Iridium Saved? 89
The Mutant writes "Some good information here - the proposed purchaser will pay 900,000 US a month while the business plan is being reviewed - is that what ist costs MoTo to run Iridium? Also, they apparently will get Iridium for about two cents on the dollar.
How could not you make money with a deal like that? Even if you were NOT planning on replacing satellites as they deorbit due to age.
"
Aw! Darn... (Score:1)
needs to be easier (Score:1)
Iridium for the masses... (Score:2)
What we need is a public infrastructure effort to support Iridium and similar systems on a global scale. Some sort of a public consortium for effectively enabling communication for the masses...or am I dreaming?
.02 on the dollar?? (Score:1)
'Course...that'd only get me about 50 bucks worth of Iridium, but that should be enough for one of them orbity thingys, right?
Haiku (Score:1)
The question is: who wants it?
Only time will tell
Phase 3D (Score:1)
Bandwidth? (Score:1)
Why? (Score:1)
doesn't have to be phones (Score:1)
There are lots of other uses for a global network of geosynchronous communications sattelites.
This isn't a haiku (Score:1)
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Did they buy the techs, or just the network? (Score:4)
Still, I'm not convinced that's the way to go. Ground based communication is getting some pretty high penetration, and until the tech gets good enough to compete with ground based, affordably, there's no market. On the other hand, if they managed to make Iridium work as well as it did in the first place, those techs are probably the kind of wiz needed to get broadband wireless up and running for a ground based system. I mean, wireless is close to replacing land line phones in places like college campuses and the like... can you imagine Iridium tech converted to wireless WAN?
Iridium's uses (Score:2)
Not bad (Score:1)
BTW, does anyone have a web site for Castle Harlan?
Responsible Citezens. (Score:2)
Imagine a Mining company that as it's last gesture before going bancrupt initiates an environmental restoration.
This is responsible behavior and despite all the other things wrong with Iridium, this makes me simpathetic. All the best to them.
What's the bandwidth like on these suckers? (Score:2)
doomed from the start... (Score:1)
go figure...
<//-------------//> /. but you can tell it was designed by programmers..."
"I like
The Phone Market (Score:2)
Re:Bandwidth? (Score:1)
(Or did you do this offline through secret NASA contacts?)
I still don't see the point (Score:5)
Iridium has, essentially, an expiration date.
These satellites are all in LEO, and only have a lifespan of about 5-7 years or so before they flame out. The earliest launched satellites are already approaching their end of life, and even buying the network on the cheap doesn't do anything to relieve the replacement cost. Just because the current space assets are cheap doesn't get you out of the cost of building the network all over again over the next decade. It'll still cost billions to put 66 more of these in orbit.
Can they get the critical mass of users needed to make replacement viable before the capital drain gets too bad? Somebody must believe that's the case, but I really doubt it.
- -Josh Turiel
It's possible to not make money, you know (Score:5)
As impossible as it sounds to people who write .com business plans, it actually is possible to not make money if you're running a business wherein you're spending more money than people are giving you for your product or service.
Since they're spending close to $1m a month to keep it in the air, advanced quantum calculations reveal that it is possible for them to not make money if they don't generate at least that much revenue. For example, because most people spend most of their time in relatively urban areas, where the cellular infrastructure has been built up to ubiquitous proportions, and satellite phones don't work so well due to line-of-sight problems, multipath interference, etc.
Re:Bandwidth? (Score:3)
Designing and building a satellite that will survive launch and the conditions of space is not trivial.
Re:Responsible Citezens. (Score:1)
But if left in orbit could the sats be scavenged for parts/materials for other projects like the International Space Station.
Otherwise I'll use 'em as targets for my coal-powered laser cannon.
Re:This isn't a haiku (Score:1)
Re:Not bad (Score:2)
http://www.castleharlan.com [castleharlan.com]
They don't seem to have any iridium news on their site. Looks like just another nameless, faceless corporation to me.
