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TerreStar Launches World's Largest Telecom Satellite
An anonymous reader sends news that TerreStar-1, the largest satellite ever made for the purpose of telecommunications, successfully launched earlier this week from a European spaceport. Its launch weight was 6,910 kg, and it is "distinguished by a giant, 60-foot (18-meter) wide S-band antenna that will be unfurled in the coming weeks. Once the satellite's two solar wings are deployed, TerreStar-1 is expected to have a wingspan of about 106 feet (32.4 meters). ... It is designed to provide mobile voice and data communications in North America to smartphone-size handsets using the 2-gigahertz, or S-band, portion of the radio spectrum. The system is designed to function with a network of ground-based signal amplifiers to permit service in areas the satellite cannot reach, such as urban canyons and areas outside the line-of-sight view of the spacecraft." Video and details of the launch are available from the ESA.
No. From a South American spaceport. As far as I know there are no spaceports in Europe. Though you *could* call it a French spaceport...
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I thought the geostationary model for satellite phones had finally come to an end... the latency is just too high to comfortably carry on a conversation. The LEO satellite constellations are a much better way to work for a phone, the delays aren't really much more than a cell phone (apparently to the user). I've actually been looking forward to someone doing a LEO constellation for satellite broadband, it could finally make it useful. I've been quite impressed when using the Iridium network. Globalstar though has some work to do yet, too many holes in their constellation.
As others have pointed out though, Satellite alone has some major coverage problems (anywhere sheltered or indoors) but combined with the cell network this could be a powerful tool (though a pretty pricey one I bet!)
What market do they think they have for this? Unless you are out in the countryside away from any wireless coverage, why would you want to use a geosynchronous satellite? The lag is incredibly annoying. For data connections it won't matter so much, but who has different providers for voice and data?
Unless there is something I am missing, this is concept is DOA.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
You could to a limited degree, but the big buyers represent the fast food chains and the supermarkets, something like 95% or better of the market. You just have to have someplace to sell, else no reason to be a grower. Also you have to remember, the farmers/growers don't own the birds, ever, a few producers own that segment of the market (tyson,pilgrims pride, etc, a small handful), they are the ones who negotiate the contracts with the buyers cartels, because all of this is done at mass quantities levels. mass in a HUGE amount. So in other words, there are two cartels over the farmer/grower. The offered cash from any of the packers is roughly identical. The big buyers offer what they offer, that is almost identical all the time.
Farmers/growers grow on a flock to flock contract basis, the baby birds are supplied, the feed is supplied (that costs directly), any other ancillary costs are picked up by the farmer, propane, electricity, water, etc, then they are harvested and you get paid so much for good bird. After expenses..a few pence per bird net profit, if *lucky* and the gods of the market have smiled that month. A lot of times, a net loss.
The producers and packers run the packing plants, which are very expensive to license/build/operate, many millions. A small coop couldn't get up that sort of scratch and would be hard pressed to find anything but a teeny fragmented market.
There are some smaller fully independent growers who have carved out extremely limited little niche markets, but that's about it, and the combination of federal laws and state laws (which vary widely) on how hard this is to do make it quite the challenge. It goes from hard to "OMG, why bother..."
Here's another example about how this has been cartelized. If you go to buy a big farm, you won't even get a loan for it unless you have a contract in hand from some recognized producer/packer, and even if you have it cash, that's no guarantee you'll ever get a contract. You could theoretically pay 10 million cash for a small to medium farm and have some operating expenses in cash and still get stuck with a white elephant if you have no proven market upfront.
Another factor to consider is most big farmers/ranchers mindset..they HATE being organized, they don't like it, say the word union or coop and they want to draw a gun and start talking about hippie environmentalists and go on a rant. I've heard it from too many farmers to ignore, it's just reality, they been brainwashed way beyond the point of rationality about this. They are almost totally opposed to organizing in a cooperative fashion with each other (believe me, I thought of this and have brought it up before, a coop, etc), even if they keep getting screwed into bankruptcy by another "organization", the cartels, which they bitch about all the time. It seems an obvious solution but they simply will not do it, too "hippy" "communist" "socialist" "libruhl", and etc. I know I have to assume artificial redneckerson manners just to maintain in my community, it is camouflage. Bad enough I have a yankee accent...heh
Go figger, I long ago stopped trying to figure it out beyond "Stockholm Syndrome" seems to be hard coded in their psychology. Brainwashed deluxe by the big ag business boys and dudes like rush limbeau, that they listen to, and so on. Anything that seems to make sense "hey, how about doing some small scale alternative energy projects like this here.." NO! THAT HIPPY SHIT DON'T WORK!!
I gave up years ago, ain't worth it. A few are reasonable, most are just too boneheaded and will adopt being screwed over and over again as a lifestyle choice. Anything a few select pols and monsanto and a few other corps tell them, they take as gospel, end of story. Any chemical released is automatically safe as mommas milk. any seed with gene alteration, perfectly safe, never a problem, etc.
You can point out dozens of things taken off the market after the fact of being proven too dangerous, ne