Moon Laws

On Oct 9, 12:00 pm, Michael Ash wrote:
In rec.arts.sf.science Eivind Kjorstad wrote:

If you can use a very narrow signal, this problem goes away, it's a bit
hard to imagine a swarm of LEO-satelites, each maintaining a large
number of very narrow-beam signals (say laser) with independent receivers.

Keep in mind that the lower a satelite is, the faster it zips by, from
the POV of the receiver. So the satelite would need to be constantly
tracking with all of its beams, and there'd be a constant stream of
handovers from one satelite to the next.

Using a phased array would probably help a lot. Then everything comes down
to a problem of computing power, something which becomes less of a problem
with each passing day.

Actually, that is precisely my approach. 600 satellites in LEO -
located in 24 orbital planes, 25 satellite in each plane - all
sunsynch polar orbits. Each satellite uses a large phased array
antenna to paint doppler corrected stationary cells using GPS
signals. Think of a digital projector equipped with a gyroscope. As
the projector moves it could provide signals to a computer to paint a
pattern that remained stationary on the screen regardless of how the
projector moved. Now imagine a large number of projectors flying
around the back of the room so equipped. As long as the fields of
view overlapped, the picture would remain stationary no matter what
the projectors were doing. This is what we're talking about for the
satellite.

That's the downlink/uplink. Each satellite is a router, with a half
dozen open optical links at 20 THz between nearest neighbors. So,you
have a very broadband optical backbone,and a large number of
overlapping stationary doppler corrected hotspots on the surface.

That's the plan.


And at the end of the day you get internet to the few places where it
-doesn't- pay to do it the land-based way. Which means there's few users
and/or the ones that are there have low ability to pay for it.

This is the lesson of Iridium. Non-satellite works well enough for 99.99%
of the people, so you'd better be able to make money off only 0.01% of the
people.

What nonsense. Just because someone already subscribes doesn't mean
they won't subscribe from you. And those who already have service,are
not 100% of the human population. By providing wireless global
broadband at dramatically reduced prices you increase the number of
folks who have access as well as steal away customers from more
traditional high priced systems.

Only 1.5 billion people have routine access to the internet today and
only 3.0 billion have telephone service. There are nearly 7 billion
people in the world. So, the market is huge.

The 600 satellites described above would cost something like $40
billion to build and install (including development of the reusable
launcher fleet that puts them in place) and provide something on the
order of 50 billion channels for a period of 15 to 30 years.

So, by charging $1 per channel per month, you'd make a helluva return
on investment!! And $1 per channel per month would be the high end.
The low end might be $1 per channel per year - and you'd get nearly
total coverage of the market. In this way you'd capture the $90
billion or so per year in telecommunications services.

And this is just the start. You'd sell all sorts of equipment to
attach to the global broadband system,and you'd also sell a wide range
of services. Micro-banking, global banking, insurance, retirement
plans - basically providing a stable financial infrastructure for
developing as well as developed nations - which could increase
revenues into the trillions of dollars.

The same reusable fleet that put up the satellites would be available
after to put up a lunar hotel. That hotel once established could
announce the first bank of luna and deliver banking insurance
retirement investment and other financial services electronically
around the world (and on the moon and point in between). It could even
issue silver bullion in increments of say 2.5 grams. This bullion I
envision would be in the form of two transparent plastic coins
sandwiched together with a thin layer of silver vapor deposited on the
interior. The interior of each plastic chip would have copyrighted
holographic artwork - and would be sold at a slight premium over spot
silver as bullion.

Silver bullion 'coins' - silver lunars

2.5 grams = $1.00
12.5 grams = $5.00
25.0 grams = $10.00

Gold bullion 'coins' - gold lunars

1.0 grams = $20.00
2.5 grams = $50.00
5.0 grams = $100.00
25.0 grams = $500.00

Backed by the good faith and credit of the first bank of luna.

On Tue, 09 Oct 2007 09:41:50 -0700, in a place far, far away,
Crown-Horned Snorkack made the phosphor on
my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Hint: It doesn't work like ships, where the flag nation is
automatically responsible.

Ah, this part.

Read the Outer Space Treaty and Liability Convention then.

Nowhere is the citizenship of persons mentioned. I see references to
launching state, and to states whose territory is used for launch as
well as states performing or procuring the launch, but not to persons.

