Stratospheric real estate is virgin no longer. By the turn of the century, Sky Station International Inc. plans to place 250 40-ton wireless communications platforms in Þxed position 100,000 feet above Earth. Helium-Þlled dirigibles, GPS, and football-Þeld-sized solar panels powering zero-pollution "ion engines" will keep the units in place. Sky Station claims the proximity will allow it to handle broadband data trafÞc to portable devices at speeds up to T1 much faster than planned orbital systems like Gates and McCaw's Teledesic or Motorola's Iridium.
Sound crazy? It's not. With a private equity investment of US$800 million and a preliminary OK from the FCC and NASA, the Sky Station dynamic duo of Alexander P. Haig, son of investor and former Secretary
of State Haig, and satellite pioneer Martine Rothblatt will soon grovel for international spectrum at the 1997 World Radio Conference in Geneva. Anyone for a pressurized, prefab, tropospheric Village of Tomorrow?
Roderick Simpson
ELECTRIC WORD
Pie in the Sky
