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Internet-By-Airship Scheduled For Trial Next Month
Reader ScrewTivo points to this Economist article on one of my favorite potential delivery means for high-speed Net access: stratosphere-dwelling airships. This version, from Sanswire Networks, is dubbed a "Stratellite," -- and one is scheduled to launch next month. As the submitter writes, "It's basically a blimp that thinks it's a geostationary satellite floating at 65K feet!"
Brings new meaning to connection is down ;-)
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I really hope this becomes a popular alternative for satellites as a provider of these services. This has got to cost significantly less, and hopefully these saving will be passed on to consumers.
I'm in Atlanta, how do I become a beta tester :)
Support: This is Gas Bag Networks, how my I help you? Customer; Yeah, the Internet went down. Support: Can you describe the problem? Customer: The &!#!&#$ blimp crashed into my livingroom!
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Dubbed a Stratellite(TM)
Just try using that word outside casual conversation!
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
With all that helium everybody is going to sound like the Chipmunks.
Satellite is even more expensive and you can forget gaming or uploading.
Imagine a hurricane sucking up a few of those. "I may not have power, but dammit I've got 98% signal strength!"
has the technology to put geostationary satelites at just 0 mt. from the ground!!!
I really don't think this will be all that good. First of all, I don't know a whole lot about satellite transmission, but I know it's a lot slower than standard internet technology.
Combine this lack of competitive speed with the fact that your network is relying on floating things 13 miles in the air for its reliability. Even if this is no less safe than a server sitting in a room (which I seriously doubt) someone will still have to have a physical presense sooner or later to fix something or install new hardware.
Also, how much is this going to cost? Tons and tons of anything, including helium, isn't cheap. Also, as I mentioned before, maintenance will be a real pain. Not only will it be a real pain, but it will cost a great deal of money to perform. Even if your server only needs maintenance once every two years, that still adds up. This will equate to higher costs for end users.
Furthermore, I think the reliability will be rather low. I don't know why, but I just have a bad feeling about tons of servers and equipment suspended in the air.
Maybe my misgivings are unfounded, but I really don't think this will fly. (pun not intended.) I like the idea, but I think it will be more productive, cheap, and reliable to use lots of inexpensive 802.11 equipment.
Le français vous intéresse?
Will we stratellites in place as an alternative for when backhoe incidents occur? And if so, when?
Not that it matters. Just curious.
You are going about it completely the wrong way. DSL and cable DO NOT work great. There is a limited capaticity on any line or wired network. The wires can only take in so much bandwidth. Therefore in populated areas you have to install Fiber Optic networks just to maintain highspeeds. The reality is we need better technology because populations are constantly increasing and cable networks are constantly becoming bigger. A lot of people see this in the fact that they have constant downtimes because of it. I for example lose internet at primetimes very often due to high connectivity. Wireless airships remove this. Then its just radio waves being sent back and forth and it is less costly then satellites which are already being used too much according to some. The world is going wireless is what I keep telling everyone. You should expect to see wired networks declining until they are gone because they are so limited. The question is what affect will all the radio traffic have on the world. That I do not know and it would be interesting to see if anyone finds or has found what happens with increased radio traffic in areas. We might be setting ourselves up for an interference nightmare in 20 years or so where nothing is usuable because there is so much clutter. Essentially filling our air full of radio waves until we make the air into a traffic nightmare equivalent to rush hour traffic in cities.
Is that 65,000 or 66,560 feet?
Yeah, I think maybe you are just a naysayer... DSL and cable work great... if you can get them. I'm not just talking about 'less metropolitan' areas, as you call them. There are plenty of places where you can't get DSL (e.g. pair-gain) or cable (houses just aren't wired). In Sydney, for example - just read one of the many despairing articles on www.whirlpool.net.au forums. Even wifi (for example www.unwired.com.au) leaves lots of black spots. This is a way of giving an entire city access in one shot. Let me also add that this kind of addition to the broadband arsenal gives more choice - and more choice is good, right? :)
As for satellite, if you had RTFA then you would have seen that this idea is much less expensive and more reusable than satellites.
Does anyone know of plans to make a rail-gun that can shoot 65,000 ft. (No relation to this article, just asking)
finally some competition for the free-range antennalope:-p
DANGER! 10,000 Ohms
At first I thought it was one of those "IP over carrier pigeons" things that geeks do when they get really bored...