When a Soviet spacecraft (unmanned) crashed in Canada, Soviet Union
paid for damage. Should a US spaceship launched or about to land in
Florida crash in Cuba, USA would pay Cuba for the damages.

Columbia carried an Israeli citizen. If a US shuttle with an Israeli
citizen aboard were to crash in Cuba, would Israel be jointly and
severally liable for the damages done to Cuba, or would the damages be
paid by USA alone?

It was a US launch. The US would be liable.

On Tue, 09 Oct 2007 07:24:51 -0700, Fred J. McCall
wrote:

No, it does not appear that that is the case at all.

If a company chartered in the Bahamas owns a Liberian flagged ship
with a Moroccan crew and there is an accident, who is financially
responsible?

Now ask yourself the same question about a spacecraft. The answer is
quite different.

How is it different?

In rec.arts.sf.science wrote:
That's the downlink/uplink. Each satellite is a router, with a half
dozen open optical links at 20 THz between nearest neighbors.

I suppose you have some special technique for transmitting data optically
over 1000+ miles of empty space without any sort of repeaters at a rate
which has any sort of hope of competing with terrestrial installations?

This is the lesson of Iridium. Non-satellite works well enough for 99.99%
of the people, so you'd better be able to make money off only 0.01% of the
people.

What nonsense. Just because someone already subscribes doesn't mean
they won't subscribe from you. And those who already have service,are
not 100% of the human population. By providing wireless global
broadband at dramatically reduced prices you increase the number of
folks who have access as well as steal away customers from more
traditional high priced systems.

You're going to *reduce* prices by going for the most expensive possible
way to provide service? Right....

Only 1.5 billion people have routine access to the internet today and
only 3.0 billion have telephone service. There are nearly 7 billion
people in the world. So, the market is huge.

Do you know *why* there are billions and billions of people with no access
to telephone or internet service? It's because they're dirt poor! People
with no discretionary income tend to make for really bad customers for
fancy space-based services.

The 600 satellites described above would cost something like $40
billion to build and install (including development of the reusable
launcher fleet that puts them in place) and provide something on the
order of 50 billion channels for a period of 15 to 30 years.

Iridium cost about $6 billion and included roughly 1/10th the number of
satellites, so your cost would seem to be reasonable for traditional
launch methods. Include pie-in-the-sky R&D for reusable stuff and I
completely do not buy it.

I have no idea what a channel is in this context, though.

So, by charging $1 per channel per month, you'd make a helluva return
on investment!! And $1 per channel per month would be the high end.
The low end might be $1 per channel per year - and you'd get nearly
total coverage of the market. In this way you'd capture the $90
billion or so per year in telecommunications services.

You said 50 billion channels, which is something like 8 per human, so
these are something which people will find a need for more than one?

And this is just the start. You'd sell all sorts of equipment to
attach to the global broadband system,and you'd also sell a wide range
of services. Micro-banking, global banking, insurance, retirement
plans - basically providing a stable financial infrastructure for
developing as well as developed nations - which could increase
revenues into the trillions of dollars.

The internet has shown that there is generally little value in proprietary
networks anymore. If you manage to get a cut of all of these activities
directly you're just setting yourself up to make sure nobody ever uses the
service.

The same reusable fleet that put up the satellites would be available
after to put up a lunar hotel. That hotel once established

Selling a concept because the leftover infrastructure will be available
for even *crazier* activities which will, we are assured, make us even
*more* money is a classic technique but it's not going to work on me.

Let's be more realistic. Let's assume you can find, oh I dunno, one milion
subscribers who somehow are not satisfied with the wealth of ground-based
options available. (Note that Iridium currently has one-fifth this number,
and had only 55,000 at the point when it declared bankruptcy.) Let's
further assume that your investors will accept a 5% return on investment.
This means that for your $50 billion system, you need to generate
$2500/year *per subscriber* just for the interest payments, completely
ignoring operating costs. If we assume that you can run and maintain this
enormous satellite fleet for the same cost as the interest payments, then
you'll "only" need to generate $5000/year per subscriber, or a bit over
$400/month, where comparable cellular service which only works *nearly*
anywhere can currently be had for roughly one tenth the cost. This is
ignoring the cost of the purpose-built (i.e. expensive) satellite modem
which each subsciber must buy, whether directly with his own money or
indirectly in his subscription fees.

So, best of luck with your project, but for your investors' sake I hope
that you never get anywhere with it.

