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The Internet Communications Science

Internet-By-Airship Scheduled For Trial Next Month 257

Posted by timothy from the trial-balloon-ha-ha dept.
Reader ScrewTivo points to this Economist article on one of my favorite potential delivery means for high-speed Net access: stratosphere-dwelling airships. This version, from Sanswire Networks, is dubbed a "Stratellite," -- and one is scheduled to launch next month. As the submitter writes, "It's basically a blimp that thinks it's a geostationary satellite floating at 65K feet!"
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Internet-By-Airship Scheduled For Trial Next Month More

Internet-By-Airship Scheduled For Trial Next Month

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  • Brings new meaning to connection is down (Score:5, Funny)

    by syousef ( 465911 ) on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @07:50PM (#11098977) Journal
    Brings new meaning to connection is down ;-)

  • Cost savings (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Yoweigh116 ( 185130 ) <yoweigh@ g m a il.com> on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @07:50PM (#11098982) Homepage Journal
    I really hope this becomes a popular alternative for satellites as a provider of these services. This has got to cost significantly less, and hopefully these saving will be passed on to consumers.

    • Re:Cost savings (Score:3, Insightful)

      by dustinbarbour ( 721795 )
      Sure sure.. but what happens as commercial jetliners begin flying at those heights? I mean, recent developments are pushing towards that height. In fact, the idea is to get higher where drag is lower thus allowing for faster travel to far-flung destinations. Aer we gonna be forced to navigate around these things and begin crowding the skys?

      • Re:Cost savings (Score:5, Insightful)

        by That's Unpossible! ( 722232 ) * on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @08:40PM (#11099363)
        IANAP, but I think it's probably a lot easier to avoid hitting a blimp than it is to avoid hitting another plane.

        There are hundreds or thousands of planes in the sky at all times, many at the same altitude, in the same vicinity. How many mid-air crashes have you ever heard about?
      • Why can't we turn them into navigational buoys as well for the jetliners? Eventually as we move to populate the galaxy and our orbit (maybe with a space elevator platform) we're going to need waypoints to launch repair, and other operations from. I see no reason why these buoys can't help fill that role.

        • GPS works just fine for jetliners, and these blimps will probably blow around a bit (and will probably use GPS to keep themselves roughly in one place.)

          Also, to navigate, you need to see at least two of them if you can measure angles precisely, or three if you can't but you're at a known altitude, or four if you're not at a known altitude. You're typically only going to be able to see one of these at a time, because they're not satellites, they're near-ground.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • These would also be a cheaper way than satellites for big brother to watch. [uncoveror.com]
    • It's also nice because latency is a fraction of what is to even a LEO satelite so you could use it for things that are latency sensitive like gaming and VoIP.
  • The company is in Atlanta, but is that where this first launch is going to be?

    I'm in Atlanta, how do I become a beta tester :)

    • A problem (Score:2, Insightful)

      by jim_v2000 ( 818799 )
      I don't know if this would be an issue, but wouldn't a giant wifi network f*** over the smaller wifi networks around the city? Like those that use DHCP for client machines.
      • I haven't RTFA but I can't imagine they're using standard 2.4GHz 802.11 for this. It'd take one *heck* of a transmitter to get that to reach 65K feet :)
  • Support: This is Gas Bag Networks, how my I help you? Customer; Yeah, the Internet went down. Support: Can you describe the problem? Customer: The &!#!&#$ blimp crashed into my livingroom!

    • Re:Tech Support (Score:5, Funny)

      by krbvroc1 ( 725200 ) on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @08:14PM (#11099183)
      Support: This is Gas Bag Networks, how my I help you? Customer; Yeah, the Internet went down. Support: Can you describe the problem? Customer: The &!#!&#$ blimp crashed into my livingroom!

