[PLUG-TALK] Skynet - Google is going for Keith's idea

Keith Lofstrom keithl at gate.kl-ic.com
Tue Mar 31 22:54:52 UTC 2015


On Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 09:54:45AM -0700, Michael Rasmussen wrote:
> More or less
> http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2015/03/30/396391960/bringing-internet-to-the-far-corners-of-the-earth?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20150330

Long answer, long on details:

Project Loon has been ongoing for more than two years - it takes
a while for news to filter through to NPR.  I wrote about it here
in 2013: http://server-sky.com/Loon

Since that pessimistic writing, I've learned that I was way too
optimistic about them.  I need to update that page ...

I discussed Loon with Google's advanced projects boss at a
conference last November - I got the (perhaps mistaken) impression
that they like playing with toys, and impressing shareholders and
customers (not you, the organizations they sell your data to)
with their high-tech hipness, but not doing the technical math.

A balloon is expensive, unstable, unpredictable, transient, and
operates below 100km, putting it in national airspace.  Google's
balloons drift in the prevailing winds, which are unidirectional;
eastward in the midlatitude zones from 30N to 60N.  A balloon
can catch a ride on a cyclone, but it cannot go too far west
without circling the earth, or descending for collection and
shipping westward.  North/south control is limited, involving
radical altitude changes, often not possible at all if weather
patterns do not cooperate.

Crossing most borders without a filed flight plan, a Loon balloon
will be shot down, and Google will be billed for the mission that
does it.  Big chunks of the world will refuse to issue flight
plans - China, which Google has not worked hard to please,
jealously guards its airspace.  China stretches in latitude from
53N to 17N (the disputed Paracel Islands) or 10N (the disputed
Spratley Islands).  In other words, Loon balloons will get shot
down attempting to circle the Northern Hemisphere.  I don't know
the rules in the Southern Hemisphere - probably looser, because
there is far less land, and also customers; 85% of humanity is
north of the equator.

Balloons share airspace with air traffic, and millions of balloons
could lead to hundreds of mid-air collisions per year.  Google can
avoid this by designing and deploying a new global air traffic
control system with vastly higher capacity, but I doubt they can
afford it. 

My biggest concern with Loon is helium leakage.  Already scarce,
once the helium leaks from a Loon balloon it floats off into space,
gone forever.  After humans use up terrestrial helium supplies,
kiss superconducting magnets goodbye, along with particle
accelerators, MRI machines, and countless other wonderful devices
that depend on them.  Species "grow back" faster than helium does;
Google would do less long term damage by nuking the Amazon Basin
to bare charred earth.


Server sky thinsat arrays are totally stable and predictable,
operate at 6400 km altitude, and can "see" vastly more ground.
The only helium lost might be pressurizer in a SpaceX launcher
(there are alternatives).  Many other advantages. 

China remains a challenge - they can veto the server sky operating
license issued by the International Telecommunications Union.  So,
our operating policy will be "when talking to China, follow Chinese
rules" in an open and verifiable way.   No surprises, either to the
Chinese government or to the Chinese people.  We very much hope to
serve the neglected people in China's inland western provinces, 
but we can point our beams elsewhere if the Chinese government
insists, even add "geographic exclusion" filters to pointing
computation logic if we must. 

Unlike Google, the Server Sky team (and we are slowly growing an
international team) is committed to "open source everything",
from the transistors up through the software stack.  Before
launch, you can purchase a random thinsat off the stack and
inspect it down to the transistor level (before we insert
encryption keys) and verify that it exactly matches the published
engineering description.  We hope skeptics will be big customers.
That will help with quality control and security auditing!

Gary Barnhard (a friend in DC), Ulises "Gilbert" Quiñónez (a PLUG
member in Guatemala), and I just completed a submission for the
Global Humanitarian Technology Conference, October in Seattle.
Wish us luck, (especially you, Michael Dexter!), because I will
practice the talk at a PLUG General meeting, followed (I presume)
by hours of questions.  The GHTC2015 presentation will focus on
the people we serve and the information products they might
exchange - I've already talked about the technology, which is
advancing nicely.

Google has hardware, we do not.  We want to publically hash out
our operating procedures and publish rules of conduct before we
get serious with investors.  For once, we have a chance to begin a
new technology with some idea of how it should grow.  Contribute
if you can, wish us luck if your contributions are elsewhere.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com



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