--
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software

On Mon, 8 Oct 2007 17:47:58 -0600, "Logan Kearsley"
wrote:

wrote in message
oups.com...
On Oct 7, 2:40 pm, "Logan Kearsley" wrote:
"Space Cadet" wrote in message

ps.com...

Hi All
Got this email from a friend of mine:

Hi all, I am working on a new lesson for my second graders focusing on
Moon Laws. If YOU were given the task of creating a constitution,
laws,
bill of rights for people in a future lunar colony what would YOU
include? I'd love to have your input! Thanks,

My first thought is that doesn't the OST say or at least imply that
the country that launches an object/probe/spacecraft is responsible
for said object? And whatever rule of law applies to that country
would apply to said object?
Even if you would go with a privately funded moon colony. That
company would be based on some nation on Earth, and whatever laws
apply to that country would apply to the colony?

Yes, but... that doesn't mean that the people living in the colony have
to agree with the Earthlings who signed that treaty. They could just declare
themselves soveriegn and say "*we* never signed the OST, so bugger off".

Well wait a minute most of the people living there will have been born
on Earth,and be from one of the nations that signed the OST. So,its

Yes. So? Most of them probably wouldn't *want* to declare independence;
there are lots of very good practical reasons *not* to. But there's nothing
to stop them from doing so if they *did* want to.

All the things that stop most terrestrial separatist groups from declaring
independence and forming their own nations, would still apply. You will
note that most separatist groups do *not* in fact declare independence,
and when one does it's a fairly traumatic process with a high failure
rate. And it's not just a matter of brute force being used to squash
the separatists, either. Building a nation, or nation-substitute, is
hard even when nobody is opposing you.


There's nothing magical or more special about nations than any other group
of people that causes them to exist on their own or by Authoritative Permission
of someone else.

However, nations that *do* exist, tend to be pretty good about continuing
to exist. Part of that is not just politely waving bye-bye when a bunch
of separatists decide to lop off a chunk of the nation's territory. Heck,
an even bigger part is arranging things so that the separatists are never
a local majority and/or never manage to make the case for independence.


not quite that easy. And their children, even if born on the moon,
will likely be claimed as citizens from the country their parents were
born in. Sort of like kids born at military bases in other nations.

Why should they care if some other nation considers them to be citizens? It
just means they get double citizenship for free.

Citizenship, free? Citizenship means having to pay taxes. And comes
with other obligations like obeying laws and serving on juries or even
in armies. Being so obligated to two nations, is more expensive than
one, even if both governments are being nice and cooperative about it.

If they're *not* being cooperative, dual citizenship can be an enormous
hassle. For example, and not hypothetical, you can be required to spend
the years between age 18 and 20 serving in the armies of two different
nations. Pick one, and for the rest of your life risk prison if you
ever set foot in a country that has an extradition treaty with the other.


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
* for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *

"John Schilling" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 8 Oct 2007 17:47:58 -0600, "Logan Kearsley"
wrote:

wrote in message
roups.com...
On Oct 7, 2:40 pm, "Logan Kearsley" wrote:
"Space Cadet" wrote in message

ps.com...

Hi All
Got this email from a friend of mine:

Hi all, I am working on a new lesson for my second graders focusing
on
Moon Laws. If YOU were given the task of creating a constitution,
laws,
bill of rights for people in a future lunar colony what would YOU
include? I'd love to have your input! Thanks,

My first thought is that doesn't the OST say or at least imply that
the country that launches an object/probe/spacecraft is responsible
for said object? And whatever rule of law applies to that country
would apply to said object?
Even if you would go with a privately funded moon colony. That
company would be based on some nation on Earth, and whatever laws
apply to that country would apply to the colony?

Yes, but... that doesn't mean that the people living in the colony have
to agree with the Earthlings who signed that treaty. They could just
declare
themselves soveriegn and say "*we* never signed the OST, so bugger
off".

Well wait a minute most of the people living there will have been born
on Earth,and be from one of the nations that signed the OST. So,its

Yes. So? Most of them probably wouldn't *want* to declare independence;
there are lots of very good practical reasons *not* to. But there's
nothing
to stop them from doing so if they *did* want to.

All the things that stop most terrestrial separatist groups from declaring
independence and forming their own nations, would still apply. You will

Never said otherwise.

note that most separatist groups do *not* in fact declare independence,
and when one does it's a fairly traumatic process with a high failure
rate. And it's not just a matter of brute force being used to squash
the separatists, either. Building a nation, or nation-substitute, is
hard even when nobody is opposing you.