Re:Bandwidth? (Score:1)
Re:This isn't a haiku (Score:1)
Perhaps true, perhaps a lie
Do you think I care?
Re:It's possible to not make money, you know (Score:3)
Wireless internet (Score:1)
Re:It's possible to not make money, you know (Score:2)
Satellite Internet? Big Deal (Score:1)
Any transmission with a roundtrip distance of over 140,000 km is gonna suck - you guarantee yourself almost 500ms of lag before you even deal with the Internet infrastructure.
Maybe Iridium is ok for phones (since we do so much of that already), but I doubt it will ever be practical to repurpose it for anything other than basic communications, unless everyone can have megabytes of bandwidth per second, or are willing to accept really crappy Internet performance.
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Re: Roll Your Own Geosyncronous Comms Satellites (Score:5)
Okay. Here's a hint. Don't do your reseach from 1961 Popular Electronics magazine predictions of what things would be like by now.
. In any event, the satellite is actually pretty cheap - about $10-20k to put it into orbit with a nice transmitter and a few solar cells plus the mandatory stuff you'd find in a comm sat.Sure. And in 1961, they thought we'd have flying cars by now. And there'd be martian colonies, let alone lunar colonies.
I hate to break it to you, but most of the time, the $15-20k figure is *per pound* of launch weight. That's not to build the satellite - that's just to put it into orbit. Russian Soyuz rockets run along the cheap end, primarily because they're statistically more likely to blow up (and destroy your multi-million dollar satellite).
For a comms satellite, you need a receiver and a transmitter, all powered by a solar cell. Such an arrangement is actually called a "transponder", since it just basically mirrors back a given signal on a different frequency and orientation.
Even for the low-band microwave C and Ku band satellite TV systems (mass produced and therefore quite cheap in comparison), receivers are not inexpensive. (And I mean the LNA/downconverter in the feedhorn, not the the set-top box.)
Simply to run any device at frequencies as high as are required for use like this, requires tremendously tight mechanical and eletronic tolerances be enforced. This costs a lot, both in machine tools, skilled employees, and also in a reduced product yield rate.
For sake of example, I often buy magnetrons for work. These aren't microwave oven magnetrons (which aren't for communications and therefore don't have to be too precise). These are radar magnetrons, running in the 12GHz band. RMS power through them is 7 watts. And they operate at normal temperatures (-40c to +70c). And they're damned expensive. Some of the EEV and JRC models I use run in the range of $4,000 - $6,000 each.
Now, consider that most modern satellite transponders run 12W transmit power. That means a bigger magnetron than my $5,000 tubes. And there's another problem: a magnetron is a tube with a magnet around it. Tubes aren't reliable or compact enough to launch, and magnets don't like temperature extremes. We don't use high-powered solid-state magnetron-equivalents in our radar systems because they're just *way* too expensive. Even a small solid-state Gunn diode for a radar speed gun can set you back $5,000 - and that's not even 1/1000th of the power you'd need.
In short, what I'm getting at, I think, is that there's no way in hell you're ever going to find a transmitting device for one transponder, let alone the rest of the transponder, let alone every other part of the satellite, let alone... for anything in the price range you're quoting.
If you really want a Satellite, I have one. It's a chrome emblem off a 1960s Plymouth. It says "Satellite", in letters about 1" tall. And ya know what, just for irony's sake, I'll *give* it to you if you promise to pay to put the thing into geosynchronous orbit.
But you couldn't even get that Satellite into orbit for the money you're talking about.
Doing some actual research (Score:5)
There's a fairly recent and detailed IEEE report on the Iridium network [comsoc.org]
Here's a chart of competing systems [cellular.co.za] that are up, or will be up soon
Here's a fairly complete description of several current satellite telephone systems [gmu.edu] with info on frequency allocations, ground stations, and other important network details [has a chapter on iridium]
Here's a article in Test System News [agilent.com] testing Iridium handsets and network for real world performance
More to come....
