Nerd: Thank you for the information. That was a good read. Those altitudes are virtually unattainable for any type of balloon, Strat or blimp.
Several chemical companies are trying to synthesize the monofilament spun in the spinnerets of black widow spiders. It has the greatest tensile strength of any filament known to mankind.
I read an article which proposes to put a satellite into geosynchronous orbit at 65,000 MILES out and dangle a huge parabolic radio antenna from it (with this new yet undeveloped filament) which would be kept in place just outside the earths' atmosphere 150 MILES up. This would allegedly handle all of the cellular phone traffic for the entire US. A compliment of 12 of these would handle phone traffic for the entire planet.
I think that is still 75 years down the road and no threat to the Strat concept. I do believe it will eventually happen, but not in time for any of us. If GTEM can get the Strat up and running before anyone else, I firmly believe it will reign supreme for the next 50 years.