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Solar Powered Helios Plane Destroyed in Test Flight
deglr6328 writes "NASA's solar powered Helios airplane has crashed into the Pacific off the coast of Kauai today during its first test using a regenerative fuel cell power supply. Helios held the record for highest prop propelled plane altitude at 96,863 (set 2 years ago) and was making preparations for a 96 hour continuous flight using its 62,000 solar cells during the day while electrolyzing water into hydrogen and oxygen for use in its fuel cells at night. With the capability to carry 200 lb. to near 100,000 ft. for months on end, Helios was eyed with great anticipation by scientists and RF telecommunications buisnesses alike."
Thus continuing a great tradition of first flights.
If it does not crash and burn it was not a good test.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
...Icarus.
I'm actually rather curious about how it is (er, was) constructed. It looks quite flimsy...
the obligatory obnoxious ebay post....
I always wonder what the engineers feel like after a shitload of work and money that went into these things....are no more.
I mean...the right answer would be...Built a new one! But, you have to get depressed.
-Rob
Appropriate name too.
Anyhoo, it's sad to see such a technological marvel crash into the pacific ocean like it did. Maybe NASA will scoop up the wreckage, figure out what went wrong, and then build another one. It would be great to see what we can learn from Helios in general, and not just on an aviation or RF use either. I mean in the field of solar electric generation, and how even in the Aerospace industry it has it's benefits and drawbacks. I personally would love to be using solar electricity instead of having to pay the electric company, but alas, we can't always get what we want...
KevX45
"Now there's a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky"-Pink Floyd
...because our history is full of science which worked as expected from the start. If it's too complicated to get right the first time, it's not worth doing. Failure depresses people, so only fund guaranteed successes. It's obvious, isn't it?
You gotta admit that the timing is awfully disturbing...
Yet another example of the dangers of solar power.
If God intended for us to use solar airplanes He would never have given us Jet A.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
The ISS isn't dead...we're not the only country in space, and there are others in the game working towards space. And its not like we aren't going back, as theres a tenative launch scheduled for December of this year. I really don't think that anyone could ever stop Americans from spending billions to put men & women in space! The problem with cooling wings like that would be that the temp change would be way to drastic. at hundreds of MPH the machine is burning hot, and you release coolant in there, the particles themselves are drawn together tighter and the stuff becomes brittle.
:)
Just some thoughts...
The material used on the space shuttle is almost like a foam, minus its ability to withstand a blowtorch at 2000C. It doesn't take much to break it...the idea is that it just holds together. It worked for well over a decade - I think it worked just fine
All in the name of science after all. Good thing whatever went wrong happened in the prototype phase, before anything but monetary anticipations were relying on it.
I'm very interested to know exactly what went wrong. From what I briefly read, I'd imagine it was the actual construction which had a problem, not the technology. Unless this was a pre-flight damaged part, this could be valuable information as I'm sure this plane used the latest designs, as other planes will be using.
I suspect a piece of foam.
Man, do I feel bad for that NASA investigation team. Having to spend a large amount of time on the beautiful, garden island of Kaua'i, with its sunny south shore, and lush, tropic north short (with some incredible surfing), not to mention Mt Wai'ale'ale, where it rains 360 days a year and has vegetation that grows no-where else, and the breath-taking Napali cliffs...
I don't envy them.
Wait, yes I do!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
In case you didn't RFTA, the craft was an unmanned, remotely controlled plane. The article blurb didn't make this clear. So don't worry, everybody, nobody got hurt. (Except for maybe a few egos =)
[SIG] It's like putting a moose in the blender -- a recipe for disaster!
It is not suprising that Congress would cut funding for the space program, but it's against the will of the people. I think we can all understand that space is dangerous and people will die. Millions of dollars of equipment can be lost, but we must push forward, for the sake of our species.
As for your point about using a cool liquid to make reentry safer, we don't have to use a cryogenic liquid, water works just fine. Spraying it as a fine mist on the exterior of the craft would cause it to boil, making a neat, little shell. This has been proven to work, and I believe it was going to be used on the Roton concept. Ordinarily, the shuttle returns to earth with as much if not more water than when it left because it is produced in the fuel cells on board.
Not trial and success. There's a reason for that.