Re:This isn't a haiku (Score:1)
Retract, apologize, smile
Damn the lexicon
Climax? (Score:2)
First Doe in space! (Score:2)
Soon, on a DVB receiver card near you... Watch this spot...
Well presumably they could shut down such a transmission by using the laws of the country where the ground station is, but we could always claim it was just a test pattern...
Is the DoD still on board? Could be the key! (Score:3)
The DoD was involved from the beginning, sitting in on the design and planning for the network, and reportedly constructing a $100M DoD-only ground station.
If they stay on board, than the numbers for this new iridium venture could change. In the short term, the DoD money alone (assuming it was sensibly structures as monthly payments) could cover maintanance, taking much of the strain off the business plan, and allowing otherwise impractical applications to be profitable.
Re:This isn't a haiku (Score:3)
They mean person cares about
Cool image, my thoughts
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
How can you not make money? Two letters: O&M. (Score:1)
Basically what running the constellation means is making sure that the satellites don't fall out of their orbits due to perturbations caused by the sun and moon, and the fact that the Earth is not a perfect sphere. Also there's network maintence costs, and billing costs.
Bad Business Model (Score:1)
When Iridium finally hit the market, enabling the purchase of a clunky handset for $3'500 enabling phone calls for 7 bucks a pop, err! a minute they left out the most important entity: The business traveller.
A lot of business travellers don't reside in the US and Korea. The US still has the problem of an 80% ananlog network, which is notoriously complicated, calls are paid by the receiver (partially) and if you really depend on your phone, Iridium might be an, allas expensive option. Why Korea didn't go for GSM escapes me.
The rest of the business world relies on GSM. Now with GSM I can exit the plane in Paris switch on my phone and place & receive calls for 40 cents a minute after thirty seconds. The same applies for Australian cities, the Indonisian djungle or a Bangkok surburb. Oh, yeah: The sicilian mountain village also provides excellent reception. Oh and all this on my neat new Nokia 8210, curtesy of Swisscom.
Those few polar scientists, astronauts and Y2K business that pay the price just don't build up critical mass.
The Slashdot Effect (Score:1)
Deep breath
Re:Iridium's uses (Score:1)
(re: data rates) I think remember seeing the plans about Iridium back in the 1980's. Back then, data traffic wasn't important, the cellular market ran on those *suitcases* that were called phones (though Motorola may have launched the Micro-TAC, a 16 oz(!) phone-by then), and of course, the analogue cellular network was nowhere near ubiquitous as it is today.
Of course, the Iridium protocol is similar to the GSM protocol, so it may be possible to do packet radio, but data-over-GSM gets very low bandwiths....
Re:The Slashdot Effect (Score:2)
Anyway, my point is that we keep reading stories on Slashdot about Iridium and about people suing Napster. In both cases, you're increasingly getting more and more posts along the lines of, "Who cares?" or, "Again, I don't see the point in keeping Iridium going." I just don't see why you keep posting these stories, when there are so many more interesting things you could talk about.
GSM Dual-Band (Re:Bad Business Model) (Score:1)
So GSM doesn't cover oceans and such, and Iridium could have made a great market out of that, but I haven't seen that side of it's marketing. (In fact, given the alternatives in that space, Iridium is small and more convienient).
140.000km? Hey, these are LEO satelittes! (Score:3)
Why. (Score:2)
What they did, is they set a huge goal for themselves, and took all the right steps to form this company. I remember reading how they had a whole democratic heirarchy throughout the world, for their business. Yet, the only problem is, you need a working product to make money.
You have to let huge technological acheivements evolve on their own. That isn't to say, just everyone sit back and expect things to invent themselves, I'm just saying, things come about when your not looking for them.
"Success comes to those who are too busy to look for it."
Re:Satellite Internet? Big Deal (Score:1)
Iridium isn't at GEO altitude- it's at 400km, (that's less than 1ms latency) That's also why it burns up in just a few years.
Iridium anti-FUD (Score:2)
Someone asked about bandwidth: it's about 4.3k/s per phone, but the technology allows you gang several connections for greater bandwidth.
