Balloons Over NM

Actually the balloons are over most of New Mexico, most of Texas, all of Oklahoma and Louisiana and parts of the states surrounding the core four listed here. The balloons are filled with hydrogen and launched each day by people contracting with Space Data Corp. of Chandler, Arizona, a Phoenix suburb. The contractors tend to mechanics at small airports and dairy farmers. Each balloon carries "a shoebox-size payload of electronics," as the Wall Street Journal described them last week. The payload makes the balloon a sort of mini and mobile cell phone tower with a 24-hour life before it explodes. Space Data uses the balloons to provide wireless communications services for trucking firms to track vehicle locations, oil and gas companies to monitor wells, and other applications where work is done in very rural areas.

See www.spacedata.net.