Until a extremely efficient means of launching satellites happens (Space Elevators), these will be ideal as it allows less expensive launches, the ability to repair and update equipment easily and the option of redistribution of resources. "Hey bill, were getting a lot of traffic on the east side." "Ok, we will send over another blimp." Just I hope that the control system doesn't piggyback on the network connection. I don't want hear about hackers cracking these things and taking them for joy rides.
Diplomacy is the art of saying, 'Nice doggie!' till you can find a rock.-- Wynn Catlin
I don't know if this would be an issue, but wouldn't a giant wifi network f*** over the smaller wifi networks around the city? Like those that use DHCP for client machines.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
I have been following stratospheric airship technology for years, and discuss some of the interesting tidbits I've collected over the years at:
http://thewired.blogs.com/teotwawki/
Under the technology section.
The military is considerably more technically advanced in terms of airship tech than what is currently being acknowledged. The big, generally slow, often triangular UFO sightings that have taken place over the past decade or more are sightings of next-gen airships. There is some indication that they may employ more exotic propulsion technologies than traditional blimps.
See:
DARPA's Project WALRUS
DARPA's Project ISIS
The Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency's tests of using airships as platforms for mirrors used in ground-based laser weapon systems
The timeframe discussed, as well as on-record comments from DARPA that electrostatic propulsion is something that is being investigated for the airships, seem to add weight to the argument that these are in fact considerably more advanced than what many folks may be thinking of.
There is obviously a lot of commercial use for stratospheric airships. Here's to hoping that this is a tech that may finally be ready to emerge from the black world!
how many birds are these going to kill. We sure don't want this to be like with the wind generators!!
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
Another article includes comments from the CEO that clearly implies that they don't yet even have a "commercial strategy for deployment."
Don't hold your breath folks. This is just a, um, trial baloon to get interest before their summit (aka sales presntation.)
The system is down!!!
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Much lower latencies. Internet access satellites are located in geostationary orbit, sharing the same machines basically as the TV satellites (that's why they're operated by the same companies). Geostationary is like hundreds of milliseconds round trip, which makes certain applications (read: games) completely useless. Low Earth orbit satellites are just a hundred or so miles up, and have much lower latencies, but are extremely expensive to launch and track (remember Teledesic? didn't think so).
The nice thing about blimps is that (1) they're easy to recover for repairs (they don't burn up when you try and "deorbit" them), and (2) they have even lower latency than LEOs. The main disadvantage is having to deal with the weather and gas leakage, but putting them up in the stratosphere eliminates weather as a problem, and gas leakage is a lot cheaper at the low pressures in the upper atmosphere than anything involving orbital launches.
Airships can stay up almost indefinitely, and you wouldn't have the latency issues that plague satellites...
Satellite works great if you have $10 million to invest in one. Until then, blimps are cheaper.
You'll notice satellite service is quite a bit more expensive and slower than DSL/cable.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Satellite works great? I take you you don't like to telecommute, play games, use voice over IP, or just about anything else that depends on latency. Satellites give you high ping times because light takes a long time to travel up and back down. These airships are high enough that the problem won't vanish entirely, but they are far lower than satellites, and the ping times should be reasonable enough to make applications like the ones I mentioned usable. This is an enormous improvement for users in rural areas.
:P, fixing things that aren't broke is what the technology industry is all about.
Aside from the fact that it IS broke, and no I won't pardon your insolence, stupidity, or lack of logic
At the very least, if this fails you'll be able to get good quality airships for cheap at auction. Imagine what you could do with one of these, it's perfect for up and coming supervillains. These things are suitable for heavy lifting and transport duties, allowing you to carry enough supplies to life off for months and even deploy helicopters. The location gives you excellent sensor range even if you're positioned over international waters, as well as making this an ideal missile launching platform.
It becomes even more compelling when you build a fleet of airships. With enough redundancy to withstand attacks and keep all the bases covered regarding supplies, fuel, deployable vehicles, and armaments, these airships would make a very suitable mobile base of operations. Perfect for those who can't be sequestered in a remote island lair.
