Former NASA manager Bob Jones has a lofty idea for improving communications around the world: Strategically float robotic airships above the Earth as an alternative to unsightly telecom towers on the ground and expensive satellites in space.He envisions a fleet of unmanned "Stratellites" hovering in the atmosphere and blanketing large swaths of territory with wireless access for high-speed data and voice communications.
Tethered flights of a prototype -- which cost about $3 million to build and is about one-fifth scale model of the planned commercial airships -- are scheduled later this month in this Mojave Desert city, about an hour's drive north of Los Angeles.
Unlike the cylindrical shape of a traditional blimp, a Stratellite has a broad, tapered nose like a shark. The solar-powered dirigible will carry a payload of radio and digital devices.
Cell towers are hampered by line-of-sight limitations and limited range. Geostationary satellites suffer from the quarter-second it takes a signal to travel out 22,300 miles and back -- insignificant in one-way TV transmissions, but terrible for two-way Internet computer communications.
Jones believes his solar-powered, helium-filled Stratellites _ so named because they would hang in the stratosphere -- could replace unsightly cell towers and cost less than satellites. Because of the airship's altitude according to Jones, its radio equipment can cover an area the size of Texas!!!
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