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Unmanned Aerial Telecom Relays

Posted by michael on from the it's-a-bird-it's-a-plane dept.

Brussel writes "SkyTower in collaboration with the Japan Ministry of Telecommunications (CRL/TAO) and NASA has successfully completed a series of commercial telecommunications tests -- the world's first from more than 60,000 feet in the stratosphere. The tests, which began three weeks ago, were conducted from Pathfinder-Plus, an unmanned solar-electric aircraft developed by AeroVironment." There's another press release here.

1 of 79 comments (clear)

  1. a little frightening? by tps12 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Is it just me, or is the idea of unmanned machines communicating miles above the Earth kind of scary? With advances in AI and orbital weapons systems (thanks, Dubya), we could soon be living in a world monitored and "protected" by a group superintelligent, armed robots that orbit the Earth. Not a happy thought.

    Anyone else feel like maybe we should hold off on these kinds of experiments?

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