The odd 747 full of paying commercial passengers has been known to fall out of the sky as well.
You pick up the pieces, figure out what went wrong, start over and hope to do better next time.
Those who refuse to fail will never achieve any measure of success.
KFG
Putting aside the fubar'd aerodynamics of having a hole in the wing (which I think would be significant), I don't think the nitrogen could offset the friction.
liquid n2 is a couple of hundred degrees below zero, but the plasma that it would have to fight is several thousand degrees. I doubt that the shuttle could carry enough n2 to do the job.
Not to mention that you'd have to have a massive amount of pipes, etc... note really feasible.
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
Two thoughts. First, this is unfortunate, but it is what happens when you push the boundaries. It isn't safe on the cutting edge.
Second, if we want more funding for an agency then a strong case for it must be made. We shouldn't fund NASA just because it is NASA. NASA has done a poor job of creating a vision for what can and should do. It isn't clear to me why they should continue at current budget levels. I wonder if part of the reason is that it has become a government agency that is more focused on sustaining itself then offering a service to the people it serves.
Helios? Sounds more like Daedalus to me.
Am I the only one who heard Roxette to sing "I'm gonna get blitzed for some sex"?
The pens were created by Fisher pens, at the cost of fisher pen inc. and given freely to NASA.
The remotely piloted, one-of-a-kind Helios Prototype crashed off Kauai within the testing area of the Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility
Maybe flying it in a missile test range wasn't such a good idea...
Life is short: void the warranty.
I think this is a great proof of concept. I know it was going to fly for 96 hours, but wouldn't it have been neat to just fly it around the world instead? Just start it up at the crack of dawn ... and crusie around the globe and pass over big cities so people can see it for themselves and watch as a "space craft" is above them.
I dunno I think this thing looks cool and I want one :-)
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
The National Simian Safety Board has permanently suspended travel to the big flat thing under the trees after two terranauts were killed by a lion. A local citizens group protested the allocation of bananas to ground exploration, saying that the bananas would be better spent on grooming and bug removal.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
It's a very flimsy looking aeroplane. A 247 foot wingspan (a longer wingspan than the 747) that bends into a shallow U when aloft, with an all up weight of 1323 pounds (about the same as a light aircraft with no fuel or people in it) it looks like it wouldn't take too much to exceed its structural limits - some heavy wind shear or possibly a control surface stuck out of true.
Website here if you want to learn more.
Oh yeah, and how about a new moderation category?
"-999 Oh my god not those tired old chestnuts AGAIN" for all the fuckwits who have nothing better to do than drag out the tired old jokes every time someone mentions NASA here, as well as all the other pathetic unfunny crap that you losers repeat over and over and over again!
"Information wants to be paid"
IAAA (I am an aerodynamicist), I really don't think the hole (unless it covers a huge portion of the wing) would be a problem that can't be overcome. To really screw the aero up you have to have flow going where it is not supposed to, my suspicion is that the wing would quickly reach an interior pressure equal to the pressure on the outside at the hole, resulting in a very small amount of flow entering or exiting the hole, kind of an automatic gas patch...
That point aside, if they had made it further into the atmosphere without loosing structural integrity of the crew compartment they could have survived. After the Challenger (I think) they came up with a crew escape technique that works by sliding the astronauts down a pole (to clear the wings and such) and parachuting to the surface, but it doesn't work until after entering the atmosphere...
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
I think it's time to reconsider the validity of spending billions on disaster after disaster when so much needs to be taken care of at home.
Ok, let me get this straight. You list some of NASA's failures and ignore all of its successes, and conclude from that analysis that NASA is a big waste of time and money? Hmm...
NASA's budget is 14 GigaUSD per year. Bush's innefectual, for-the-wealthy tax cut is 35 GigaUSD per year. If your true interest is taking care of problems at home like war and famine, you should be attacking the Bush administration, not NASA.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
" It is not suprising that Congress would cut funding for the space program, but it's against the will of the people."
