On Wed, 2004-05-26 at 21:14, Tikiri Wickramasingha wrote:
NASA Helios - remotely piloted, solar powered, extreme high altitude aircraft capable of carying a payload simillar to a small satelite. Uses Fuel Cells to store power generated by solar panels. It is designed to stay in the air forever. Wing Span approximately the size of a B-52 Bomber. Cost if I rememebr right was a couple million dollars. But that is a fraction of what running fibre all the way down SH1 would cost.
No doubt it is patented..... I was interested to see - when working on a homework project with my daughter - that the Wright Brothers had a patent on their wing design....which truly was a unique innovation created by them -and that Americans especially took no notice of it and copied it shamelessly - paying no royalties. So all we need to do is take the Helios idea and design our own. ...Now where did I leave that wind tunnel?