" A blisteringly fast data downlink provided by a stratospheric balloon floating 24,000 metres above the Earth has been tested for the first time.
" The untethered, 12,000-cubic-metre helium balloon was tested on 31 August for several hours. Analysis now shows the test was a success and sent data to the ground at 1.25 gigabits per second. That is thousands of times the capacity of a home broadband internet connection and the first time such a link has been tested from the stratosphere.....
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( and... a url in the article gets you to some video:
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may be power, but communications is the key snipped-for-privacy@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]