I've done some research on stratellites, and I have not come to a conclusion whether or not the conspiracy is possible to fund such operation. I'll share my analysis with you all.
Length: 245 feet
Width: 145 feet
Height: 87 feet
Volume: 1.3 million cubic feet
Dual envelopes, both made of Kevlar
Powered by electric motors
Outer envelope covered in film photovoltaic (solar) units
Payload capacity: 3,000 pounds
Maximum altitude: 70,000 feet
Desired altitude: 65,000 feet
Proprietary Lifting Gas Technology
Held in position by six onboard GPS units connected to the ship’s engines
Line-of-sight to a 300,000 square mile area
Wireless capability (currently) to an area with a radius of 200 miles
Controlled by earth stations on the ground
Maximum duration: 18 months (a replacement ship will be in position prior to bringing original ship down for retrofitting. The original ship will return to its position after retrofitting).
Each airship is 100% reclaimable
From a height of 65,000 feet, the effective line of sight is roughly 300,000 miles
2. In order to have stratellites to replace the function of satellites, we need to have stratellites to cover every square inch of the Earth. From the FAQ, we learn that the Earth's diameter is 24,900 miles. The surface area of the Earth can be calculated with the following formula;
Surface Area =
π r
2--- Substituting r with 1/2 of 24,900 = 12450 miles
Surface Area of the Earth = 486,955,000 miles2In order to cover the entire surface area,
486,955,000 / 300,000 =
1,623 stratellites are needed to be placed in place to cover the entire surface area.
Keep in mind that the "line-of-sight" of a stratellite is not a square, it is actually a circle with radius of 300 miles. To completely cover the entire Earth, we need more than 1,623 stratellites. A conservative estimate would be roughly
2,000.
Continuing with the article, a stratellite costs around 25 ~ 35 million to launch. 2,000 of these will cost 60 billion US dollars just to launch them. This does not include maintenance costs and operation costs such as hiring engineers to monitor these stratellites. According to NASA, they have received 16.25 billion US dollars for their FY 2007 budget. NASA started receiving substantial amount of budget starting as far back as 1958. As of today, NASA has received 618 billion US dollars budget.
Compare to an actual satellite, which costs around 250 million US dollars to launch, stratellites seem to be the bigger bang for the buck. However, we only need 3 satellites to cover the Earth in Round Earth model.
Like I said, this thread is in no way a conclusive analysis. However, I hope this will come in handy when some of you want to make a reference to stratellites.
Work cited:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/13/broadband_airship/http://www.unitconversion.org/area/square-kilometers-to-square-miles-conversion.htmlhttp://www.nasa.gov/pdf/142458main_FY07_budget_full.pdfhttp://navplus.us/forums/archive/index.php?t-5810.html