Most important of all, just imagine how cool it would be! Put on some classical aviator outfits, go forth onto the bow, cast against the panorama of your harsh azure domain. Astride an entire world, master of all you survey, the piercing frigidity of the howling wind is surpassed only by your cold, unforgiving glare. No mere ant below can hope to contend with one to whom Olympus is but a speck, one who has usurped the very domain of Zeus himself. Count your days, hopeless mortals, for by this iron hand the sky is falling!
Why don't we instead 'ORGANIZE' and fight the political system that is against us with their big corporate cronyism campaigns with traditional protests?
We should be fighting for Fiber to the curb with municipal broadband and 100 megabit access to the net. We are being pushed around like 'slaves' . I am sick and damn tired of it.
Doesn't anyone understand that whats going on with broadband is a microcosm of our 'EVIL' political-corporate system.
When will one person in the media stand up against the cable monopolies and tell them that what they are doing by preventing municipal broadband is wrong.
Ummm, hate to break it to you, but blimps do float - that's not noteworthy. What I think you meant to say is, "It's basically a blimp that thinks it's a geostationary satellite orbiting at 65k feet!". Now that is noteworthy!
ps: blimps don't think.
"Lord, grant that I may always be right, for Thou knowest that I am hard to turn" -- A Scots-Irish prayer
Sorry, not enough blimps overhead.
Please try again later.
We apologize for any inconvienience.
not better....but cheaper.
what?
I know its the "economist" and all, but must everyone in the media fail science 101!?
"At such high altitude, above the jet stream, the reduced air density means that the wind will be about 20 times weaker than at ground level, enabling the airship's solar-powered electric motors to keep it stationary with very little effort. "
Except that the reduced air density *also* gives the motors less to work with.
"The craft's aerodynamic shape not only reduces drag but also generates lift when facing into the wind..."
What good is lift when the craft doesn't need to exert any effort to keep itself aloft in the first place? Unless they're counting on wind and launching with less helium than would otherwise be req'd.
At only 70k feet, optical links between blimp and ground and blimp and blimp may be possible. We already have optical links that span distances of around 5 miles IIRC. The upside is higher potential datarates, and the downside is more accurate pointing technology to make sure your beam hits where it's supposed to, although the article does mention that the wind forces expericed up there aren't that strong. And clouds might do a number on you too, but again, at 70k feet, blimp to blimp might be possible.
Short answer : No Long answer: Using the dimensions of the airship (245 x 145 x 87 feet), the altitude (~65,000 ft), and some very basic trig., the airship would be 13 X 7.6 X 4.6 seconds of arc. if you were standing directly underneath it. Since the human eye has a resolution of roughly 2 mintes of arc, and this is far larger than the angular size of the airship, you wouldn't see it.
"Me fail English, that's unpossible." --Ralphie
I had a cox cable connection that was strung too low over an alley, and periodically some sort of truck would pull the cable down. I would call the cable company, and go through the whole rigamarole you describe, before, finally, getting someone who could understand that the physical cable was lying in my back yard and no amount of fiddling would make it work. To get those dingbats to understand that the cable was PHYSICALLY DOWN and nothing they could do would fix it took hours.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
It is also perfectly able to hostage a whole metropolitan area when weaponsystems are installed.
And specially for enlighted dictatorships we have a version called Stratelite-RFID.
Before you call me a troll, I am just a messenger of the bad side of this potentially great application.
so.. say the server's in boston and you're in miami,
1500 mi*2 = 2,414 kilometer * 2 = 4,828 kilometers
4,828 kilometers + 40 km = 4,868 km or a difference of 0.8%
(40 kilometers) / the speed of light = 0.13 milliseconds
so it probably won't be a significant amount of lag at all.
--
all figures calculated using google.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I bet you could if you tried...
In Soviet Russia Blimp Crashes YOU!
err... wait...
(Apparently I can't resist either)
Sanswire networks? Oh, fuck.
The same company that provides the craptastic Internet service in my university's dorms (where I spent an ungodly 4 years), where service was frequently unusable the first week or two of every quarter, where improved bandwidth was perpetually around the corner, where nobody knew what was going on, where the network administration and university housing routinely denied any problems, even when it was obvious to the students that something was wrong? (As a side note, the Internet access would occasionally go out on my floor in my wing of the dorm I was living in last year. To fix it, I went into the janitor's closet, which doubled as the wiring closet for network, telephone, and cable, and unplugged the router and plugged it back in (hard reset). Wait for equipment for reboot, and voila, service restored. Sad. The equipment was housed in a nice locked cabinet, but two power cords exited the cabinet and plugged into the sole outlet in the closet. Ugh.)