Not in my experience. Sure, this is the case among the more scientifically minded people I know - programmers, physicists, chemists, mathematicians - and a few of the more (how to put this without sounding elitist.. oh, this is slashdot..) intelligent members of the general population. But on the whole the "normal" people I know are all dead set against any form of space exploration. The usual reason is that the governments could spend the money on making life better. When I attempt to point out that they could achieve such aims AND have a decent space program by redirecting as little as a tenth of global military budgets, and if they don't there's a good chance the human race will either be gassed, asterioided, roasted or otherwise placed in the "extinct" category of species at some point in the not-distant future, I either get moaned at for being an idealist of I get the sort of look usually reserved for UFO ethusiasts and people who ask difficult questions at public meetings.
The general populace don't want space - unless it means better satellite reception. Hail the sheeple!
Apparently, in your hurry to post this profundity, you missed the article.
"We were flying at about the 8,000-foot altitude west of Kauai over the ocean and the aircraft simply broke up," said Alan Brown, a spokesman for NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif.
It is very flimsy.
http://use.perl.org
That's a narrow view. I suppose then in ancient times we should have disregarded astronomy, mathematics, and the exploration of science because we had crops to harvest. I suppose now that because we have famine in parts of the world that we should concentrate solely on using existing production methods to feed everyone, and to hell with any future advances that may come as the result of any failure, or chance concept exploration. A number of some of the most useful concepts and inventions have come as mistakes or are borne out of the failure of other experiments. Maybe the solution to world famine, energy problems, some medication or cure for a disease, or even something as everyday useful as post-it notes will come of these billions of dollars of spending you claim to be so useless.
I can't believe i even have to make this argument, as it's appeared more times in slashdot message boards than than i can possibly remember.
Disasters as you call them are probably the most beneficial tool we have to further our knowledge. It is only when you refuse to learn from these failures that you have really failed.
I wonder if they thought they were at 8k meters and tried dropping the altitude, and ran smack into the ocean.. NASA's good at confusing ft and meters
Do you realize that 0m = 0ft = sea leval?
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
Somewhere, the sound of a rocket scientist yelling, "OMG! LAG!!!"
Apparently it's going to beat that ~96000 record the Helios set, but won't be officially eligable because it's not going to take off under it's own power.
The balloon that launches it is fairly impressive too:
"As tall as the Empire State Building, their manned envelope will be the biggest ever flown."
Also, it should be noted that NASA did not build Helios. It was built by a private company with NASA funding. That's like saying that Because someone has funding from DARPA, it's a DARPA project. I saw a documentary on Helios (actually, it was on the head of this company, who is quite an unmanned-flight pioneer, from what I gather.) The designers have also designed mini-planes, including one the size of a deck of cards! This is only a minor setback, as Helios is a smashing success in this field.
We must declare war on adventurist protectionism.
Mars delenda est!
Isn't that a little like saying "With so many kids failing in school, it's obvious why the government is so reluctant to spend more money on improving education..." or "With so many people dying from these new diseases, it's obvious why the government is so reluctant to spend more money on researching a cure..."
You don't launch a plane expecting it to crash, which is to say if it hadn't crashed you're not learning anything, you're just turning the crank. Progress comes not when the expected happens but rather when the unexpected happens, and there are lessons to be learned from the burnt and twisted wrekage of every fallen bird.
On a different topic...
The counter to heat is not cold; the counter is resiliance. The weight of the coolant, the tanks to hold it, the tubes to deliver it, equipment to keep it cool, etc, would add significantly to the weight of the shuttle (which means it takes more fuel to get it into orbit, which means a larger external tank, which means even more styrofoam insulation, etc...). Besides, the shuttle's been in space for a while at that point. LN2 would be more likely to warm it up than cool it down.
No, "Baked Alaska" was the proper strategy here.
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
During the presentation, someone asked about what the commercial applications were for such technology. Apparently, blimp companies are VERY interested in fuel cell technology. Blimps, as they burn off fuel for the steering engines, get lighter. In order to get back down to the ground, they sometimes have to blow out helium which is VERY expensive. But with a fuel cell, the blimp actually gets heavier as flight goes one because they can hang onto the "exhaust" (water) and keep the blimp in equilibrium through the entire flight.
The military is of course interested too because fuel cell powered planes are VERY quiet (electric motor) and the technolgoy will allow for far greater range than batteries.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
And no, the answers to all the world's problems are not necessarily in space, unless Tang and pens that can write upside down can stop war and famine.