Someone else was griping about the size of the handheld units: the most recent phone is about the size of a sony cordless phone that you might find in any household. Remember that for satphone communications you are limited to a certain length for the antenna, and require to certain gain to be able to communicate with the satellite.
Others have mentioned that the satellites will deorbit in the next year/5 years: this is just a misnomer, some of the satellites would need to be replaced, but many of them can be maintained beyond their specified lifespan.
As far as making a profit, the Castle Harlan is just the finance company, and they acting as a broker for another company that was set up specifically to take over the Iridium project. The largest projected source of revenue is government contracts (duh, who else needs to call anywhere, any time?), this alone should allow them the $1 million/month operating costs, and profit enough for future maintenance. Keep in mind that the deal is far more complex than the watered down version you see on CNET.
Last but not least, remember the story of chicken little...
I for one would love to see Iridium stick around for a while, and I wish them the best of luck.
-geek@large
Tech Info on Iridium's on-board ATM (Score:2)
There's more info and actual data in an article called Supporting ATM on a Low-Earth Orbit Sattelite System [isoquantic.com] covering the ATM switching network in iridium, including goodies like signal strengths in various ground settings and conditions, traffic capacities, and RF restrictions internationally.
How to make Money on this (Score:5)
1) Equip all the satellites with death lasers.
2) Extort billions from every civilized country at death laser point.
3) When the secret agents show up to foil your plan and you capture them, shoot them in the head immediately and personally. Do not gloat about your plans. Do not leave them suspended over a pool of ravenous pirhanas. Do not trust some henchman to do the job for you. Do not show them the large and prominent satellite self-destruct button.
Re:GSM Dual-Band (Re:Bad Business Model) (Score:1)
Dedicated sat network: 6 billion
Maintaining a logistical infrastructure: 0.8 billion
Maintaining a reasonable billing system: 0.8 billion (that's figuring in that 60 - 70% of all costs of a telco are for customer billing).
Sales and marketing: 1.5 billion
Incidentals: 2 billion
Total: 11.1 billion bucks
Re:Wireless internet (Score:1)
With today's technology, it's more likely that you'd have to attach the laptop to the satellite phone since it would be significantly smaller than the phone.
The biggest issue is that sending up to the satellite requires a transmitter, with associated size, power and licensing problems.
I mean, cellular phones don't always work overseas and in planes, where internet access is wanted for not only entertainment on flights,I think the most entertaining part of trying to use a satellite telephony system on a flight would be trying to figure out a way to power the Sawzall you'd need to use to cut a hole in the fuselage directly over your seat.
I don't know what RF frequency Iridium uses, but if it's in space, for a number of reasons, it has to be pretty high. Much like you can put your subwoofer anywhere but you want to be in line of sight with your tweeters, as RF frequency increases, it becomes more directional. At microwave frequencies (about 1GHz and up), it behaves more like light than like an AM or FM radio signal. And I'm sure Iridium is in the microwave bands somewhere.
This means that you're up against the same sort of problems as you have when you try to set up a satellite dish. Ever tried to set up a DirecTV system? It's not as easy as it looks! Portable satellite communications still require a fairly firm place to put the antenna, and then either precise manual adjustability or a full target tracking system that will adjust to the horizon and inclination angles as your base station moves (as in on a ship).
Ever try to aim a satellite dish through a tree or even a thick cloud cover? It's not going to behave too well through aircraft aluminum.
Finally, I can't confirm this for sure, but I had read somewhere that the Iridium system has bandwidth limitations, which makes sense, since it was built for voice. I'm sure their transmit and receive frequencies would support killer broadband, but if the transponders on the satellites would have to be upgraded to get anything more than a 56k internet connection passing between the transmitter and the receiver, there's just no point. I can do that more reliably myself with a cellphone and a PCMCIA Sportster. Upgrading a satellite would be more expensive than putting a new one up (spacewalks don't come cheap). Which means, effectively, that your network is limited to voice and low-bandwidth traffic. And if you can't sell that service and make a profit, it means the network is basically worthless.