The same company that provides the cable modem service for the town I live in (in partnership with the local cable company), complete with high prices, low service, intermittent outages, blocked ports, and other inane policies? (I ended up choosing DSL, even though it's a tad more expensive, it's a hell of a lot more reliable than the crap service all my cable modem-using friends get.)
I expect this project to crash an burn (literally), especially if the local network admins are in charge...
CyberDave
(For those who care, I'm speaking of Eastern Washington University and Cheney, WA.)
This is just another wireless pie in the sky idea to defraud unwitting investors. My parents once invested thousands of dollars in a company that was promising to run wireless from the rooftops of tall buildings in flat cities. The same promises were made, but the crooks running the outfit took the money and ran off. Then there's a laundry list of big name flops in this area, primarily Ricochet networks (wireless from lightpoles), Teledesic (wireless by LEO satellite) and Terabeam (wireless by laser). I cringe at the thought of all the gullible people who went out and bought their stock today on the hype alone.. .
/. must be able to estimate the amount they can generate from a football-field-sized solar panel array, and compare it to how much power is needed. My guess is that it will be meager at best.
The FAQ on their website talks about no substantive issues. One critical factor is the amount of power available to the transponders, and this is not mentioned at all. Someone on
Another critical factor is latency. You are going to add 13 miles up and 13 miles down through clouds, rain, snow, sleet, and pollution. Wireless signals over 900 Mhz don't travel well through water, and can even be blocked by heavy tree foliage. So there goes 3G, unless you only want fair weather 3G. One thing is for sure, the latency is going to be worse than my cable modem, and it is going to have more periods of dead connection. Those who have had both satellite TV and cable TV will know what I'm talking about.
Latency is intolerable for the kind of high-bandwidth applications they are promising. Wherever you can get a wired connection, it would be preferred even it if it is a little more expensive. That leaves the potential market for "Stratellites" service to only those fringe situations where wired is unavailable. This is a far smaller market than the promises they imply in their so called "market research" page that talks about millions of Internet subscribers.
I see more pitfalls than possibilities.
At the 65K foot hieght they are talking about They are well above even the highest of storm clouds (50K feet is the top height I was able to find listed by the national weather service.) Also high enough to be above commercial and military flight paths. So weather is not a problem.
_ cedar_sporadic_e.pdf
s sue1/seumahu/seumahu.html
The other thought I've seen expressed concerns lag time With only 65K feet to transgress the lag shouldn't be any greater than wired communications in any single band. Point being that 13 miles isn't that great a distance for radio wave propogation ( 3,00000 km per second in vacuum ) So unlike SatCom where You have to calculate in Phase delay etc there is none of that affecting something at such a low height. Granted in it's initial phase it may not be the ideal gaming platform for some really lag sensitive games for most situations it won't be a concern.
What does have potential affects can be things like ground clutter (Extreme example turn on your microwave while using 802.11b in a small apartment.) Radio shadow. (tall buildings) etc. However these are things that affect a number of current radio communications systems and the 13M hieght will help. (Thats why the roof of the tallest building in a city is such valuable real estate)
The other neat thing is that you have a much lower horizon affect (the horizon is farther away from the top of a mountain than at sea level.) etc. I wouldn't expect it to be reliable for symetric communications links (The power down will be easier to create than the power up from a small device like a handheld. So give the db loss over the distance you won't find yourself serving a slashdotable server off of the connection. But for e-mail, blackberry, web surfing or sending off a modified spread sheet to the boss I would expect it would equal normal home DSL without a problem.
Strange too that no one ever talks about the lag in wired communications even though it is there. I remember as a child talking with my Aunt and Uncle living in Europe at the time on the phone. You really had a problem with knowing when the other person was speaking because of the lag.