And yet we do know that it is in fact possible to declare independence and
establish a new nation, even though it doesn't happen very often, because
every once in a while those separatist groups *do* in fact declare
independence, and sometimes they even succeed. That won't change just
because you're on the Moon.
I have never claimed anything stronger than that.

-l.
------------------------------------
My inbox is a sacred shrine, none shall enter that are not worthy.

On Tue, 09 Oct 2007 18:14:19 -0700, John Schilling
wrote:

If they're *not* being cooperative, dual citizenship can be an enormous
hassle. For example, and not hypothetical, you can be required to spend
the years between age 18 and 20 serving in the armies of two different
nations. Pick one, and for the rest of your life risk prison if you
ever set foot in a country that has an extradition treaty with the other.

Do you have any case examples of this?

On Oct 9, 6:51 pm, Michael Ash wrote:
In rec.arts.sf.science wrote:
That's the downlink/uplink. Each satellite is a router, with a half
dozen open optical links at 20 THz between nearest neighbors.

I suppose you have some special technique for transmitting data optically
over 1000+ miles of empty space without any sort of repeaters at a rate
which has any sort of hope of competing with terrestrial installations?

Yes I do have such a technique. Here is a primer;

Short distance optical problem;

http://spiedl.aip.org/getabs/servlet...cvips&gifs=yes

Long distance optical problem;

http://seti.harvard.edu/oseti/tech.pdf
http://seti.harvard.edu/oseti/oseti.pdf

Now, consider two telescopes pointed at each other separated by some
distance, say 10,000 km.

Small optical telescope 450 mm aperture
Small modulated laser array
(think of a low-res TV screen
with each pixel independently
variable at many MHz)
Several laser arrays at different colors
(Ge, GaAs(1), GaAs(2),
GaAs(3),InPh,etc.)

Communicating with another telescope
With a dichroic film stack
efficiently reflecting each color
onto a matching detector array
at the focus of the telescope.
Think of a color TV camera
producing a signal from each
pixel at many MHz

At a modest power level and sensitivity, such a setup with moderate
pointing accuracy easily communicates 10,000 km through the vacuum of
space with a bandwidth of about 40,000 GHz.

Six full duplex communication sets per router - communicate with the 6
closest nearest neighbors - providing 480,000 GHz

This is the lesson of Iridium. Non-satellite works well enough for 99.99%
of the people, so you'd better be able to make money off only 0.01% of the
people.

What nonsense. Just because someone already subscribes doesn't mean
they won't subscribe from you. And those who already have service,are
not 100% of the human population. By providing wireless global
broadband at dramatically reduced prices you increase the number of
folks who have access as well as steal away customers from more
traditional high priced systems.

You're going to *reduce* prices by going for the most expensive possible
way to provide service? Right....

Explain your reasoning? Your statement is pretty facile.

Obviously how you measure expense and what you get for it determines
the cost of the service. Saying one thing is expensive isn't enough.
For example, each satellite will cost millions of dollars. But
putting up millions of virtual cells over the entire earth with only
hundreds of satellites provides a great cost multiplier., Having a
tera-hertz backbone and a terahertz uplink downlink using multiple
gigahertz beams that reuse the same frequencies at different phases -
provide the lowest cost system in history.

So, yeah, despite your stupid comment, it willl be pretty great.


Only 1.5 billion people have routine access to the internet today and
only 3.0 billion have telephone service. There are nearly 7 billion
people in the world. So, the market is huge.

Do you know *why* there are billions and billions of people with no access
to telephone or internet service?

They cannot afford it and they have no infrastructure.

It's because they're dirt poor!

haha..idiot

Can you quantify that with real data? No because if you'd look at
real data before spouting ill informed opinions you wouldn't look like
such a jackass.

Here look here;

http://devdata.worldbank.org/wdi2006...nts/index2.htm

Fact is the two most populous nations on Earth, China and India have
the strongest growth and relatively high income with inferior telecom
infrastructure that is highly regulated.

China 1,322 million people $7,800 per capita 11.1% growth
India 1,130 million people $3,800 per capita 9.4% growth

By comparison

US 300 million people $43,800 per capita 2.9% growth

Now, $300 per month and $600 per month is small compared to $3,600 per
month - BUT - at even $300 per month a family of four makes $1,200 a
month, and could easily afford $3 to $9 per month for quality wireless
broadband.