      Support: Sir, the network appears to be fine. We have not received any reports of trouble from your area.
      Customer: I can see the blimp smoldering in my living room.
      Support: We require several people in your area to report a problem before we can open a ticket for you.
      Custumer: The blimp has crashed through my living room ceiling, I need help.
      Support: Sir, what operating system are you running?
      Customer: Why does that matter, the blimb is down. Please send someone.
      Support: Sir, are you using a router?
      Customer: Uh, yes.
      Support: Sir, could you please reset your router by unplugging it, waiting 30 seconds, and then powering it on. Please tell me when you have done this.
      Customer: What does my router have to do with the blimp crashing!!
      Support: Sir, lets try disconnecting your router completely and plugging your network directly into the BlimpoNIC.
      Customer: Listen here buddy, there is nothing wrong with my computer. Your blimp has crashed into my living room!
      Support: Sir, let me connect you to our public relations department. Before I do so, is there anything else I can help you with today?
      Customer: No!
      Support: I'm transferring you now sir.

      Click...DIALTONE

      • Re:Tech Support (Score:5, Funny)

        by dabigpaybackski ( 772131 ) on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @08:33PM (#11099291) Homepage
        Obviously another satisfied AOL customer.

      • You think you're kidding (Score:5, Funny)

        by Fished ( 574624 ) <amphigory@@@gmail...com> on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @08:34PM (#11099302)
        I had a cox cable connection that was strung too low over an alley, and periodically some sort of truck would pull the cable down. I would call the cable company, and go through the whole rigamarole you describe, before, finally, getting someone who could understand that the physical cable was lying in my back yard and no amount of fiddling would make it work. To get those dingbats to understand that the cable was PHYSICALLY DOWN and nothing they could do would fix it took hours.
        • This is why tech support should be based on expertise (or at least familiarity) and not a script.

          The support people you were talking to were probably told never to deviate from their script. Their job is to help the 90% of people who can't tell their ass from their elbow.

          When someone with a clue calls in, there is nothing they can do for you. You're already ahead of them.

          • Yep. Having done my time in tech-support, this is mostly correct... except for the script thing. You wind up composing your own "script" of sorts, as you're conditioned over time by the user environment of "ass-elbow confusion".

            Now, the operative words to avoid this situation are:

            "Your manager, now. You did nothing wrong. I'll wait."

            or

            "Pass me up to the next support tier, please. Look at the call record. I'll wait."
            • I actually work in tech support myself. The impression I have are that there are (at least) two world.

              One, people with an understanding of the product/subject working out solutions for people who need help.

              The other, people hired to be part of a call center and work from a script to cover the basic problems only.

  • My company... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Zangief ( 461457 ) on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @07:59PM (#11099070) Homepage Journal
    has the technology to put geostationary satelites at just 0 mt. from the ground!!!
  • I really don't think this will be all that good. First of all, I don't know a whole lot about satellite transmission, but I know it's a lot slower than standard internet technology.

    Combine this lack of competitive speed with the fact that your network is relying on floating things 13 miles in the air for its reliability. Even if this is no less safe than a server sitting in a room (which I seriously doubt) someone will still have to have a physical presense sooner or later to fix something or install new h

    • Re:How good will this really be? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rewt66 ( 738525 ) on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @08:10PM (#11099147)
      Well, first of all, this can be a lot faster than setellite, because you only have 13 miles of time lag, instead of 24,000 miles. Second, maintenance is a lot easier than satellite. Once you have a satellite in geostationary orbit, even the shuttle can't service it - even when the shuttle is flying. And how expensive is it? Well, it's less expensive than launching into geostationary orbit... But is it enough cheaper than cable/DSL and enough faster than dialup to matter to people? I don't know.
      • Was just about to make the above point myself :) Well, even if they aren't very servieable, replacements could be very cheap compared to satellites. Plus, if they could get this to work in a P2P fashion, it's going to be a really viable alternative ESPECIALLY for developing countries, plus you could upgrade each node very easily.
        The only thing is that you would need to make sure that aircraft are kept well away from these things. This would definitely help in reducing gaming lag. If this takes off, I can
    • The only reason that current satellite internet is slower (latency wise) than wiredi nternet, is that it physically takes the light a full half second to go up and back down, and then you have your tradition routing delays. This would cut that down by an order of magnitude, and therefore would be a viable alternative to the standard wires. Also, any cost is going to be an order of magnitude lower than what it would be for a satellite system, and those are still in business. I'm not saying that this is go
    • cost: the article says something like a $20 million initial cost, then every 18 months you have to service it. so im guessing theyll have two, one up at all times and one down. considering they can cover an area the size of texas, thats a lot of users to share the cost.

      speed: satellite is so slow because its so extreamly far away, and because most people have to use a landline to upload. this is able to solve both of those problems, so i expect it to be about as fast as any broadband. all youre doing is s

      • It's fun to think about how they'll do failover between the primary and the backup: move the backup into position directly over the primary, then move the primary out of the way, and presto -- the backup is in position (maybe 100M too high, but this should be close enough to provide some service until it can descend to the correct altitude). Meanwhile, the primary can land and get serviced.