Some useful links
http://www.cosmic.ucar.edu/related_papers/2002_wu
http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/SSC/CSER/UOSAT/IJSSE/i
URL:http://www.vigyanprasar.com/ham/IONOS.htm
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
I've always found that the fastest way to get data from A to B was to copy it onto a big fat RAID, put the RAID on a truck, drive from A to B, unload and copy. But now we have blimps to do this I'll be able to deliver my data without being bogged down in traffic and to places where they don't have roads.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
26,000 miles one way, makes for a round trip distance of 52,000 miles. Compare that to 26 miles round trip, and you have 1/2000th of whatever portion of the lag is due to sol. Figure that of 1000ms, 950 of that is sol, and 50ms is hardware switching on the ground, backbone access times, etc. So, this will be comparable to any other lower-end broadband... DSL, cable, etc.
It oughtta be nice.
Cable and DSL are a duopoly to some areas and a monopoly in others. I still think they are Way over priced due to this. Their coverage is still lacking in a lot of areas. There are still some fairly affluent areas 25 miles from Atlanta that are not covered.
I totally agree that cable is overpriced(i pay something like $39 a month) but it is indeed a monopoly, and there's little we can do about it, even putting a big ambiguous blimp in the sky...I just don't see this costing less or having more benefits......
well, until we run out of helium that is. People, you should be concerned about He usage. It's a limited resource and there's not much of it.
Well, couldn't one just use hydrogen? It's not like there are any power lines up that high. Also, wouldn't the air density that high be low enough to hinder any combustion? The you'd just have to make sure that they were safe when they were launched (do it in a remote area).
Let us also remember that these 65,000 ft airships can also be used for surveillance. The U.S. military apparently has a black program using these as well.
Nyekulturniy... Proudly confusing readers and editors since 1981!
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
it will be the developing world were this will come into its own , we already have cable / fiber in our major population centres , imagine pleaces like central africa were you could theorecticly provide service to the entire area, this is absolutly unreal in terms were this could take us
I find the indea of this technology is wonder, but I must question some of the aspects of it. It is most certainly going to be a slight nightmare for people interested in astronomy, taking nightly photos and thinking that they've discovered a new asteroid only to find out that it's a blimp.
I also believe that there might be a few times where winds or at least atmospheric "currents" might drag several blimps to cluster together and create visible specks in the sky, or maybe even eclipse the Sun.
Ah, you found me!
Sorry, don't want to deflate your ideas, but this has been floated half a century ago and is still just hot air...
Oh well, what the hell...
Just when I thought I had enough to do!
Large scale Airships/platforms can, should, and must be a significant part of the evolving technology for providing;
1. Global telecommunications
Smaller airships placed well above normal air traffic, provide a tremendous opportunity for cost effective, high performance, communication services. Other robotic technolgies use most of their energy to keep the airship aloft. By making the vehicle lighter than air, you can use that solar energy collection for providing service, and thrust. That and, a lighter than air vehicle could collect solar energy from much larger surface area making is totally self sustaining, and providing an operational life competitive with a number of satellites at pennies on the dollar in investment cost.
2. Cargo transport
Designs for high performance cargo and freight air transport (vehicles capable of hypersonic speeds) has existed for some time now. The opportunities for all people, made possible by large jet powered airship transport, boggle the imagination. The cost savings alone, and the ability to make decisions that turn on a moment, would enable the creation of new industries, while transforming existing ones.
3. Solar energy collection
Larger craft placed along a broad equatorial belt could in theory collect tremendous amounts of solar energy. These devices would operate at incredible efficiency, above the weather, and unhampered by significant amounts of obscuring atmosphere, a fleet of several thousand would reduce the amount of sunlight striking the hottest part of the earth, and might also make a dent in global warming. By keeping the ships moving the impact of the vehicles on any one place would be negligible. By using significant amounts of solar power, we could begin to loosen the economic and political stranglehold imposed by fossil fuel consumption, and protect the more critical needs for oil in the long haul (advanced materials, drugs, and organic chemicals.) Finally such craft flying at the right altitude could use a small amount of their power to reseed the ozone layer... this would be a temperary solution until the use of ozone depleting chemicals ends.
4. High altitude research facilities
We've spent many billions of dollars for putting telescopes in space and at the tops of mountains. By building ultrahigh altitude research platforms, we should be able to get most of the benefit of space based research, at nearly terrestrial costs. This of course presumes a robust economy in building airships at a reasonable price, but once the process begins, it should become self sustaining within a very few years.