Check out this country;

Russia 141 million $12,200 per capita 6.7% growth

Here are 2.5 billion people that could afford $9 per month - per
household, which would be $9 billion per month - and generate $54
billion on a $40 billion investment with very little recurring costs.
In fact since China is a quality industrial exporter,you could cut a
deal with the Chinese government to provide telecom services in
exchange for handset and other equipment that would communicate with
that infrastructure.


People
with no discretionary income tend to make for really bad customers for
fancy space-based services.

Depends on the details. Clearly even India has sufficient
discretionary income to pay $9 per channel per month for wireless
broadband.

The 600 satellites described above would cost something like $40
billion to build and install (including development of the reusable
launcher fleet that puts them in place) and provide something on the
order of 50 billion channels for a period of 15 to 30 years.

Iridium cost about $6 billion and included roughly 1/10th the number of
satellites, so your cost would seem to be reasonable for traditional
launch methods. Include pie-in-the-sky R&D for reusable stuff and I
completely do not buy it.

Well like your earlier comments these comments are based on your deep
seated prejudices not on any factual or technical analysis.

I have no idea what a channel is in this context, though.

That I believe.

So, by charging $1 per channel per month, you'd make a helluva return
on investment!! And $1 per channel per month would be the high end.
The low end might be $1 per channel per year - and you'd get nearly
total coverage of the market. In this way you'd capture the $90
billion or so per year in telecommunications services.

You said 50 billion channels, which is something like 8 per human, so
these are something which people will find a need for more than one?

Obviously yes. There are a variety of services that will be sold to
provide a whole new level of capacity for people. Virtual reality,
Ultrahigh definition, telerobotics, a variety of informational,
financial, navigation and security services - unlike our current
media, which is oriented toward entertainments, this new service will
contain a plethora of entertainments certainly, but it will also
provide a wide range of distinct economic benefits - otherwise the 3
billion folks who will be buying the services, won't buy them. Its
just where they are in their economic growth. Think of a mid-western
farmer in the US in the early part of the 18th century. They wouldn't
have purchased entertainments either. They would have thought it
ungodly even. Its the same for most of the rest of the developing
world. They're no nonsense hardworking god fearing people - that are
smart enough to take advantage of advanced technology when its package
and price right, and delivers the goods.


And this is just the start. You'd sell all sorts of equipment to
attach to the global broadband system,and you'd also sell a wide range
of services. Micro-banking, global banking, insurance, retirement
plans - basically providing a stable financial infrastructure for
developing as well as developed nations - which could increase
revenues into the trillions of dollars.

The internet has shown that there is generally little value in proprietary
networks anymore.

That's because no one has done it right, or on the scale we're talking
about here.

If you manage to get a cut of all of these activities
directly you're just setting yourself up to make sure nobody ever uses the
service.

That's as ludicrous a statement as any of the other clueless
statements you've made. Fact is,it depends on the details, and when
you look at the details, the benefits you offer versus the cost you
charge - if its in the right range - with the right people and so
forth - will work out quite nicely - and the existing services that we
now call the internet will fit nicely in the corner of this service.

The same reusable fleet that put up the satellites would be available
after to put up a lunar hotel. That hotel once established

Selling a concept because the leftover infrastructure will be available
for even *crazier* activities which will, we are assured, make us even
*more* money is a classic technique but it's not going to work on me.

I'm not trying to convince you of anything. I am not asking you for
anything. I ammerely stating a fact. We build a fleet of reusable
vehicles that will still have about 85% of their flight capability
when the satellite network is completed. Obviously that capability
will find other uses. Since I own them at the end of the day, it is
plainly a valid interest to what these assets will be put to use
doing.

Let's be more realistic. Let's assume you can find, oh I dunno, one milion
subscribers who somehow are not satisfied with the wealth of ground-based
options available.