I say ditch 'em (Score:1)
Re:doesn't have to be phones (Score:1)
Re:GSM Dual-Band (Re:Bad Business Model) (Score:1)
Re: Roll Your Own Geosyncronous Comms Satellites (Score:1)
Designing Space Systems for Manufacturability [motorola.com]
It looks like the cost is ~$19.8k/kg for the iridium satellites. I believe this includes both manufacturing and launch costs, though the paper is not so specific. However, remember that because they were manufacturing 66 identical satellites, they were able to greatly reduce the per satellite cost. The same paper lists a cost of ~$66k/kg for a single conventional satellite. Also, note that in building iridium Motorola set a number of industry records for Manufacturing and Deployment of Satellites (see motorola press release [motorola.com]). Somehow, I don't think any inexperienced yahoo is going to rival this accomplishment!
Re: Roll Your Own Geosyncronous Comms Satellites (Score:1)
Oy vey. Life is short, let's try to have a little fun. Sure, it's off-topic. But isn't a good percentage of the joy of Slashdot just the comradery of intelligent conversation, different points of view and a little friendly hazing from time to time?
In a geological sort of time frame, we'll all be rotting corpses lying in little subterranian boxes. Until then, let's play nicely.
Re:How to make Money on this (Score:1)
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This is a Big Blow to the Astronomic community (Score:5)
Re:doesn't have to be phones (Score:1)
>>world's major cities by its 15-mile-wide saucers
bring 'em on. i got my powerbook ready.
Buy? Why? Let Iridium Die -- a parody sequel (Score:5)
(sequel to "Bye, Bye, Miss Iridium Pie" [slashdot.org])
Long, long time ago I can still remember how their tech plan made me wince
And I knew if I had their cash
That I could buy the monster stash
It'd take to grasp all that's happened since.
But Motorola made me shiver
With every mission they delivered
Satellites in orbit,
I couldn't take one more bit.
I couldn't look, afraid I'd find
Wall Street had lost its bloody mind.
Something so awkwardly designed... I knew Iridium'd die.
But now it's:
"Buy! Buy! The Iridium pie!"
With just millions we'll get billions, though it's pie in the sky
The good ideas must've all gone dry
So the VC's and the bankers all buy
So the VC's and the bankers all buy
Do they know the specs we love?
Or do they have faith in stuff above
'Cuz the tech just say it's true?
Oh what a splendid fit they'd throw,
if they understood L.E.O.
And how the orbit's bound to crash real soon.
Do they know the facts and take a stand?
Or is it just an Accounting scam?
Another tax write-off?
A business 'loss' (*cough cough*)
I'm just an aging hardware hack,
with a calculator, and not smoking crack
So they had me rolling on my back
The day they shouted "Buy!"
And they were singing:
"Buy? Why? Let Iridium die!"
Why spend millions to get billions of just pie in the sky?
The good ideas must've all gone dry
So the VC's and the bankers all buy
So the VC's and the bankers all buy
Well for ten years they've been slick
And the business plan that made me sick
Is not what it's supposed to be.
When investors sang in the court of law
In a place where truth brings on awe
In a voice that sounds like Craig McCaw.
Debating "Should we just bring them down?"
(Scam websites sprouting all around)
The verdict was returned:
The system soon would burn!
And when Slashdot had a thread on use,
the clueless all were running loose
(Even trolls aren't that obtuse!)
"Don't let Iridium die!"
And I'm still singing:
"Buy? Why? Let Iridium die!"
Why spend millions to get billions that's just pie in the sky?
The good ideas must've all gone dry
So the VC's and the bankers all buy
So the VC's and the bankers all buy
Helter Skelter in the summer swelter.
The VC's offer last second shelter,
Fifty Mill and running costs
Until the plan is finally passed,
by a judge who must be smoking grass
What the heck, it's not like it's *his* cash
For months, we had sweet surcease
From addled threads and press release
Now I just want to cry.
