I thought this project was pretty impressive. I feel like this is a thing that is going to come back around once costs come down and a killer app is found for it.
Balloon retrieval might be a problem that would have to be solved while keeping operation costs low.
I knew some friends over at Loon and one of their challenges was it wasn’t highly deterministic where the balloon would land at the end of life, and they had a rescue team with speedboats, helicopters and land rovers to go recover balloons. They could pick a big enough radius and have it land somewhere within that to avoid cities, and human settlements.
Also, Alphabet burned considerable money on this for 9 years before shutting down. Not sure if it’ll come back, at least not by Alphabet.
I knew some friends over at Loon and one of their challenges was it wasn’t highly deterministic where the balloon would land at the end of life, and they had a rescue team with speedboats, helicopters and land rovers to go recover balloons. They could pick a big enough radius and have it land somewhere within that to avoid cities, and human settlements.
Also, Alphabet burned considerable money on this for 9 years before shutting down. Not sure if it’ll come back, at least not by Alphabet.