The Daily GOOD: Nonprofit Wants to Buy World's Biggest Communications Satellite

Your one-good- thing-a-day email DECEMBER 15, 2010 BROUGHT TO YOU BY Nonprofit Wants to Buy the World's Biggest Communications Satellite There's a huge satellite for sale and the nonprofit group A Human Right wants to buy it to provide internet access to the unconnected. The TerreStar-1 satellite is the largest commercial communications satellite ever built—it's roughly the size of a school bus. It was launched by the TerreStar Corporation in 2009 to great fanfare. At the time, Jean-Yves Le Gall, the CEO of Arianespace, the company that provided the actual launching services, said TerreStar-1 would "revolutionize telecommunications over North America" by providing phone and laptop users with a fast, universal voice and data connection. But the TerreStar Corporation recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and it's selling off the TerreStar-1. Seeing an opportunity, A Human Right has started a campaign, Buy This Satellite, to raise $150,000 for the first phase of a three-phase plan to buy the satellite, move it over a country that needs internet access (Papua New Guinea, for example), and then connect it with people on the ground via low-cost modems. It's a complex plan, to be sure, but they seem to have done their homework, and who doesn't want to be part owner of a satellite? A Human Right will even send you a T-shirt if you chip in. Read and discuss Share on Facebook Tweet this Email to a friend Subscribe to the Daily GOOD DID YOU KNOW? 40,796 people get the Daily GOOD. GET IT SHARE IT CURIOUS LATELY? GOOD is a collaboration of individuals, businesses, and nonprofits pushing the world forward. www.good.is/

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