    • Re:How good will this really be? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by wronski ( 821189 ) on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @08:29PM (#11099268)
      >>I really don't think this will be all that good. First of all, I don't know a whole lot about
      >>satellite transmission, but I know it's a lot slower than standard internet technology.
      These things will be much closer (by a factor of 1000) than satelites, so they should be competitive speedwise, and use far less power to transmit. Theyll also cover a much smaller area each, and thus allow for more bandwidth

      >> someone will still have to have a physical presense sooner or later to fix something or
      >> install new hardware.
      Satellites dont need (or are able to receive) maintenence. nd in any case these things should be able to be floated down for repairs

      >>Also, how much is this going to cost?
      A lot, but far less than sattelites. My guess is that it will be comparable to a 3G mobile network.

      >>Furthermore, I think the reliability will be rather low. I don't know why, but I just have a
      >>bad feeling about tons of servers and equipment suspended in the air.
      Well, the stratosphere is a reasonably quiet place, with no changing weather. It is far above commercial planes. I thinks they can use ionic engines for station keeping. These are reliable (years of continuous use) and low consumption.

      >>I think it will be more productive, cheap, and reliable to use lots of inexpensive 802.11
      >>equipment.
      I think covering entire cities with wi-fi (with all ensuing basing concessions and line of sigth issues) would be more unpractical than having one or two stratospheric blimps floating above.

    • Re:How good will this really be? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by spagetti_code ( 773137 ) on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @08:31PM (#11099274)
      I disagree - I think its a great idea. First - lets tackle the technology:
      • Geosync orbit is 35786 km. Latency is at least 240ms one way for any packet (up and back) - higher if you are not directly under the satellite. Talk to any gamer and they would be unimpressed. With this, at 65000ft or about 20km, the latency due to distance is under 1ms.
      • Its cheap - as they say you can quickly drop one anywhere, anytime you need it. e.g. place one above a ballgame to deal with all the cellphone calls (and whose to say they can't lower it if the weathers ok!)
      As to the market... I live in Auckland, NZ, and we have a very slow uptake of broadband due to a single provider who owns all copper to the house (read: ugly monopoly and weak government regulator). Other wireless options exist if you live close to them (e.g. if you can see the skytower). Drop one of these above the city and bingo - broadband for the price of an aerial.

      I think that model is transportable - anywhere the infrastructure is too expensive or too difficult to provide broadband or telephones - simply drop in one of these. For example:

      • Monopoly copper to the house
      • Difficult terrain
      • Sparse neighborhoods
      And they are relatively cheap - its just a balloon. A nice one, sure, but still just a balloon. One that they can take down and service. Can't do that with a satellite.
      • It would also make a cool hosting environment... cheap cooling for the servers, nearly double the hours of solar exposure compared to the ground (and no temperature issues). Lots of cool applications could come of it...

        And finally, weight would be a viable consideration for the Intel et al, justifying the higher density solutions...
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • 13 miles in the air

      That's hella closer than a satellite, by over 20,000 miles. I think that would let it be a lot faster than what's currently available with sat.
    • Methinks you don't understand. There don't need to be servers on the blimp. All the blimp needs to do is echo signals from the base station across the coverage area, and from the coverage area back to the base station. That's all. The equipment to do this can quite easily last for 20 years and be efficient enough after all of them. The routing etc. all takes place at the base station.
    • ...the fact that your network is relying on floating things 13 miles in the air for its reliability.

      This probably improves reliability. No water company to cut through your connection, no fire in the next building bringing the whole thing down (those are the causes of the two longest breaks in my cable connection over the past few years).

