Rocketman: The Stratellite WAS funded under Bob Jones. After I left, GTE poured several MILLION DOLLARS into the project....under Bob Jones.
One year later, the Strat had not flown and a news article came out stated that it could only reach 30,000 feet. Later, another PR came out and said that the Strat would conduct tethered testing in July 06. Shortly thereafter, everyone began asking, "Where is Bob Jones?"
As I recall, Uli clearly wanted to test his equipment at 65,000 feet - not 30,000 - we had discussed measures he might take to protect the apparatus from the extreme cold at that altitude. Uli was well aware of the rigors his equipment would need to endure. Because of NDA's I cannot tell you how he proposed to do it, but it was clever. My problem was protecting the lithium ion batteries from the extreme -67F cold and his was to protect his own hardware.
70,000 feet was NEVER an altitude goal. At 65,000 feet there is a slight temperature inversion layer which aids in reflecting radio signals greater distances. 65,000 is the absolute ideal altitude for a cellular telecommunications platform. Uli wanted to make use of that phenomenon.
Just to give you an idea of what Uli was faced with, his circuit boards contained liquid capacitors which were rated to -40F. But, we were going up to -67F. So, he figured out a very clever way of providing sufficient heat at a low energy consumption to bring the boards to within their SAFE operating range. In other words, providing heat which wouldn't gobble up all the available electrical energy the solar panels could generate and batteries would contain.
SkyStation touted that they would fly at 100,000 feet ONLY because of the incorrectly envisioned LINE OF SITE transmission and reception capabilities from that altitude - except that they failed to realize there was a temperature inversion layer 35,000 below they could take advantage of. I think that might be one of the reasons SkyStation went belly-up. Besides that, SkyStation was planning to use ion engines for propulsion - which are to this very day still in the experimental category. A 500 lb ion engine would be lucky to develop enough thrust to blow out a candle (aside from being a voracious consumer of available electrical energy). Additionally, its' fuel was to be liquid MERCURY.
At a distance of 150 miles, both the Strat (at 65K) and SkyStation (at 100K) would be relatively LOW on the horizon - the Strat 1/3rd lower - but at 65K, the Strat would be far more efficient because the cellular radio waves (yes, I said radio) would bounce off the inversion layer and the earth and be easily intercepted by the Strat. The same would hold true when the Strat is transmitting. Its' signals would go a greater distance. To the best of my limited radio knowledge, the SkyStation would need to 'beam' its' return signals with some type of parabolic antenna which would make the signals 'directional' and focused. Not a good idea for a cellular platform.
I can just imagine a SkyStation mercury-ion propelled platform floating at 100K feet being attacked by tiny Greenpeace airships. Oh, the humanity!
No man should be considered totally useless....because he can always serve as a bad example.
AI
