This.

I feel like everyone just lost their mind.

The Technology Connections Youtube channel recently did a great video arguing pretty convincingly that the land used to grow corn for cars would be vastly more efficiently used from an energy perspective if we covered it with solar panels.

This is really underselling it tbh. Any land that's growing corn in a developed country is likely top 1% of land on earth. Half of the earth is desert and tundra. Which is still incredibly easier to work with than space because you can ship there with a pickup very cheaply. Maybe when nevada and central australia are wall-to-wall solar panels we can check back on space.

From an engineering perspective, with today’s costs, yes. But don’t forget the political complications of dealing with all those countries that own the Sahara, that’s going to come at it’s own cost.