      Also, I think the environment is relatively stable up there. Cooling is going to be relatively cheap and easy for a start.

      Also, as I mentioned before, maintenance w

  • Will you be able to see it from the ground? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by catbutt ( 469582 ) on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @08:01PM (#11099090)
    Not that it matters. Just curious.
    • Short answer : No Long answer: Using the dimensions of the airship (245 x 145 x 87 feet), the altitude (~65,000 ft), and some very basic trig., the airship would be 13 X 7.6 X 4.6 seconds of arc. if you were standing directly underneath it. Since the human eye has a resolution of roughly 2 mintes of arc, and this is far larger than the angular size of the airship, you wouldn't see it.
      • You might be able to see it right after sunset as it catches the sunlight against a dark sky.

        There are some satelites you can see this way. The space station is easily visible if it's overhead right after sunset.

        You probably wouldn't be able to tell it was an internet blimp though.

  • 65K Feet? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @08:02PM (#11099099)
    As the submitter writes, "It's basically a blimp that thinks it's a geostationary satellite floating at 65K feet!"

    Is that 65,000 or 66,560 feet?

  • Rail gun (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @08:03PM (#11099101)
    Does anyone know of plans to make a rail-gun that can shoot 65,000 ft. (No relation to this article, just asking)
  • finally some competition for the free-range antennalope:-p

  • Oh, I get it now... (Score:3, Funny)

    by rewt66 ( 738525 ) on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @08:03PM (#11099105)
    At first I thought it was one of those "IP over carrier pigeons" things that geeks do when they get really bored...

  • Airships -- Next BIG thing? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @08:10PM (#11099146)
    I have been following stratospheric airship technology for years, and discuss some of the interesting tidbits I've collected over the years at:

    http://thewired.blogs.com/teotwawki/ [blogs.com]

    Under the technology section.

    The military is considerably more technically advanced in terms of airship tech than what is currently being acknowledged. The big, generally slow, often triangular UFO sightings that have taken place over the past decade or more are sightings of next-gen airships. There is some indication that they may employ more exotic propulsion technologies than traditional blimps.

    See:

    DARPA's Project WALRUS

    DARPA's Project ISIS

    The Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency's tests of using airships as platforms for mirrors used in ground-based laser weapon systems

    The timeframe discussed, as well as on-record comments from DARPA that electrostatic propulsion is something that is being investigated for the airships, seem to add weight to the argument that these are in fact considerably more advanced than what many folks may be thinking of.

    There is obviously a lot of commercial use for stratospheric airships. Here's to hoping that this is a tech that may finally be ready to emerge from the black world!

  • This is just a prototype (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kjfitz ( 256432 ) on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @08:12PM (#11099167) Homepage
    I've been seeing articles like this since I was ight years old and digging through my grandfather's ancient collection of Popular Science.

    Another article [businesswire.com] includes comments from the CEO that clearly implies that they don't yet even have a "commercial strategy for deployment."

    • Timothy Huff, CEO of GTEL, stated, "We are receiving increased interests in our Stratellite project on a daily basis. As we previously announced, we are having a summit on January 20 and 21, 2005 to create a commercial strategy for the deployment of the Stratellite.


    Don't hold your breath folks. This is just a, um, trial baloon to get interest before their summit (aka sales presntation.)

  • All other avenues have failed for broadband (Score:4, Funny)

    by zymano ( 581466 ) on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @08:22PM (#11099221)
    Why don't we instead 'ORGANIZE' and fight the political system that is against us with their big corporate cronyism campaigns with traditional protests?

    We should be fighting for Fiber to the curb with municipal broadband and 100 megabit access to the net. We are being pushed around like 'slaves' . I am sick and damn tired of it.

    Doesn't anyone understand that whats going on with broadband is a microcosm of our 'EVIL' political-corporate system.

    When will one person in the media stand up against the cable monopolies and tell them that what they are doing by preventing municipal broadband is wrong.
  • The submitter wrote, "It's basically a blimp that thinks it's a geostationary satellite floating at 65K feet!"

