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Technology Stocks : Loral Space & Communications -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: plechaty who wrote (2156)	3/10/1998 1:12:00 AM
From: Mr. Adrenaline	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 10852

Great day, eh? I want to thank everyone who makes this such a great thread. The information here is so fast paced that I have a hard time keeping up. This was one reason that I dumped my entire portfolio into LOR and GSTRF - I just couldn't devote enough time into keeping up with, say, Cisco or Sun. So, while having all my eggs in one basket is indeed risky, I can also monitor those eggs a lot more carefully than if they were spread out. I was floored by Valueman's post that stated the capacity of Iridum was 1.5 billion minutes per year, while G* was 1 billion minutes per MONTH. No wonder the Iridium folks appeared to have a chip on their shoulder (my interpretation of Valueman's comments). With a overall system cost of about 3 times of G's, and a capacity of 1/10th of G, I would think they (I) would need to charge 30 times (3 divided by 0.1) what G is charging to recover their costs in the same amount of time. This, of course, is a simple minded approach, and assumes both systems are operating at capacity, but it tells me that G* should recover costs and get on to profitability much quicker than Iridium. Anyone see any error in that logic? I wanted to put my spin on a couple of things I have seen mentioned in this thread. Again, I can contribute quite a bit in the way of satellite design, or launch operations, but the business end of things, I rely on the same sources as does everyone else. ***************************************************************** 1- "Flywheel batteries". Great idea. For hybrid electric cars, that is. There is no fundamental reason why flywheel batteries could not work on a satellite, but there are legions of eonomic/political/emotional reasons. My opinion is that flywheel batteries will never fly on a commercial satellite in my lifetime (I am 40 +/- 5 years). That is not to say that it wouldn't fly on, say a space shuttle mission as a proof of concept, and later on the space station. Without launching into a diatribe let me see if a can briefly explain why this is. A commercial satellite's customer wants one thing: RF energy beaming down from space. The bean counters who ultimately paying for the satellite could care less about the satellite itself (as long as it works). They just want that RF energy to sell. As such, there is a very strong impetus to make the satellite work. And the fall back is always heritage - what has worked in the past. The bottom line here is, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". This is very much the mantra of the commercial satellite industry. I have worked on IR&D projects in the past that were a lot less risky than a flywheel battery, and it has taken the better part of a decade to see the project get out of a lab and into the satellite bidding process. The one project I am thinking of has yet to fly, but it looks like it will within the next couple of years. So, flywheel batteries are a great idea. I think they will make automotive history. *********************************************************** 2- Avoiding space junk. Some poor Air Force guy under a big mountain in Colorado has the job of cataloging every piece of "junk" in space that is larger than about 1 foot. I have been on more launch teams than I care to remember, and I have never seen this catalog, nor heard mention of it any way. What we do, however, is look at operational satellites whose orbit we will come close to. And this is less concerned with avoiding an impact than it is concerned with RF signal interference. Commercial satellites just do not carry enough fuel to do avoidance maneuvers. My experience tells me that if two satellites were predicted to impact, unless they were manned, or a national asset like the Hubbell Space Telescope, managers would do nothing. This has never even been close to being an issue, so it is hypothetical conjecture on my part. The reason is that fuel is directly correlated to a satellites lifetime, and the orbit of a satellite is not that precisely known to predict a direct impact. I can't say how precisely known a typical satellites orbit is known, because that might be perceived as proprietary, but it is lot bigger that the volume of the satellites body. CCRYDER correctly stated that a satellites real "enemy" (which is much too harsh of a word, but I use it anyway) is micro-meteorites. Tiny dust particles are omnipresent in the near Earth space environment. Once I saw a satellite receive a minor impairment that could only be reasonably attributed to a micro-meteorite. ********************** Again, thanks to Geoff & Valueman and all others who make this a valuable read. Mr. A.