World Surveillance Group Inc (fka WSGI)

[sami1327]

Thanks for the info Monty all very exciting .. you said:
“Navigation challenges reduced to basic hot air balloon flying!!!”

These Google balloons are using helium though.

Here is another article from Friday on the Google Loon adventure:
http://www.wired.com/business/2013/06/google_internet_balloons/all/

Some highlights:

"DeVaul, though, had an idea for “variable buoyancy”—steering the balloons by tweaking altitude to find wind currents whooshing in the right direction."

"In August 2011, DeVaul began a series of trial runs in California’s Central Valley .. Most flights were failures of some sort."

"By early 2012, the experiment had gained status of a genuine Google X project .. began a fruitful collaboration with Raven Aerostar,"

“Attached to the bottom of each envelope is the 22-pound “payload.” It’s topped by a sheet of solar paneling the size of a basketball backboard. Beneath the solar sheet is a construct resembling a large camera tripod, whose legs are antennas that allow the balloons to transmit to their peers in a mesh network. And on the bottom of the structure is a metal-sided container resembling a deep fuse box, which contains the computers, electronics, GPS devices, and batteries to store the energy gathered by the solar panels (each about 10 times the size of a laptop battery). It also controls valves that go inside the balloon’s internal chambers, allowing the balloon to find the desired altitude to maintain its flight path. Dangling from the box is a cable ending in a piece of foam that looks like a slice of a kid’s swimming noodle; inside is a transponder that beams location to air-traffic controllers and other trackers.”

“It’s time to launch. As team members take positions to stabilize and hold down the balloon, a machine that seems an artifact from the industrial age begins pumping helium into an envelope with a sound like a thousand hot showers channeled through Jimi Hendrix’s amps. And the clear plastic starts to rise. A blob-ish lump awakens inside the balloon skin, quickly growing from waist level to three times human height. As more gas enters, a classic balloon, like Dorothy’s vehicle to Oz, takes shape, at first looking like a giant pumpkin, then resembling a swimming jellyfish, straining for the ocean surface.”

“Mission Control also lets Loon engineers terminate flights. Two days earlier, Google had conducted its first New Zealand test, launching five balloons. After successful passes over the South Island, the balloons had continued east. Two wound up in the waters off New Zealand’s coast, the payloads recovered by a waiting Googler at sea. DeVaul’s tablet now shows that others are making quick progress across the Pacific. Google would eventually terminate the flights, because the company hadn’t gotten around to informing the authorities in Chile about the possibility of high-altitude Internet balloons invading its airspace, and decided not to risk an international incident.”


A great idea Mr. DeVaul has with drifting east for a while before creating lift in the balloon to catch the west going winds in the upper stratosphere .. to drift back over your intended area of interest.

However, we’re told they’re using helium & even the Google videos show a large collection of helium tanks? These aren’t hot air balloons.

We’re told about the “control valves that go inside the balloon’s internal chambers to find the desired altitude” .. ok, so, the balloon rises to 65 000’ & they vent off some helium to stop rising because they’re exactly where they want to be .. blowing east in the lower stratospheric winds. They float across to the end of the country & now want to float back the other way.

We are told about the hanging equipment .. which includes a photo cell & batteries .. but how or what is creating that replacement lift capability????? I don’t see a helium tank mounted there .. they were still on the ground.

I think the first five balloons released earlier last wk are an indication of what they can expect in regards to controlling these balloons .. for now anyway.

Maybe they will populate the stratosphere with 1000’s .. 100 000’s of these balloons .. I don’t know but I am happy that GOOGLE is interested in LTA

; )