    Ummm, hate to break it to you, but blimps do float - that's not noteworthy. What I think you meant to say is, "It's basically a blimp that thinks it's a geostationary satellite orbiting at 65k feet!". Now that is noteworthy!

    ps: blimps don't think.

  • Sorry, not enough blimps overhead.
    Please try again later.
    We apologize for any inconvienience.
  • At only 70k feet, optical links between blimp and ground and blimp and blimp may be possible. We already have optical links that span distances of around 5 miles IIRC. The upside is higher potential datarates, and the downside is more accurate pointing technology to make sure your beam hits where it's supposed to, although the article does mention that the wind forces expericed up there aren't that strong. And clouds might do a number on you too, but again, at 70k feet, blimp to blimp might be possible.

    • Re:optical links (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Arch_dude ( 666557 )
      Optical is unreliable for stratellite-to-ground connections, due to weather. However, there is effectively no weather at 65K feet, so the stratellites can talk to each other using lasers. These guys are claiming a 500-mile line-of-sight visiblity to the ground, but if you read the fine print, the effective radius to the ground is really only 75 miles. Of coures, 75 Miles is truly impressive. The 500-mile number is still important, because it is a good approximation for the distance at which a stratellite ca
  • It is also perfectly able to hostage a whole metropolitan area when weaponsystems are installed.
    And specially for enlighted dictatorships we have a version called Stratelite-RFID.

    Before you call me a troll, I am just a messenger of the bad side of this potentially great application.
  • This is just another wireless pie in the sky idea to defraud unwitting investors. My parents once invested thousands of dollars in a company that was promising to run wireless from the rooftops of tall buildings in flat cities. The same promises were made, but the crooks running the outfit took the money and ran off. Then there's a laundry list of big name flops in this area, primarily Ricochet networks (wireless from lightpoles), Teledesic (wireless by LEO satellite) and Terabeam (wireless by laser). I

  • This will work (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Allnighterking ( 74212 ) on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @09:12PM (#11099670) Homepage
    At the 65K foot hieght they are talking about They are well above even the highest of storm clouds (50K feet is the top height I was able to find listed by the national weather service.) Also high enough to be above commercial and military flight paths. So weather is not a problem.

    The other thought I've seen expressed concerns lag time With only 65K feet to transgress the lag shouldn't be any greater than wired communications in any single band. Point being that 13 miles isn't that great a distance for radio wave propogation ( 3,00000 km per second in vacuum ) So unlike SatCom where You have to calculate in Phase delay etc there is none of that affecting something at such a low height. Granted in it's initial phase it may not be the ideal gaming platform for some really lag sensitive games for most situations it won't be a concern.

    What does have potential affects can be things like ground clutter (Extreme example turn on your microwave while using 802.11b in a small apartment.) Radio shadow. (tall buildings) etc. However these are things that affect a number of current radio communications systems and the 13M hieght will help. (Thats why the roof of the tallest building in a city is such valuable real estate)

    The other neat thing is that you have a much lower horizon affect (the horizon is farther away from the top of a mountain than at sea level.) etc. I wouldn't expect it to be reliable for symetric communications links (The power down will be easier to create than the power up from a small device like a handheld. So give the db loss over the distance you won't find yourself serving a slashdotable server off of the connection. But for e-mail, blackberry, web surfing or sending off a modified spread sheet to the boss I would expect it would equal normal home DSL without a problem.

    Strange too that no one ever talks about the lag in wired communications even though it is there. I remember as a child talking with my Aunt and Uncle living in Europe at the time on the phone. You really had a problem with knowing when the other person was speaking because of the lag.

    Some useful links
    http://www.cosmic.ucar.edu/related_papers/2002_wu_ cedar_sporadic_e.pdf [ucar.edu]

    http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/SSC/CSER/UOSAT/IJSSE/is sue1/seumahu/seumahu.html [surrey.ac.uk]

    URL:http://www.vigyanprasar.com/ham/IONOS.htm
    • Storm tops on Oklahoma are usually about 50,000 ft but thats the visable could top. I think the top of the nasty weather is known to be above 90,000 on the big storms.
  • I've always found that the fastest way to get data from A to B was to copy it onto a big fat RAID, put the RAID on a truck, drive from A to B, unload and copy. But now we have blimps to do this I'll be able to deliver my data without being bogged down in traffic and to places where they don't have roads.

