Re: *Sigh* A Picture is Worth a Thousand Wor(l)ds
Posted by Dale on Mar 14, 2002 at 10:13
(204.212.212.10)Re: *Sigh* A Picture is Worth a Thousand Wor(l)ds (Amaranth Rose)
The planet wants to transmit messages away from itself, to the entire universe.Ok. That means that my answer of 1 was correct. 1 satellite in geostationary orbit within view of the transmitter can transmit to the entire universe. I missed the assumption you made that anything in the shadow of the planet such as the poles isn’t part of the universe.
Four in a tetrahedral arrangement with a vertex near the land mass…The geosynchronous requirement was stipulated in an effort to simplify the problem by allowing the assumption that the satellites stay above the same positions on the surface.In other words you were using the word geosynchronous when you meant geostationary. As I said before, that is a common mistake and understandable but geostationary (staying above the same point) means the orbit has to be in the same plane as the equator. You can’t have a tetrahedron with all satellites in the same plane and any not in the plane of the equator are going to move north and south during the day. How do you keep the vertex “near the land mass”?
P.S. The tetrahedron answer (with geosynchronous being irrelevant and requiring transmitting and receiving from all points on the planet (rather than just one i.e. the ENTIRE universe) was my final answer. I'm willing to bet you won't congratulate me for agreeing with you. ;)