5. And low cost space launch
It's possible to lift a significant payload and launch vehicle over a 100,000 feet using a powered airship technology. By lifting payloads this high, we eliminate 90% of the atmospheric drag encountered in carrying hardware into space. By adding solar powered magrail acceleration technology to small and medium sized launch vehicles with scamjet technology, we get a fleet of reuseable spacecraft, that can put significant payloads into orbit, at costs orders of magnitude cheaper than currently encountered. This would open a neorenaissance in space exploration and commerce.
Lighter than air craft are absolutely essential, in opening up the frontiers of space, and making possible the kinds of transformations in human industry critically needed if all the people of the world are to benefit from human discovery and technology. Rather than inventing better bombs, and promoting a superior theology, it's my contention, that the most powerful countries in the world must begin embracing a larger view of what's possible for humanity. That these countries must begin building an infrastructure for all people to gain benefit, and ultimately achieve the fruits of fulfilling on their potential. The future of people requires that we throw off our shackle, that includes the bondage of gravity, and the limits imposed by antiquated thinking.
Genda Bendte
"The meek shall inherit the Earth, the rest of us will go to the stars..." - Isaac Asimov
Also, to navigate, you need to see at least two of them if you can measure angles precisely, or three if you can't but you're at a known altitude, or four if you're not at a known altitude. You're typically only going to be able to see one of these at a time, because they're not satellites, they're near-ground.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
and his marvelous Internet Zeppelin.
"It works" said Tom, NetCraftily.
I'm sure DirectTV and Comcast have some in the works.
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson's new space-tourism company, which has licensed Mr Rutan's technology, already has £800m ($1.5 billion)-worth of ticket reservations, though flights will not begin until 2007.
Thats right, at about $400,000 a flight that means about 3750 people have already signed up. That comes out to be 1875 flights of the yet to be built space ship ones. I think this is very impressive because even with a flight of ten ships flying 25 times a year (quite unlikely, becuase they will mostlikely have to be overhauled sometime) it will take seven and half years to get everybody up.
That is, if they stick with the 3 person spaceship. On the discovery channel special I saw Burt Rutan working on a 5 or 7 person ship too. This would make things much more reasonable.
Yes, this is my first thought.
Just what size propellers will they need. Else what other compressive (jet type) technology will they be using.
Whatever it has to do it 20 times more than at ground level, altough the work and energy required will be the same as at ground level, I think.
The memories of a man in his old age are the deeds of a man in his prime - Floyd, Pink
Yeah! Screw human rights and fair wages. We need FIBER to the curb!
postmodernsideshow.com
Someone needs to re-create the Graf Zeppelin. Those must have been an awesome sight. 850 feet of aircraft above you...
Only this time, use a flame-resistant fabric on the outside and use helium instead of hydrogen. I bet with modern composites to lighten the airframe, we could build one 1,000 feet long.
Ehese two points sound like some kind of hocus pocus BS to me. "At such high altitude, above the jet stream, the reduced air density means that the wind will be about 20 times weaker than at ground level, enabling the airship's solar-powered electric motors to keep it stationary with very little effort." And would also be 20 times weaker thrust from the motors? How does this make sense? And in another part of the article it can produce lift in the wind? How? If it's being blown backwards it can't produce lift. I do like the idea very much and had hoped for the unpiloted plans from a few years back to make a go of it but haven't heard anything out of that project in a long time.
What kind of latancy are we looking at? I assume this will have to be a low power transmitter, and there will not be a lot of throughput, due to the entire ship ( comm gear and electric motors) being solar powered. Will this have the same drawbacks as satellite based internet?
-William
God is everything science has yet to explain.
You might be able to see it right after sunset as it catches the sunlight against a dark sky.
There are some satelites you can see this way. The space station is easily visible if it's overhead right after sunset.
You probably wouldn't be able to tell it was an internet blimp though.
Sol needs to get its' head out of its' ass and stop creating so much f&CKing lag on my connection. Where does the sun get the balls to think it can go around lagging up internet cafe connections in remote parts of the world. Why doesn't it do something useful, like make some grass grow here in Kuwait
sol = speed of light... supposedly the limiting factor in a geosync qpsk satellite beam.
Heck, just to put a finer point on it... I wanted to get DSL last year (it was cheaper than cable), and I live less than five miles from downtown Nashville, TN. However, due to my location, I was 200 feet too far away from the CO to get ADSL...
I don't moderate anymore. Karma penalty for 90% fair mods? Can I mod that unfair?