  • Some points (Score:4, Insightful)

    by maggard ( 5579 ) <michael@michaelmaggard.com> on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @10:08PM (#11100108) Homepage Journal
    1. Get a clue folks: The ping time on this will be from a route 2x~13 miles long. That's not at all comparable to 2x~24,000 miles like a geostationary sat. Heck, considering the cruft many DSL & cable plants foist on folks the extra ~26 miles are nothing, especially when you consider how far most of the other devices you interact with are and how they're routed.

    2. Satellites are expensive 'cause you've got one chance to launch the thing at high velocity, with extreme vibrations, to a location with extreme temperature variations & vacuum welding. By contrast an aerostat is in a relatively benign environment and short of catastrophic failure can be landed & launched at need for repairs & refurbishment.

    3. Furthermore at US$20 million a pop it won't be a big deal to have reserve aerostats constantly on standby, launched or unlaunched. Therefore the reliability costs go down, the insurance costs go down, and everything becomes that much more flexible & cheaper. Indeed it'll probably become SOP to deploy additional aerostats in anticipation of severe weather events, seasonal population gatherings, etc. to supply additional capacity.

    4. Yes, doubtless aerostats will have no-fly buffers placed around them. However the restricted volume is rather small and at their operational altitude there's precious little traffic or possible crowding, nor much likely for the next few decades. Figuring even several hundred over a continent there's still plenty of room at their heights.

    5. These are to be filled with Helium. Non-flammable inert stuff. Airships filled with He have split in half and still been able to land land (well, half did and half crashed.) Covering an airship in rocket fuel and fueling it with explosive hydrogen, that was the ill-fated and entirely dissimilar Hindenburg.

    6. Anything that disrupts the mono or dual-opoly high-speed telecom services most of us have available is a good thing. Indeed aerostats will be more then competitive by offering high speed like DSL/cable but without needing extensive & expensive on-the-ground infrastructure. Even considering redundancy & replacements this is competitive.
    • There's nothing wrong with using hydrogen for this purpose. The Hindenberg did not explode because of the hydrogen. The fabric was a cotton substrate with an aluminized cellulose acetate butyrate dopant.

      Since there are no passengers, and this thing will spend most of its time in the stratosphere, hydrogen is probably a better choice.

      But the astronomers are going to hate it.
    • At 60,000 feet, the flammability of hydrogren is a non-issue, because the pressure is too low to ignite hydrogen - air combustion, even with a spark. Plus, hydrogen gives you a nifty way to provide night-time power: during the night, you use some of your lift gas to run a fuel cell, producing water. During the day, your solar cell regenerates the hydrogen via electrolysis. If there's enough water vapor at that height to bother collecting and condensing it, this even gives you a way to become self-suffici

      • At 60,000 feet, the flammability of hydrogen is a non-issue

        At 60,000 feet sure, but most problems occur when trying to launch and land this sort of aircraft.

        Insuring a ground crew to stand around under a huge bag of helium, even on a slightly windy day, is a lot easier then under a hydrogen one. The same goes for the neighbors: "You'll have to clear out the airport & surrounding area in case we lose control, hit a power line, etc. Oh, and if you come across a downed one of these, STAY AWAY!"

        That a

  • Sorry, don't want to deflate your ideas, but this has been floated half a century ago and is still just hot air...

  • It's 'bout time... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Genda ( 560240 ) <mariet@nOspaM.got.net> on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @10:19PM (#11100204) Journal
    Large scale Airships/platforms can, should, and must be a significant part of the evolving technology for providing;

    1. Global telecommunications
    Smaller airships placed well above normal air traffic, provide a tremendous opportunity for cost effective, high performance, communication services. Other robotic technolgies use most of their energy to keep the airship aloft. By making the vehicle lighter than air, you can use that solar energy collection for providing service, and thrust. That and, a lighter than air vehicle could collect solar energy from much larger surface area making is totally self sustaining, and providing an operational life competitive with a number of satellites at pennies on the dollar in investment cost.