So I suppose that unless something can stop war and famine, it isn't worth doing? I mean...we only got tons of great medical technology from the space program...who needs MRIs and CAT scans? They don't stop war and famine! Not to mention the interesting effects on nerve regeneration that happen in space, I mean...allowing nerve-damaged people the opportunity to feel or see or hear again...that's worthless, because it doesn't stop war and famine. Of course, by that logic, nothing in the history of the planet has ever been worth anything because we yet have war and famine to this day. Perhaps being able to have a seperate planet for each elitist clique that wants one can help end war, and the abundance of resources could help end famine...of course, it will take time, cost money, and won't directly benefit joshua404 right away...so it's worthless.
http://xkcd.com/386/
Well, I agree about how the post-launch Columbia decision was handled, but I have to disagree on all the others.
Anything worth doing has some risk involved, and while engineers and scientists will strive to reduced those risks as much as possible, they cannot be eliminated entirely. NASA is made of of human beings, not perfect automatons whose godlike prowess and forsight eschew all possibility of failure. They're people, flesh and blood, they have families and hopes and dreams, just like the rest of us. And they make mistakes, sometimes boneheaded mistakes, just like the rest of us. Judge as harshly as *you* would like to be judged...
One of my physics professors told me once that if you do not fail everyone once in a while, you are not really pushing the limits of your capabilities. Do I want NASA to play it safe and do the easy things, or do I want NASA to push the envelope and be a driver for new technologies? For the money being spent, I want the latter.
Moving the smarmy comments of Tang and pens aside, I think many miss the point about what NASA is for. NASA is about expanding our body of knowledge: about our world, our universe and about ourselves. The lessons of the Challenger accident have served as a cautionary tale for risk-managers in all industries (I had a case study on it in a Financial and Managerial Accounting class last fall, or all places). I'm sure the Columbia accident will bring some new insights as well.
It is naive to think that diverting the budget of NASA somewhere else is going to eliminate war and famine. Those things are caused by greed and malice in the human soul, and cannot be healed by adding money.
In science, if you demand perfection, don't expect any advancement.
Feel free to mod me "-1 - Angry Jerk".
> With failures like this mounting up, it's obvious why the government is so reluctant to spend more money on NASA projects. We need a victory of some sort to convince the government to give NASA the money they need.
/.ters are pro- space exploration in general. And there's a lot of ppl like us who don't necessarily visit /. everyday. Most people under 35 (may be off +-5 years) are in one way or another in touch with tech, and "get it" when it comes to why space is important, unlike trying to explain it to someone who's 80 and has never left their home state.
I think we first need to get The Chimp and his people out of office. As long as we have greedy people in office NASA won't get $$$, since that money can be spent on semi-automatic guns for "hunting."
I would venture to say that most of us
Problem with people like us is that we're pretty lazy when it comes to do anything to speak up for ourselves. Some of us are deeply into tech (i.e. kernel hacking) but completely miss out on making a political stand of any kind. Until that changes, we'll have more Chimps in the White House that will cut NASA's funding.
Must-not-watch TV!
Posted AC because I do not have a /. account.
IAARS. (I Am A Rocket Scientist.)
One question that has plagued me since the destruction of Columbia: If there wouldn't have been extreme heat going into the wing, would the crew still be alive? I'm no aerodynamics expert, but isn't it possible, at the point of entry into the atmosphere, when temperatures start to rise, that the shuttle release some liquid nitrogen or some other super-coolant in some manner as to keep homeostasis of the vehicle?
Upon reentry, the Orbiter (the white and black plane-lookin' portion of the Shuttle), is carrying no cryofuels. They are stored in the large red-orange External Tank, and used up during launch. The Shuttle uses LOX and LH2, both of which are f'nasty to deal with and are economical only to generate the immense thrust necessary to achieve orbit. While in orbit, the Orbiter maneuvers using (relatively) small hydrazine thrusters. N2H4 is also f'nasty, but somewhat less so than either LOX or LH2. NASA's Shuttle Basics website provides a good nontechnical overview of mission stages.
