Re: Space Exploitation

From: quibbler (quibbler247_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 06/05/04 

Date: Sat, 5 Jun 2004 12:33:47 -0600

In article <40BE5DE9.6B961AE2@frontiernet.net>, bondage@frontiernet.net
says...
> quibbler wrote:
>
> > > I know there is the telecommunication industry but it
> > > seems that it would be rather limited.
> >
> > Yeah, if anything telecommunication satellites will probably be phased
> > out as the role is taken over by high altitude balloons and fiber
> > optics.
>
>
> Why baloons, which can only serve smaller areas,

Balloons can go very high, more cheaply than just about any device.
Some drone planes might be close competitors depending on technology,
but generally fly at lower altitudes and are more expensive. They serve
smaller areas than geosats, but since they cost 3 or 4 orders of
magnitude less than geosatellites they are eminently more affordable,
cheaper to maintain, etc. It also is an advantage to send signals to a
relatively close balloon, as opposed to a geosatellite.

> are subject to
> weather

At very high altitudes the weather effects are minimal.

> and bouyancy issues

It's a problem which appears to be controllable.

>, (and therefore cannot be stationary, or in
> bery predictable lower orbits) will require more frequent replacement,
> cannot count on solar power much of the time, cannot carry big solar
> arrays or antennas, etc.?

Actually they can carry both solar arrays and rectennas. Both of these
power collection devices can be made incredibly light. During the night
time they can draw power from antenna arrays and during the time they
would probably use amorphous PV coated onto the surface of the balloon.

>
> And fiber optics require some fairly large up-front costs, espically
> in that so-called 'last mile' between switching offices and users.

There are easy compromises for the last mile, but fiber will continue to
drop in price and the high supply of bandwidth is sure to help telecomm
prices go down.

> Great
> for trunk lines, but, like most utilities, hard to get into sparsely
> inhabited areas.

There are plenty of places where fiber could still be economically
installed. For remote applications, short wave, terrestrial antenna
will probably be the most economical option.

>
> And are useless for mobile services, like broadcasting,

That's not entirely true. Many small networks rely on things like IR
and fiberless optical communication certainly could be scaled up. It
would naturally work best in places where there was very little cloud
cover.

> or
> aeronautical/maritime voice/data communications.

Fortunately it doesn't have to solve every conceivable communication
issue. 

-- 
      Quibbler (quibbler247atyahoo.com)
"It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the 
threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, 'mad cow'
disease, and many others, but I think a case can be 
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