    2. Cargo transport
    Designs for high performance cargo and freight air transport (vehicles capable of hypersonic speeds) has existed for some time now. The opportunities for all people, made possible by large jet powered airship transport, boggle the imagination. The cost savings alone, and the ability to make decisions that turn on a moment, would enable the creation of new industries, while transforming existing ones.

    3. Solar energy collection
    Larger craft placed along a broad equatorial belt could in theory collect tremendous amounts of solar energy. These devices would operate at incredible efficiency, above the weather, and unhampered by significant amounts of obscuring atmosphere, a fleet of several thousand would reduce the amount of sunlight striking the hottest part of the earth, and might also make a dent in global warming. By keeping the ships moving the impact of the vehicles on any one place would be negligible. By using significant amounts of solar power, we could begin to loosen the economic and political stranglehold imposed by fossil fuel consumption, and protect the more critical needs for oil in the long haul (advanced materials, drugs, and organic chemicals.) Finally such craft flying at the right altitude could use a small amount of their power to reseed the ozone layer... this would be a temperary solution until the use of ozone depleting chemicals ends.

    4. High altitude research facilities
    We've spent many billions of dollars for putting telescopes in space and at the tops of mountains. By building ultrahigh altitude research platforms, we should be able to get most of the benefit of space based research, at nearly terrestrial costs. This of course presumes a robust economy in building airships at a reasonable price, but once the process begins, it should become self sustaining within a very few years.

    5. And low cost space launch
    It's possible to lift a significant payload and launch vehicle over a 100,000 feet using a powered airship technology. By lifting payloads this high, we eliminate 90% of the atmospheric drag encountered in carrying hardware into space. By adding solar powered magrail acceleration technology to small and medium sized launch vehicles with scamjet technology, we get a fleet of reuseable spacecraft, that can put significant payloads into orbit, at costs orders of magnitude cheaper than currently encountered. This would open a neorenaissance in space exploration and commerce.

    Lighter than air craft are absolutely essential, in opening up the frontiers of space, and making possible the kinds of transformations in human industry critically needed if all the people of the world are to benefit from human discovery and technology. Rather than inventing better bombs, and promoting a superior theology, it's my contention, that the most powerful countries in the world must begin embracing a larger view of what's possible for humanity. That these countries must begin building an infrastructure for all people to gain benefit, and ultimately achieve the fruits of fulfilling on their potential. The future of people requires that we throw off our shackle, that includes the bondage of gravity, and the limits imposed by antiquated thinking.

    Genda Bendte

    "The meek shall inherit the Earth, the rest of us will go to the stars..." - Isaac Asimov
  • and his marvelous Internet Zeppelin.

    "It works" said Tom, NetCraftily.
  • Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson's new space-tourism company, which has licensed Mr Rutan's technology, already has £800m ($1.5 billion)-worth of ticket reservations, though flights will not begin until 2007.

    Thats right, at about $400,000 a flight that means about 3750 people have already signed up. That comes out to be 1875 flights of the yet to be built space ship ones. I think this is very impressive because even with a flight of ten ships flying 25 times a year (quite unlikely, becuase they w
  • to the term "bloatware" :)
  • Believe it or not, there is (or maybe was) a company planning to do this with piloted jets [com.com] flying around 60,000 feet, instead of higher-altitude unmanned airships. Angel Technologies [angelcorp.com] site doesn't appear to have been updated lately, but says Scaled Composites was manufacturing special planes for them. A fleet of three jets per city would fly in shifts to provide 24-hr service. Can you imagine making a profit on this while fueling and maintaining 3 jets around the clock, in addition to paying the pilots?
  • has anyone else here seen a book by maybe Dean Ing, that had a plot vehicle about using gliders as a cheap and effective means of retransmission. They would drift up on thermals during the day and drift down slowly at night. With a GPS and a low power computer they would stay in the same area at about 65K, well above air traffic. These could stay aloft for years.

  • Size of Texas? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by funkymonkjay ( 840915 )
    Initially, I was impressed. But then I realized, how's my little-iddy-biddy laptop gonna get the power to transmitt WIFI signals to the airship that's potentially half way across Texas? I have hard enough time using my laptop in the back yard without losing signal, let alone half way across the state of Texas.

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