The Orbiter doesn't maintain homeostasis during reentry. The bottom gets really, really, really hot. Because the Orbiter is essentially falling back to Earth, the crew wants to bleed off as much speed as possible. By taking advantage of friction with the air, the Orbiter can slow down, and not be travelling at Mach 20 or so when it lands. It is a tricky balancing act among speed, attitude, and heat--the tiles can only absorb so much thermal energy, the crew has only aerodynamic control of the Orbiter's attitude, and there is a whole lot of kinetic energy that needs somewhere to go.
From my understanding of the physics of reentry, and the information available about the Columbia breakup, I do not think that the only factor was heat. The speeds at which spacecraft travel during reentry are so far beyond the speed of sound that aerodynamicists classify them not as supersonic, but hypersonic. The hypersonic regime (generally > M5) is somewhat counterintuitive. Friction with air generates enough heat at reentry speeds (M20 and up) to vaporize graphite and cause dissociation in N2 and O2 molecules, creating an ion cloud around the spacecraft.
We would not be able to travel at hypersonic speeds if not for a quirk of geometry. If you look at a supersonic vehicle, such as the X-1, you will notice that the leading edges of the wings and fuselage are pointed and form very sharp angles. This causes the shockwave formed by supersonic speed to break cleanly around the vehicle, which is good for aerodynamics. If you look at a hypersonic vehicle, like the Orbiter, you will notice a blunt, rounded leading edge and nosecone, which causes the shockwave to separate from the craft, forming a cushion of air. This insulates the Orbiter somewhat from the heat of reentry.
If that rounded profile is compromised, in Columbia's case by loss of tiles on the leading edge, the shock will break as in a supersonic craft, allowing both heat to transfer to the wing, and also subjecting the Orbiter to the considerable kinetic forces generated by air resistance. Heat did not tear Columbia apart. Her own speed did.
-Carolyn Lachance
I simply can't understand this line of reasoning. Bush cut income, estate, and dividend taxes, targeting the cuts disproportionately at the wealthy investor class. He did not cut payroll taxes. Certainly people who pay payroll taxes are also "PAY[ing] TAXES", are they not? And isn't it true that payroll taxes generate a huge surplus in the social security trust fund, while income taxes don't pay anywhere near enough into the general account to pay for basic governmental services? Are we not running a deficit?
Now you may argue that payroll taxes are collected strictly to pay out social services and are not collected for general revenue or spent on general services, as such they shouldn't be cut. However, this isn't the case. In fact the HUGE SURPLUS of $200B/yr is siphoned off to reduce our general account deficit. In fact, the currently stated $450B (4.5%GDP) deficit would actually be $650B (6.5%GDP) were it not for the surplus generated from payroll taxes. Note that payroll tax collections are capped at $86K/yr, meaning that any income above $86K/yr is not taxed; this is called a regressive tax because collections don't continue linearly across all income streams. The rich pay much less proportionally for payroll taxes than do you or I.
Realize that general revenues pay for basic government services such as the military, infrastructure (roads, bridges, airports, rail, etc), NASA, and government overhead - NOT social services. So, I wonder how anyone can defend a tax cut that reduces revenue from a general account which is already $650B/yr in deficit? And the gall of claiming that it is done on the grounds that income taxes are somehow 'real' while payroll taxes don't matter, when it is the payroll tax surplus which covers 1/3rd of our current account deficit.
Whatever you may think of the rationality of providing social services (I support them, you may not, either opinion is legitimate political debate), certainly you agree that general services slated for payment through income taxes should collect enough on their own to pay for those services. We should not be running a 6.5% GDP deficit (or even a 4.5% GDP deficit) while at the same time cutting the very taxes slated to pay for those services. That the current administration claims to cut these taxes for the people who "PAY TAXES", while at the same time cutting no taxes for those who pay a regressive tax, is simply disingenuous and offensive.
And I haven't even begun discussing our current foreign trade deficit, which is another +5% of GDP. Frankly, if this continues Bush's administration may well take America over the brink into bankruptcy. We're already printing money to prevent 'deflation', the Treasury Department has signaled it's willingness to let the dollar continue to depreciate in value against other foreign currencies, and our manufacturing base is running 1/4 idle.
IMO, these tax cuts are a policy mess. Bush and the fed are 'pushing on a string' with their policy blunders by flooding the investment streets with money while there's nothing left to invest in. We should be pushing the money down to the individual low income tax payers to stir consumption, not further investment and development with no buyers in sight.