I'll just tell you what I'm doing. I am building 5 coal-to-liquid
facilities throughout the world and own a large segment of each. Once
these are operational in 2011 Iwill have significant income. I will
spend a portion of that income developing the core technologies for
the satellites, launchers, uplink, downlink, open optical systems,
etc., etc.,along with the advanced router technologies on board the
satellites. And I will launch 600 satellites as described and
announce the service. ISP operators will be able to tap into this new
backbone with special wireless ground stations, and I will work with
manufacturers to make a variety of handsets, add on equipment and
hardware available that will tap into this system. As I said the
internet will sit comfortably in a corner of this system and there
will be no charge for that. Telephone services will be provided free
as well.

think of the way Google Earth is marketed. You have a free version.
You have a pro version. You have a corporate version.

Same here. Whatever you take for granted from your wireless, cable,
and internet provider today, you obtain FREE from my system - anywhere
in the world. I will make sure all that stuff is available for
free.

Then, you will have opportunities to buy additional services at added
costs.

(Note that Iridium currently has one-fifth this number,
and had only 55,000 at the point when it declared bankruptcy.)

It was slow in developing its network and deployed a substandard
network all because of inadequate access to launchers. That's why
building my own fleet of reusable launchers is absolutely critical.
furthermore, Motorola did not adequately fund the entire project nor
plan sufficiently for the challenges it faced. It also assumed a
fixed target market - and didn't project improvements adequately and
it was delayed getting to market which also was a killer.

Let's
further assume that your investors will accept a 5% return on investment.

I have no other investors.

This means that for your $50 billion system, you need to generate
$2500/year *per subscriber* just for the interest payments,

If you have $50 billion channels, you'd pay $1 per channel per YEAR -
oh yeah, you put in a bogus number for the number of subscribers.

Look, you put up the system and fully populate the earth with virtual
cells, you make today's services basically free through the system -
ISPs can link in and still collect fees through the system - you give
the hardware away at cost..

Then you start upgrading the system and charge for upgrades - if
people want them.

completely
ignoring operating costs.

Why pull numbers out of your ass? Today's telecom market earns $90
billion worldwide. If I charged 50% of what others charged (but I'm
giving it away free remember) I'd earn $45 billion a year.

But its even simpler than this a $40 billion system earning $1 per
channel per YEAR on 50 billion channels would have a revenue of $50
billion per year- a 125% annualized return on investment. This
doesn't count the revenue on the ground from the sale of hardware that
makes use of the network. Asimo type robots that are controlled via
VR links remotely - to allow people to live anywhere and work anywhere
else - would be a huge boon to developing nations. A robot with
appropriate equipment in even the remotest village could provide
instantly an entire range of services from medicine to dental work to
police to engineering - telerobotically.- and the folk living there
could deliver services anywhere in the world. dramatically increasing
wealth throughout the world, and increasing demand for this wireless
broadband.


If we assume that you can run and maintain this
enormous satellite fleet for the same cost as the interest payments,

What are the costs of operating a fully automated solar powered
infrastructure? Why make assumptions. The documentation is clear.
Satellite networks have a well defined cost structure. You pay a lot
up front and very little ongoing.

Your numbers are totally bogus, cooked up for the sole purpose of
saying nasty dismissive things about this idea. Fact is,adequately
funded and properly executed, this would be a huge benefit to everyone
on Earth and everyone on Earth can afford to pay back 20x the cost of
the system over its life while paying only 1% of what people in the
advanced countries are paying for the same services today.

you'll "only" need to generate $5000/year per subscriber, or a bit over
$400/month, where comparable cellular service which only works *nearly*
anywhere can currently be had for roughly one tenth the cost.

Your numbers are totally asinine and wrong. Wireless, cable,
internet, type services will be provided free of charge to all. ISP
operators, cable operators, telephone operators,will have free
unfettered access through these channels to communicate with their
subscribers - free of charge. This will take up about 3 billion of
the 50 billion channel capacity. The remainder will be reserved for
upgrades - and that's where income will be generated. The channel
will be a commodity and operators will live on value added services.

This is
ignoring the cost of the purpose-built (i.e. expensive) satellite modem

Nonsense. That's why special launchers are needed. Each satellite
will be large and equipped with a large (sensitive) phased array
antenna (think radio telescope) in low orbit, using GPS signals to
paint the Earth's surface with millions of low power doppler corrected
cells - so that the satellites will communicate with existing wireless
devices.

which each subsciber must buy, whether directly with his own money or
indirectly in his subscription fees.

Hmm.. no the system will use off-the-shelf wireless chipsets adapted
to this new system. The money will be put in the satellites and
launcher to lower the cost of the ground system so that even the 'dirt
poor' can afford them. The satellite modem as you called it will be
ubiquitous and every device will have several - reducing their costs
even further.