Why do I find it ominous that I can't find the bandwidth spec anywhere?
My kite will rule your blimp. Its a fighting kite and it has the 13 miles of nanothread tether. You will not be permitted to ruin my Kite Based IPO! DoS with sharp points begins now.
to the term "bloatware" :)
When you look at the state of the world, how can you not become a radical, liberal anarchist?
It's possible to lift a significant payload and launch vehicle over a 100,000 feet using a powered airship technology.
I'm not sure if you already know about them, but JP Aerospace is working on airships which go to orbit.
Believe it or not, there is (or maybe was) a company planning to do this with piloted jets flying around 60,000 feet, instead of higher-altitude unmanned airships. Angel Technologies site doesn't appear to have been updated lately, but says Scaled Composites was manufacturing special planes for them. A fleet of three jets per city would fly in shifts to provide 24-hr service. Can you imagine making a profit on this while fueling and maintaining 3 jets around the clock, in addition to paying the pilots?
These airships are high enough that the problem won't vanish entirely
Methinks the fiber running from your house in NY to the server in CA will add a slight bit more latency than a 13 mile vertical round trip.
These airships are high enough that the problem won't vanish entirely,
Actually it effectively will. It may be a significant height compared to low-earth orbit, but compared to geostationary it's nothing.
Or more immediately: think about the corresponding distance along landlines; not really very far.
sudo ergo sum
has anyone else here seen a book by maybe Dean Ing, that had a plot vehicle about using gliders as a cheap and effective means of retransmission. They would drift up on thermals during the day and drift down slowly at night. With a GPS and a low power computer they would stay in the same area at about 65K, well above air traffic. These could stay aloft for years.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
for 1st qtr 2005 here in this article
But I thought I read january somewhere in the past day or so.
Gizmos Gagets For Ninjas
Shoddy American workmanship. In Soviet Russia we make our blimps from CAST IRON!!!!
Don't take the above poster too seriously. He doesn't.
they just plain look cool!
maybe the steampunk era will get here after all.... about 150 years late.... but still
May you be touched by His Noodly Appendage. RAmen.
I remember a story of "our VAX is down" in which it had fallen through the floor (in an old building). The mains connections pulled out as it fell, and the drive heads had parked safely before it hit the floor below!
Am I the only one who thinks that picture looks like a whale?
The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer. - Edward R. Murrow
Initially, I was impressed. But then I realized, how's my little-iddy-biddy laptop gonna get the power to transmitt WIFI signals to the airship that's potentially half way across Texas? I have hard enough time using my laptop in the back yard without losing signal, let alone half way across the state of Texas.
It's a weird looking bird - have a look at http://www.skytowerglobal.com/
It has been flying for a few years now and has a few altitude records etc. They allways promised to put a web cam on one and never did (perhaps the transmission signal is poor ;)
Mike
But helium is not a renewable resource, and once we use up what there is, there won't be any more.
The upside to nuclear fission energy is that it will produce He as a byproduct. He does renew on earth, we're just pulling it out faster than alpha decay is replacing it.
The upside for hydrogen is that it provides more lift for the volume. Since the nodes would be unmanned, the risk isn't so bad except at launch and landing.
WILD COUNTRY was the book.
There is nothing wrong with yr Internet. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission - NSA
This makes me wonder how realistic an idea it is to use nano to create blimps that are filled with absolutely nothing. If they could manage that it'd seem to cut their ongoing costs and downtime down a lot. They'd not have to use helium and they wouldn't need such big ships as a vacuum weighs less than helium and has more lift. Not having to refill the helium would mean less downtime and less maintence.
:)
This doesn't sound like extremely different nano to create as it's just creating a lightweight material that is stiff enough to hold it's shape even when internally it contains a near-total vacuum. It'd seem you could use a normal material and coat it with some sort of substance that'd give it the needed strength. No buckytube spray-on gunk yet?
Okay, I admit it. I just want the price to come down so I can afford to live on an airship. That'd be pretty cool. Gradually floating all over the world.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
I think the government has so many ways to snoop as it is that it really doesn't matter if they find one more way. Do you care if they're watching you with a satelite or an airship? At least an airship is easier to shoot down. ;)
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
You use your notebook and you run really fast.
How many beans make five, anyhow ?
Would this not be a strata tester?
What OS do you want to abuse today?