With all three vehicles, Arianespace, the company that runs Kourou, will now be able to offer satellite operators a ride for any type of spacecraft to all kinds of orbit - from the low, pole-crossing orbits used by Earth observation missions, to the high, geostationary locations favoured by big telecommunications platforms.

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But the chapter marks a significant departure from the Freakonomists' modus operandi: it contains little in the way of economics, other than a brief discussion of externalities and the observation that the hose system would be much cheaper than building an entirely new low-carbon energy infrastructure for the world.

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India's low productivity is the central preoccupation of McKinsey's analysis, which starts with the unexceptionable observation that India needs nearly to double its economic growth rate to 10% if it is to employ the masses due to enter the workforce over the next decade.

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