This network just won't die!
Then Katz posts "can't you all see..."
(the tempers fly, as usually)
He compared it all to MP3... the way Iridium died.
We kept on screaming:
"Buy! Buy! The Iridium pie!"
Spend just millions to get billions though it's pie in the sky!
The good ideas must've all gone dry
So the VC's and the bankers all buy
So the VC's and the bankers all buy
Now don't get me wrong, I love space
It's a sanctified holy place
But here's our chance to start again
So let's get real, let's get smart.
Iridium soon will fall apart
And funding is this devil's only friend
So let's just watch the rockets flare,
the satellites plunge through the air.
While there still is time
(and rebuild it, right this time!)
As the flames all fall from the sky,
let's clap until we think we'll cry
Let's let Iridium die!
We should be singing:
"Buy? Why? Let Iridium die!"
Why spend millions to get billions that's just pie in the sky?
The good ideas must've all gone dry
So the VC's and the bankers all buy
So the VC's and the bankers all buy
I met a man who had a clue, and asked him what else we could do
But he just smiled and turned away.
I want to go up five hundred, miles, where I'd kept my tech dreams as a child,
But the man there said manned payloads wouldn't pay.
In the halls the techies sighed, the coders laughed, and the testers cried,
Not a word was spoken, the promises all were broken.
Like the other dreams they shot to hell, like anti-grav and FTL
and condos stationed at 5-L,
But they fund Iridium... why?
'Cuz they're still singing
"Buy! Buy! The Iridium pie!"
Spent just millions to get billions but it's pie in the sky
The good ideas must've all gone dry
So the VC's and the bankers all buy
So the VC's and the bankers all buy
Is this good news? (Score:1)
RMS is not always Stallman (Score:2)
Re:Wireless internet (Score:1)
This means that you're up against the same sort of problems as you have when you try to set up a satellite dish. Ever tried to set up a DirecTV system? It's not as easy as it looks!
Maybe not for some people but after skiming the directions I had mine up and running in 15 mins and I've never installed one before. Hell, the longest part of the operations was the phone call to active the dish.
Re:I still don't see the point (Score:1)
It's called causality. (Score:1)
If you run a mine/factory/mad scientist HQ, and you pollute the environment, and a disproportionate number of people in the area start dying of cancer, it's next to impossible to prove conclusively in a court of law that the pollution caused the cancer.
If, on the other hand, something that you put in orbit falls out of orbit, crashes into a building, and kills a number of people, the legal chain of causality is much shorter.
Granted, a company that's going bankrupt doesn't exactly have a lot to lose (assuming nobody buys it). But I believe that, if death and injury is involved, it's also possible to hold the company execs personally liable. So they have to have a "crash and burn" plan to cover their asses.
Re:Buy? Why? Let Iridium Die -- a parody sequel (Score:1)
Re: Roll Your Own Geosyncronous Comms Satellites (Score:1)
Re:This isn't a haiku (Score:1)
Re:This is a Big Blow to the Astronomic community (Score:1)
Analogy (Score:3)
I guess I'm just not a shrewd enough business man to see the potential
- StaticLimit
Re:This is a Big Blow to the Astronomic community (Score:2)
there is an incredible amount of activity in the visual spectrum. that's why eyes have evolved to the sensitive to that range so many times throughout the millenia.
it's long been supposed that the old hydrogen range, because it's so quiet, will be the range in which we will make first contact with an alien signal.
so, down with the satelites. unless of course that their new owners can somehow keep the satelites quiet to the frequencies that radio astronomers are interested in.
Re:Bandwidth? (Score:1)
US laws aren't labeled "void outside United States." If you, say, sail off to international waters and break a US law, the US WILL prosecute you when you get back. How did you ever get the notion that this wasn't the case? For example, what if Royal Carribean Cruise Lines murdered all their passengers while at sea? You think nothing would happen?
