Re: Free UNIX for non-commerical use.

From: Dave Uhring (daveuhring_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 08/10/03 

Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2003 07:53:37 -0500

On Sun, 10 Aug 2003 14:11:41 +1000, Anthony Mandic wrote:

> Dave Uhring wrote:

>> If useless satellites can be deorbited they should be. There is already
>> enough junk in low earth orbit.
>
> But were they really useless? From my recollection, they weren't.

They were useless to their owner since Motorola had decided to discontinue
the service; that's the only utility which counts. It's a "good thing"
that the service was rescued by a buyer; there is no alternative for the
people who are able and willing to pay for the service.

IIRC, the US military used Iridium during the Afghanistan and Iraq
actions. The high orbit military satellites were saturated with all the
RT video imaging traffic from the UAVs.

> Yes, I was saying much the same thing. The students who had parttime
> summer jobs were the juniors and did the lowest level work. All the
> permanents had been there for years.

Yes, a confusing coincidence of word usage.