World Surveillance Group Inc (fka WSGI)

[kmanso]

Sorry, wrong link on previous post...

http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/57397





11.03.2005 16:11


Uncertain market potential for stratosphere platforms
The Office of Technology Assessment at the German Parliament (TAB) has released a report on the potential of "lighter-than-air" technology. Reinhard Grünwald, one of the authors of the TAB report, told heise online that "a lot of basic research still has to be done before such a thing can even be built if it has to run 24 hours a day, 365 days a year at an altitude of 20 km."

Theoretically, high-altitude platforms (HAPs) could act as flying relay stations for telecommunications to cover entire cities in regions -- a concept that high-frequency technicians find to be a very attractive alternative to terrestrial copper and fiber-optic cables. These vessels could remain suspended at an altitude of 20 to 25 km in the stratosphere without having to use any energy, and unlike telecommunications satellites they could be brought back to ground for maintenance, repairs, and upgrades of new hardware and software, thus making them much cheaper in all likelihood. It would only take around 10 such HAPs to provide broadband services to a country the size of Germany. However, the technologies needed for propulsion, energy supply, and materials for the shell are far from being ready for operation.

The study (PDF) concludes that the great risks and costs of development are therefore the primary obstacle to market launch. Another important risk factor is time: the long development time leaves the door open for dynamic communications infrastructures to close the market gap quickly. HAPs would then only be interesting in developing and newly industrialized nations, whose infrastructure is less developed.

However, the experts who contributed to the report assessed the potential of the "monitoring market" to be greater. Here, stratosphere platforms are mostly competing with satellites and unmanned reconnaissance planes called drones. The US is considering using HAPs for border patrol as part of its "homeland defense". According to a concept study of the US Defense Department, ten such stratosphere vessels would suffice for this task. (Craig Morris) / (anw/c't)