Ryan
Re:doesn't have to be phones (Score:1)
Ryan
Re: Roll Your Own Geosyncronous Comms Satellites (Score:1)
the value in iridium (Score:1)
Re:Did they buy the techs, or just the network? (Score:1)
Needless to say, this kind of wireless is the way to go in extremely remote places and places with extremely poor infrastructure like the developing countries.
Re:What's the bandwidth like on these suckers? (Score:1)
Re:Did they buy the techs, or just the network? (Score:1)
Re:This isn't a haiku (Score:1)
Re:Phase 3D (Score:1)
Re:Bandwidth? (Score:1)
US law is generaly similar to UK law, it being based on it. UK law does not (IIRC) apply outside the UK automatically. There are certain offences, such as murder, which are exceptions to this rule.
Re:Bad Business Model (Score:1)
Re: Roll Your Own Geosyncronous Comms Satellites (Score:1)
Nothing. But while it'd be really cool to have a satellite orbiting the earth just for your amusement and ego-trip, it's not gonna happen unless you're Bill Gates. (I doubt Trump could afford to pull it off, for sake of cost analogy.)
I'm sure The Donald would love to have a big orbiting "T".
The great thing about this launch cost is that it makes organizations think more before they put something into orbit. And this cuts down on space debris, which is a growing hazard.
To maintain something in orbit, it has to be travelling at several thousand miles per hour. I forget what the exact bottom-end figure was, but it's very amazingly high. Since this is in (effectively) a vacuum, there's no friction to slow the orbiting object down, and therefore they can remain aloft for years before slowing to the point of impact. Consider the moon: it's a satellite, it orbits earth. If it weren't moving so damned fast (we see it as lunar cycles from earth), it wouldn't have the centrifugal force required to balance the pull of earth's gravity, and it would crash into us.
As a satellite encounters trace gases in space, the friction from contact with those trace gases will eventually slow it down to the point of getting pulled into the atmosphere and burning up. (Although SkyLab didn't completely burn up...)
Now, why is debris such a risk? Even worse than the small chances of the thing coming back and big chunks of hot metal raining down on a city, you have to consider what happens when one object impacts another one.
When you hit a telephone pole with a car, the force of impact is a function of the mass of the vehicle and its speed. A 4,000lb car at 100MPH will do a lot of damage to the telephone pole. (*What* telephone pole? All I see is a pile of toothpicks!)
Now, when a 40lb chunk of metal that fell off your homebrew satellite is orbiting at 10,000MPH and happens to hit the side of the newly-comleted International Space Station sometime in the future, you tell me what happens.
Putting protective shielding into everything up there would be nice, but it's really very expensive to do because of the costs in fuel and rocket size per pound of launch weight. And the bigger the rocket, the bigger the booster tanks, which means the bigger the explosion and the more scattered the orbiting debris will be when an O-ring pops a la Challenger.
So, to conclude this thesis, ain't no way you're gonna do it, and for the safety of space exploration and research, it's a damned good thing that every yahoo out there can't launch one off the back of his pickup truck.
Or for that matter, using commercial parts?Well, you could start collecting your fertilizer and ammonia now, but I think the FBI will get concerned about another Oklahoma City incident and will stop you before you could accumulate enough to get the Zippo that you're planning on using to ignite your engine into orbit.
Re:Trolls 'n Flames, Flamers and Ho's (Score:1)
Hey man, I've got a bag of marshmallows, a Hershey bar and a Zippo lighter beside my computer at all times.
(Must stop using alligator clip on anti-stat mat to hold marshmallows. Must stop...)
Re:Iridium anti-FUD (Score:1)
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Re:Iridium for the masses... (Score:1)
Re:Bandwidth? (Score:1)
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Re:How to make Money on this (Score:1)
Re:Responsible Citizens. (Score:1)
Duh.
Just trying to make conversation, trying to be clever et all.
Ya don't gotta be a dick about it though.
Aren't the Iridium NOT unique for their low orbit eg. GPS and spy birds?
Or am I still just wasting bandwidth?
Ciao.