Semi-permanent wireless transmitters/repeaters with no need for a ground lease or unsightly tower. In theater (military) communications and/or recon. Weather/ozone/climate monitoring stations.
or, my favorite, sky-writing 'We're No. 1' over and over.
Couldn't an orbiting satellite do the things you both have described? With the fatal exception of skywriting, of course. :) This seems like creating the space pen instead of using a pencil.
so the next time this fails and wants to land in someones back yard, unlike the satellite the other week, we will get 20 mins notice to shoot it down and not 20 days?
JD - orbiting satellites have much inferior capabilities to aircraft flying at ~100K feet. Think intercepting radio communications, ultra-high resolution imaging, etc etc
“An engineer explained to us that hundreds of ear impressions were gathered in the name of research, and while each one obviously boasted its own unique shape and size, one single characteristic remained uniform across the board: the entrance into the ear canal is not a perfect circle, it's an oval.”
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
Did I miss something? What's the point?
Surveilance/Recon....what do you think the extra 5Kw and 1000lbs is for?
Semi-permanent wireless transmitters/repeaters with no need for a ground lease or unsightly tower. In theater (military) communications and/or recon. Weather/ozone/climate monitoring stations.
or, my favorite, sky-writing 'We're No. 1' over and over.
Couldn't an orbiting satellite do the things you both have described? With the fatal exception of skywriting, of course. :) This seems like creating the space pen instead of using a pencil.
@JD: satellites cost a crapload to launch, and can't be brought down for upgrades/repairs.
so the next time this fails and wants to land in someones back yard, unlike the satellite the other week, we will get 20 mins notice to shoot it down and not 20 days?
JD - orbiting satellites have much inferior capabilities to aircraft flying at ~100K feet. Think intercepting radio communications, ultra-high resolution imaging, etc etc