So, best of luck with your project, but for your investors' sake I hope
that you never get anywhere with it.

Its very clear you hope I get nowhere with my idea. Your hatred is
plain for all to see. Fact is,I have no outside investors, I don't
need them.


--
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software

Since the formation of the UN, has there be a case of a former
colony declaring itself independence? What mechanisms are in place at
the UN to reconize a new country. The only new country that comes
mind off the top of my head is Israel and there has been 'some'
controversy over its formation ;^)

Small world you have. Here is a few more from

http://geography.about.com/od/lists/...endenceday.htm

Most of these are former colonies. The Mandate of Palestine
(which later became Israel and Jordan) wasn't strictly
speaking "a colony", but something League of Nations put
together after the collapse of Ottoman Empire.

Btw, UN doesn't recognize countries. Individual member
states do. But becoming member of UN you need both General
Assembly and Security Council approval.

August 15, 1945 - Korea, North
August 15, 1945 - Korea, South
August 17, 1945 - Indonesia
Sept. 2, 1945 - Vietnam
April 17, 1946 - Syria
May 25, 1946 - Jordan
August 14, 1947 - Pakistan
August 15, 1947 - India
January 4, 1948 - Burma
February 4, 1948 - Sri Lanka
May 14, 1948 - Israel
July 19, 1949 - Laos
August 8, 1949 - Bhutan
December 24, 1951 - Libya
November 9, 1953 - Cambodia
January 1, 1956 - Sudan
March 2, 1956 - Morocco
March 20, 1956 - Tunisia
March 6, 1957 - Ghana
August 31, 1957 - Malaysia
October 2, 1958 - Guinea
January 1, 1960 - Cameroon
April 4, 1960 - Senegal
May 27, 1960 - Togo
June 30, 1960 - Congo, Republic of the
July 1, 1960 - Somalia
July 26, 1960 - Madagascar
August 1, 1960 - Benin
August 3, 1960 - Niger
August 5, 1960 - Burkina Faso
August 7, 1960 - Cote d'Ivorie
August 11, 1960 - Chad
August 13, 1960 - Central African Republic
August 15, 1960 - Congo, Dem. Rep. of the
August 16, 1960 - Cyprus
August 17, 1960 - Gabon
Sept. 22, 1960 - Mali
October 1, 1960 - Nigeria
November 28, 1960 - Mauritania
April 27, 1961 - Sierra Leone
June 19, 1961 - Kuwait
January 1, 1962 - Samoa
July 1, 1962 - Burundi
July 1, 1962 - Rwanda
July 5, 1962 - Algeria
August 6, 1962 - Jamaica
August 31, 1962 - Trinidad and Tobago
October 9, 1962 - Uganda
December 12, 1963 - Kenya
April 26, 1964 - Tanzania
July 6, 1964 - Malawi
Sept. 21, 1964 - Malta
October 24, 1964 - Zambia
February 18, 1965 - Gambia, The
July 26, 1965 - Maldives
August 9, 1965 - Singapore
May 26, 1966 - Guyana
September 30, 1966 - Botswana
October 4, 1966 - Lesotho
November 30, 1966 - Barbados
January 31, 1968 - Nauru
March 12, 1968 - Mauritius
Sept. 6, 1968 - Swaziland
October 12, 1968 - Equatorial
June 4, 1970 - Tonga
October 10, 1970 - Fiji
March 26, 1971 - Bangladesh
August 15, 1971 - Bahrain
Sept. 3, 1971 - Qatar
November 2, 1971 - United Arab Emirates
July 10, 1973 - Bahamas
Sept. 24, 1973 - Guinea-Bissau
February 7, 1974 - Grenada
June 25, 1975 - Mozambique
July 5, 1975 - Cape Verde
July 6, 1975 - Comoros
July 12, 1975 - Sao Tome and Principe
Sept. 16, 1975 - Papua New Guinea
November 11, 1975 - Angola
November 25, 1975 - Suriname
June 29, 1976 - Seychelles
June 27, 1977 - Djibouti
July 7, 1978 - Solomon Islands
October 1, 1978 - Tuvalu
November 3, 1978 - Dominica
February 22, 1979 - Saint Lucia
July 12, 1979 - Kiribati
October 27, 1979 - Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
April 18, 1980 - Zimbabwe
July 30, 1980 - Vanuatu
January 11, 1981 - Antigua and Barbuda
Sept. 21, 1981 - Belize
Sept. 19, 1983 - Saint Kitts and Nevis
January 1, 1984 - Brunei
October 21, 1986 - Marshall Islands
November 3, 1986 - Micronesia, Federated States of
March 11, 1990 - Lithuania
March 21, 1990 - Namibia
May 22, 1990 - Yemen
April 9, 1991 - Georgia
June 25, 1991 - Croatia
June 25, 1991 - Slovenia
August 20, 1991 - Estonia
August 21, 1991 - Kyrgyzstan
August 24, 1991 - Russia
August 25, 1991 - Belarus
August 27, 1991 - Moldova
August 30, 1991 - Azerbaijan
Sept. 1, 1991 - Uzbekistan
Sept. 6, 1991 - Latvia
Sept. 8, 1991 - Macedonia
Sept. 9, 1991 - Tajikistan
Sept. 21, 1991 - Armenia
October 27, 1991 - Turkmenistan
November 24, 1991 - Ukraine
December 16, 1991 - Kazakhstan
March 3, 1992 - Bosnia and Herzegovina
January 1, 1993 - Czech Republic
January 1, 1993 - Slovakia
May 24, 1993 - Eritrea
October 1, 1994 - Palau
May 20, 2002 - East Timor
June 3, 2006 - Montenegro
June 5, 2006 - Serbia

