Driven by computing power, not Newton or newtons. New Zealand’s
Canterbury Plain is hosting Google’s latest idea-that’s-so-
goofy-it-might-work, appropriately named Project Loon. Thirty
high altitude balloons carrying data relay equipment were
released to drift over Christchurch, generally heading east
towards the telecoms starved Chatham Islands. The concept Google
is testing is to put enough balloons into the air to create a
fleet of atmospheric satellites that can talk to each other and
to the ground, and relay Internet service to hard to reach
places. With one major exception, the technology behind it is
reasonably well established. In the late 1990s several projects
emerged that incorporated various aspects of Project Loon.
Teledesic, for example, proposed to launch more than 800 small
satellites into low earth orbit and ring the globe with Internet
access. SkyTower, a project I worked on for southern California
drone pioneer AeroVironment, was an attempt to use a solar
powered, unmanned airplane to maint