Sam, et al,
While we're talking off the wall, forget the a.c. power lines, meteors, the moon, and those old-fashioned conventional satellites. What would you say about DIRIGIBLES? I would think that no last mile discussion would be complete without one.
Go to
skystation.com
(You'll love the picture of the dirigible, I assure you)
to see what I'm referring to. Another piece of coverage of this bold story can be found in Wired at:
wired.com
Here's a short clipping from that piece.
Enjoy, Frank
========================================
It's an odd pair: former Reaganite Alexander M. Haig Jr. and transsexual businesswoman Martine Rothblatt. They want to cut the multibillion-dollar satellite industry off at the knees.
<delete>
If Sky Station works - and many are skeptical that it will - it could create "the most impressive broadband wireless communications system available in the world," says Haig.
The Sky Station partners are not alone in their enthusiasm about the potential of the wild blue yonder. There is an excitement about space communications unlike anything since the early '60s, when satellites made international phone calls and TV broadcasts commonplace. Huge parts of the globe - from villages in Sri Lanka and South Korea to much of Africa, Australia, and South America - still have no basic telephone service, let alone advanced telecommunications.
Stringing wires on utility poles in the world's far-flung corners would cost a fortune, perhaps tens of billions of dollars. From the sky, however, satellite beams can sweep over swamps and deserts. More than 100 million people are expected to use cellular telephones worldwide by 2000, up from about 40 million today, according to the Washington, DC-based Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association. Communications companies are salivating.
Right now, on the drawing board at least, the empty reaches of the heavens look darn crowded. Motorola Inc., for example, has raised over US$1 billion to build its $3.3 billion Iridium system, a network of 66 satellites designed to provide wireless telephone service anywhere in the world by 1998. Craig McCaw and Bill Gates are backing a $9 billion project called Teledesic, which in the next few years hopes to develop its own global phone network using 840 satellites. In addition, the Loral Space and Communications Ltd. and Qualcomm are
working on the Globalstar network, a $2.2 billion satellite-phone system with 48 spacecraft that will go into operation in 1998. Meanwhile, American Mobile Satellite Communications, a consortium owned in part by AT&T's McCaw unit, wants to provide wireless phone links through much of North America. And ICO, the London-based satellite company, is also scrambling to assemble a satellite pocket-phone system.
Most of the proposed satellite systems - including those of Motorola, Loral, and Teledesic - are "low Earth orbit" (LEO) systems that use small spacecraft orbiting a few hundred miles up. The Sky Station approach is radically different. Rather than launch a fleet of pricey satellites - which can cost anywhere from $50 million to $200 million each - the company wants to float 250 comparatively inexpensive "platforms" in the stratosphere about 20 miles above terra firma. The 17-ton platforms, which would cost only a few million dollars apiece, will float in the area between jet cruising altitude and where satellites orbit. Each will be suspended from two airships
that look like miniature versions of the Hindenburg dirigible.
The Sky Station approach offers several advantages over rival satellite systems. LEO satellites move from pole to pole. As one satellite heads over the horizon, another takes its place, providing continuous coverage. That means the entire network must be in place before investors see a dime in return - an expensive proposition.
By contrast, the Sky Station platforms - which are 300 feet long and 120 feet wide - do not orbit the Earth. They are geostationary, meaning they stay in place relative to the rotation of the Earth. The key is a nonpolluting corona ion engine. The device takes the ions that occur naturally in the air and converts them into thrust, which is then used to hold the platform stationary in the 15-knot winds occurring at that altitude.
The payoff could be quick. Unlike LEOs, there's no need to build the entire network to get one part working. Pop a Sky Station over New York and you can immediately offer service. The 250 Sky Stations will be placed aloft over a five-year period, at the rate of 50 a year. "Every time we deploy a Sky Station we have a revenue-generating service," Rothblatt says.
The platforms are closer to the Earth than satellites, so radio signals don't travel as far. That means smaller receivers, since they don't require as much battery power. Because the platforms are held up by airships, there's no need to spend big bucks on pricey rockets.
The price tag for the whole shebang is only $800 million, as opposed to the billions rivals like Teledesic and others are talking about. Finally, the Sky Station platforms, unlike satellites, can be positioned to cover only populated areas - instead of, say, oceans - making them more cost-effective. Rothblatt says the company hopes
to generate $5 billion in annual revenue by 2004.
Vacuum cleaners in orbit
Sky Station wasn't hatched as a telecommunications network, though. It began as an environmental project in the mid-1980s, when UCLA physics professor Alfred Wong dreamt of developing a giant, floating vacuum cleaner that would suck up and zap the chlorine molecules that help destroy the ozone layer. Such a device would have to remain aloft for long periods and be able to navigate. So Wong created the corona ion engine.
In late 1988, Wong contacted Harry "Skip" Darlington IV, chair of the Ozone Society, an environmental group in Middleburg, Virginia. It was Darlington, with a balloon pilot's license and extensive flying experience, who introduced the idea of using airships to keep the platforms afloat. Wong liked the proposal, and Darlington signed on as a partner.
But the ambitious plan still needed financing. After several years of development work, Wong and Darlington enlisted R. Moses Thompson, founder and president of Chantilly, Virginia-based Team Technologies Inc., a consulting firm that works with development banks. Moses and his partner, Edward Silansky, were skeptical.
Silansky suggested that Wong and Darlington patent the corona ion engine and form a business, never believing they would.
But in 1994, Wong applied for the patents, and Earth Sciences Technologies International was formed. Silansky joined as CEO; Darlington became chair. Sensing a larger opportunity, the two rejiggered the focus of Sky Station and the idea of a sky-based telecommunications network was born. "There wasn't anyone in the original team who saw the full extent of the telecom potential," says Silansky. "They had been thinking about this solely as an environmental project."
======================================
ps - Sorry, if this was covered before, but I couldn't find anything in these threads that resembled it. And, Oh Yeah! Would someone care to top this one? <grin> |