In rec.arts.sf.science wrote:
It's because they're dirt poor!

haha..idiot

Can you quantify that with real data? No because if you'd look at
real data before spouting ill informed opinions you wouldn't look like
such a jackass.

Here look here;

http://devdata.worldbank.org/wdi2006...nts/index2.htm

Fact is the two most populous nations on Earth, China and India have
the strongest growth and relatively high income with inferior telecom
infrastructure that is highly regulated.

China 1,322 million people $7,800 per capita 11.1% growth
India 1,130 million people $3,800 per capita 9.4% growth

It sure is convenient to cook two entire nations down to three numbers
each, but it's wrong.

First of all, those numbers are purchasing power parity. While this gives
a good idea for a person's relative wealth in terms of what they can buy
compared to what you can buy, it is totally wrong when they're buying
services from you directly, because they have to pay you in currency you
can use. The nomimal per capita GDP of China was $2,001 in 2006, and that
of India in 2004 was only $797.

And the only reason they're that high (high!) are because the demographics
are extremely uneven. In China you have a comparatively small segment of
urban city-dwellers with incomes which compare much more favorably to US
incomes which drag the average up, followed by an unimaginably enormous
rural population which is, in fact, dirt poor. By no coincidence, the city
dwellers also have access to a fine telecommunications infrastructure. The
rural dwellers have no money to pay for any such thing even if they could
get it. The situation in India is, I believ, basically the same except
that the rich urban dwellers make up an even smaller proportion of the
population and the telecommunications infrastructure they have access to
is therefore somewhat worse.

By comparison

US 300 million people $43,800 per capita 2.9% growth

Now, $300 per month and $600 per month is small compared to $3,600 per
month - BUT - at even $300 per month a family of four makes $1,200 a
month, and could easily afford $3 to $9 per month for quality wireless
broadband.

And of course there are very few people who make $600/month. Rather there
are a few people making somewhat more who already have broadband, and a
whole lot of people making much less who absolutely couldn't afford such a
thing.

Check out this country;

Russia 141 million $12,200 per capita 6.7% growth

Here are 2.5 billion people that could afford $9 per month

The conclusion you come to from these numbers is spectacularly ludicrous.
You might as well determine that the average American has exactly one
testicle, and therefore the market for testicle transplants in order to
provide properly balanced sexual organs is ripe for the taking.

So, best of luck with your project, but for your investors' sake I hope
that you never get anywhere with it.

Its very clear you hope I get nowhere with my idea. Your hatred is
plain for all to see. Fact is,I have no outside investors, I don't
need them.

Your paranoia is amusing. I have no ill will towards you, I just think
that you're unbelievably clueless for someone who's talking about
investing fifty billion dollars of his own money, which of course he
doesn't have yet. I wish you all the success in the world, I just don't
see how you'll ever have the slightest hope of actually achieving it.

As for the rest of your arguments in this thread, I shall let them stand
on their own and the reader may decide for himself.

--
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software