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In the near future, tourists seem excited through portholes above the Earth, delighted by the sight of starry darkness above and the curved blue horizon here below.
It is a spaceship, but a balloon " from near the space ". It was launched from Mongolia, not Houston, United States. And tourists are Chinese
In 1958, Russia surprised the world by launching Sputnik, the first satellite, in space. USA he hastened to create NASA to participate in the space race and became the most important space power in the world
Satellites are essential for communications, climate monitoring, navigation and navigation. other tasks. But 60 years after Sputnik, the high altitude balloons defy them.
The balloons provide an observation point at 30 kilometers, a distance much less than that of the satellites. They cost a fraction of their price and, unlike satellites, they can easily return to Earth for its update or repair.
The balloons are huge. Some are seven times larger than London's St. Paul's Cathedral, they are filled with helium and made of plastic from the thickness of a sandwich.
Their weak point is that they can only be blown away by the wind, learn how to direct them
"We are learning about a whole new navigation zone" says Jeffrey Manber, CEO of the US space company Nanoracks.
The upper atmosphere is called the stratosphere because it is "stratified", divided into several different layers and with winds blowing in different directions at different altitudes.
But with the necessary weather information, a balloon can go in the desired direction at the correct altitude and sliding between the wind.
Emergency Assistance
The Loon project developed by Google is one of the first to exploit these opposing Sites, with high altitude balloons to provide communications in remote or affected areas by disasters.
The original plan consisted of a series of balloons that followed the prevailing wind, but the researchers found that the balloons could be held in place by the use of compensatory winds at different heights.
Sophisticated automatic learning algorithms change the pitch to take advantage of the correct wind.
This project managed to give Internet access to 300,000 people in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria destroyed its infrastructure last year.
For its part, World View, based in Tucson, USA, plans to use its balloons known as stratoliths not only as transmitters of communication, but also in as monitoring platforms. BBC Future visited its facilities in 2016.
"The applications are endless, from constant monitoring of forests to notification of emergency services in case of fire, seeing remote parts of the ocean in search of maritime pirates or monitor crop health in real time, "said Angelica DeLuccia Morrissey of World View.
Options for Military Use
Defense industry, for example, sees stratoliths as the new eyes of the world.
"We think this has the potential to bring about a change in the game for we, "said Kurt Tidd, commander of US Southern Command, after a successful test flight from a stratolite
The same technology could help track time in real time or get a close-up from a hurricane from above.
The current stratoliths p carry a load of 50 kilograms. Balloons capable of carrying larger loads are still in the planning phase.
Longer-term plans include near-space tourism and goods delivery. When his mission ends, a stratolite goes up to a certain point and parachutes to the ground.
The same technique could be used to deliver emergency supplies or other goods to remote locations anywhere in the world.
Chinese Competition
But there is increasing competition from China. Kuang-Chi Space (KC), founded in 2010, specializes in airships and communication technologies.
The company is developing its Traveler globe and its own version of the wind stratospheric navigation
in China, it is remote sensing and telecommunications, with customers that include municipalities seeking to integrate Traveler into a smart city system, "says Zhou Fei, chief of KC Space's R & D team
. and a hundredth part of a comparable satellite system.
Traveler will also carry a capsule with six pbadengers in the stratosphere. Last October, KC safely launched and recovered a balloon carrying a turtle at an altitude of 21 kilometers
This could be turned into pbadenger flights in 2021, which would cost about 96 600 US $
The Microsatellite Market
Fei says that Traveler could also be a "secondary launch" platform. This would mean launching a rocket over most of the Earth's atmosphere, from where it could fire a small rocket into orbit much more easily than from sea level.
This would be useful for the growing microsatellite market. CubeSats.
"One of the holy grails in the world is to be able to reduce the cost of launching a small CubeSat into orbit," says Jeffrey Manber, whose company Nanoracks is working with KC on the Traveler program.
The Chinese army is also interested in "close space". Nobody still controls this area, and stratospheric balloons provide an economical way for military surveillance and other uses.
After the Russian Sputnik showed the world what satellites could do, He overcame it in the race for space. In the near future, more and more stratospheric balloons will appear focused on near-space tourism, communication or surveillance.
The near space race is under way and, although the United States is currently the leader, China is catching up fast.
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