Platforms - Helios Telecommunications Potential
• Downloadable Helios Brochure - (440k .pdf file) or copy this link to your download manager: http://www.aerovironment.com/area-aircraft/prod-serv/Helios22299.pdf
• Hilios - In The News
• Unmanned Air Vehicles
• PV Pointer - designed for reconnaissance, surveillance, and remote monitoring.

I then would suggest using the NASA Search Engine ''with Options'' and seaching for this so called ''Solar Cube''. (No Documents Found!)

The article begins with a reference to the 'Flying Solar Wing'; so it you have never heard or seen these Flying Solar Wings here are several links to start you off with. There are thousands of pages about the Flying Solar Wing on the NASA sites, so you might want to search for the following terms yourself:

• Helios
• Centurion
• Centurion Quater Sized Model
• Pathfinder
• Pathfinder-Plus
• Flying Solar Wing

NASA Related Links:

• NASA - Hilios Prototype
• NASA - Hilios Photo Gallery
• March 27, 1997 State of the Art Solar-Powered Aircraft to be Develope
• Centuron NASA Fact Sheet
• Centurion EC97-43931-10: Centurion Quarter-scale Prototype Pre-flight Checklist
• NASA Dryden Centurion Photo Gallery
• Centurion - Reaching the New Century on Solar Power - comparative drawings on this page!
• Solar-Power Research and Dryden
• Pathfinder-Plus Mission Statement
• Pathfinder Leading the way in solar flight
• Solar-Powered Pathfinder-Plus Hits New Unofficial Altitude Record - Aug. 7, 1998

Some Interesting Links also turned up in my searches:

• NASA Watch - Solar Power Satellites
• Photovoltaic & Space Enviroment Effects Branch
• Advanced Solar Dynamic Technology
• Photovoltaic Power for the Moon
• Integrated Thin-film solar power satellite
• Chemical Fabrication Used to Produce Thin-Film Materials for High Power-to-Weight-Ratio Space Photovoltaic Arrays
• Design and Optimization of a Self-Deploying PV Tent Array
• Dark Forward Electrical Test Techniques Developed for Large-Area Photovoltaic Arrays
• LDEF Materials - Category: Semiconductor (Data Sheet)

Notes: I had some confusion when I frist read the ABC article; the SunPower Corporation: is not the same company as Sun Power which makes Stirling Engines. The article how ever did specify Dick Swanson, CEO of Sun Power, which should have read: ''according to Dick Swanson, CEO of Sun Power Corporation, they’re talking about the future of power being sunlight, which is free, and sand, which is probably the most prevalent material on the planet''. I also cound not find John Delfrate of NASA in any search of all NASA sites and documents whom was quoted in the ABC article: ''This energy storage system is actually a fairly elegant, simple system, we think,''. Most of all I hope you have found the relationship between The Solar Cube and The Flying Solar Wings.