Cheers,
--Maynard
Fortunately, most "/.ters " aren't belligerent, abrasive fools like you.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
That's a very reckless and naive belief. When you move into a house, do you trash it and ruin it and then simply flee to the next available house? Our maturity as a species depends on our ability to gain wisdom through maintaining our own home and then work on expanding to new homes, not burning our current home to the ground and spreading on to the next suitable habitat for us to exploit and ruin.
IANARS,BIKSWA (I Am Not A Rocket Scientist, But I Know Some Who Are)
The amount of fuel required to slow the Orbiter to that degree is prohibitive both in terms of weight and storage. You'd need about the same amount of fuel to slow the craft as it took to accelerate it to the required velocity to achieve orbit.
And the human body has a terminal velocity of around 130 mph - not enough to generate significant heat from friction.
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
" And the next one won't be as flimsy."
Don't know about that. If I remember correctly Helios was built mainly from carbon fiber. It used A few main Carbon fiber peices and stretched fabric material over them. The plan flexed a great deal, it had to or it would snap. If anything it might have failed because it didn't have enough flex. When the thing flies it looks almost like a U though not as extreme. When it hit turbulance it flexed all over so as to not break. If I had to guess the hooked up something wrong like a bolt and it broke in rough air. Or maybe they didn't account for the pressure differance with altitude for the fuel cell system on some part and it burst and that was the end of the game. This would be easy to do since people take atmospheric pressure for granted and only think about their hoses from the standpoint of the inside pressure. remove 15 psi/ 101 KPa from the outside and your relitive presure goes up and kaboom. The would have used as light of stuff as possible so they might not have had enough margin or error. Even on one little overlooked part. It only takes a mistake on one part. Or maybe they simply blew up the fuel cell stack, or something froze and cracked.
Shit happens.
Call me naive, but isn't the fact that physical fuel disappears once it is used make it attractive for planes, because it decreases the weight as fuel is used? Why did anyone think that putting big fat heavy batteries (albiet hydrogen-based) would be a good idea for planes?
Because conventional fuels aren't renewable in-flight.
How is a vehicle that renews its own fuel by solar power, enabling 24x7 flight without refueling, not better than a plane that has to be land or be refueled every so often?
>IAARS. (I Am A Rocket Scientist.) ...
>
>The Shuttle uses LOX and LH2, both of which are f'nasty to deal with and are economical only to
>generate the immense thrust necessary to achieve orbit. While in orbit, the Orbiter maneuvers
>using (relatively) small hydrazine thrusters. N2H4 is also f'nasty, but somewhat less so than
>either LOX or LH2.
???
The OMS uses hydrazine / nitrogen tetroxide, which is way, WAY more nasty than LOX / LH2.
LOX / LH2 are cryogens, and contact with them will give you frostbite. Hydrazine is carcinogenic and toxic, but nitrogen tetroxide is roughly as poisonous as the best war gasses from WWI. Plus, it has very low surface tension, so when it spills, it spreads extremely rapidly, which causes it to vaporize even faster than the already high vapor pressure would indicate. The various oxides of nitrogen are famous for the "BFRC" ( big red cloud ) that results from spills, which you should run away from very fast.
John Carmack
Let me tell you as a RF technician for a national wireless cellular company that there is NO WAY that 200lbs. comes EVEN CLOSE to what you need for equipment. A minimum of 1k lbs. will have to be up there. Also, not to mention that the picture that that company shows with the plane supposedly transmitting down to that entire city would have to carry an assload of frequencies. Need for more frequencies = Need for more equipment. There's no way that plane could carry enough cellular site radios to transmit/receive to/from all the users a city the size depicted in that picture! Not even close. Floating planes transmitting to customers is no where even close to becoming a reality.
Then there's one last problem. The problem of risk. The risk of having a cellular shelter go up in flames is extremely low. The risk of having a high tech plane fall out of the sky for whatever reason (wind shear, fuel out, human error) and damaging your $13,000 a piece cellular radios is extremely high... (compared to that of traditional methods of transmission). This cost is only that of the actual radios. There's much more cost and weight associated with a cell site.
If you were the CEO of a cellular company, you'd have to be a complete friggin' moron to think this has any chance of becoming real anytime relatively soon.
Wherever you go, there you are.