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

To: Rocket Scientist who wrote (4160)	8/7/1998 9:04:00 PM
From: Mr. Adrenaline	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10852

This isn't the first time I've had these guys come across my radar, but I can't in my wildest dreams believe this has a snowball's chance. On the one hand, I think that maybe no one has the guts to tell Alexander M. Haig (yes, that Al Haig) that he has brain damage. On the other hand, I am reminded of (I believe it was ) Goldwyn Meyer saying something like, "Who in the hell wants to hear actors talk"? when he first heard about movies with sound. That said, airplanes shouldn't be their biggest problem, because they are comfortably above any airplane traffic. But there is "wind" even in the stratosphere, where they are hoping to park. So, it will require fuel to stay stationary. This is out of my league, but my gut tells me that they couldn't stay afloat for more than a few days without refueling. So while one is coming down, another has to be going up to keep coverage. And if they want to maintain service, they should count on having a spare available within range of their refueling cycle (i.e. if they can only stay afloat 3 days, they better have a spare within three days away). Then you have to deal with the tiny footprint. On their own web page, they said that they would need two to maintain coverage over big metro areas like Tokyo. So, you need a gazillion for global coverage. Then you need support infrastructure on the ground servicing a region that can't be too big, or else refueling becomes a problem because you have to travel too far to get to the ground support. Yikes! Like you said their team of contractors reads like a who's who. But, if I was Aerospatial, I would be happy to build them a fleet of 1,000 blimps. As long as I got paid in cash, up front! Cheers! Mr A