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Weather Balloons To Provide Broadband In Africa
An anonymous reader writes "Two African entrepreneurs have secured exclusive access to market near-space technology — developed by Space Data, an American telecommunications company — throughout Africa. The technology raises hydrogen-filled weather balloons to 80,000 — 100,000 feet, which individuals contact via modems. The balloons, in turn, serve as satellite substitutes which can connect Africans to broadband Internet. 'Network operation centers are located close to a fiber optic cable — say, in Lagos or Accra — and a signal is sent back and forth to the [balloon] in near space,' says one of the entrepreneurs, Timothy Anyasi. The technology will also allow mobile phone operators to offer wireless modems to customers."
So what happens then when these untethered balloons are floating up into the jet stream and a Airbus or 747 doesn't pick it up on radar and the damn thing floats right into the jet intake, causing an explosion and bringing down 400 souls to their death?
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
A weather balloon IS a UAV that can stay up for extended periods of time.
This may be news to you, but not everyone in Africa is starving.
Why do you want to over engineer things? A balloon is easy to make, cheap to make and can stay up for days.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
When you take into a ccount that any time they try and lay fiber it gets stolen and sold for it's scrap value, this is a great idea. Less chance of the infrastructure being stolen/damaged.
Seriously.
Unlike people like you, who have plenty of free time to spend 'luxuriously' coasting the intertubes, internet access can provide plenty to an impoverished community.
What are the keys to a self sustaining community? Education and Commerce are right up there and in this day and age, internet access is a powerful tool to meet those needs.
First of all, if they are seriously considering a commercial venture here, it implies there are enough well-off people to be served that it could be a viable business. Second, this will simply generate business, which means more cashflow, leading to more economic growth witin these countries. Not to mention poverty is commonly tied to low education and the internet is a powerful educational tool when used properly.
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These don't - they stay up for 24 hours. DARPA has people working on fixed wing aircraft that will stay up for months. That's not over engineering - that's much better than this.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Honestly, I hope they use hydrogen for this. Helium is uniquely non-replaceable. It's the product of very slow alpha particle decay, trapped in natural gas fields and such. We'll eventually empty those natural gas fields. There are lots of other ways to make energy, and we can make natural gas if we need methane, specifically, for whatever reason. But we can't make helium except through nuclear fusion. Even then, if fusion delivered 100% of earth's electricity needs, it'd only create a small fraction of what we currently use per year.
We'll always have plenty of hydrogen because it bonds to everything. Helium doesn't, so once you crack open that helium tank, it's just a matter of time until it floats off into space, where it's as good as gone.
If you are going to bring them down after 24 hours for drift reasons, there's no reason to use solar cells - batteries are dead-nuts reliable and cheap.
Brett
Yes, but I doubt if they use a significant amount of helium.
How much do those ballons use?
Compare to cooling down a NMR magnet, which consumes more than 1000 liters liquid ( > 700,000 liters gas).
Sadly there is a helium shortage, not so much that we are hitting the point of end of resources (which will eventually come), but because not all the natural gas fields that could capture - are capturing helium.
http://www.purchasing.com/article/CA6518723.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6444180
I don't see why they would have to cost much at all. We are not talking about combat drones here, we are talking about something that will basically go in a little circle-that's it. A big fat wing, covered with solar cells that run little electric motors and the broadband transceiver.
With a predator you are talking about something that needs to be controlled half a world away, and can pick off targets from high altitude, those kinds of electronics ain't cheap. With this you probably would even need ANY remote piloting at all-just a simple program to go to x feet and go in a circle. So while the balloon would be cheaper at first, which even then may be debatable(what if somebody gets to the balloon before you? I bet the electronics package will sell for a nice price) but in the long run a "solar sailplane" would probably be more cost effective.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
You're right, it isn't very significant. I just hope the world starts treating it as if it were precious before it becomes very expensive. We've only been using helium for a century, but it would be quite a shame for all of its uses to be lost to future generations forever.