The US military is testing stratospheric balloons that never have to come down
technologyreview.com
The US military is testing stratospheric balloons that never have to come down
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Re: The US military is testing stratospheric balloons that never have to come down
#2From reading the actual article, the headline sounds dramatically overblown. It largely talks about a system to measure non local wind speeds so the balloon can adjust altitude to use the wind for navigation (including standing still). It seems to largely leave out any questions I'd have around confining helium or whether power equilibrium can be achieved.
Re: The US military is testing stratospheric balloons that never have to come down
#3The article fails to mention these are called "superpressure" balloons in case you're interested in reading more about them: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superpressure_balloon
There are some fantastic amateur projects doing similar things, such as this 11 gram payload (!) that circumnavigated the earth 6 times: http://leobodnar.com/balloons/B-64/index.html
Re: The US military is testing stratospheric balloons that never have to come down
#4The article fails to mention these are called "superpressure" balloons in case you're interested in reading more about them: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superpressure_balloon There are some fantastic amateur projects doing similar things, such as this 11 gram payload (!) that circumnavigated the earth 6 times: http://leobodnar.com/balloons/B-64/index.html
Do you know what materials they use to make these balloons? Weather balloons can go as high as 100,000 feet and then they'd blow up.
Re: The US military is testing stratospheric balloons that never have to come down
#5How do these balloons change their altitude? Is there a pump that can move gas between the balloon and a pressurized container?
Re: The US military is testing stratospheric balloons that never have to come down
#6The article fails to mention these are called "superpressure" balloons in case you're interested in reading more about them: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superpressure_balloon There are some fantastic amateur projects doing similar things, such as this 11 gram payload (!) that circumnavigated the earth 6 times: http://leobodnar.com/balloons/B-64/index.html
Do you know what materials they use to make these balloons? Weather balloons can go as high as 100,000 feet and then they'd blow up.
AFAIK they only blow up because they're designed that way.
Re: The US military is testing stratospheric balloons that never have to come down
#7The article fails to mention these are called "superpressure" balloons in case you're interested in reading more about them: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superpressure_balloon There are some fantastic amateur projects doing similar things, such as this 11 gram payload (!) that circumnavigated the earth 6 times: http://leobodnar.com/balloons/B-64/index.html
Do you know what materials they use to make these balloons? Weather balloons can go as high as 100,000 feet and then they'd blow up.
Usually some kind of plastic foil, kind of like mylar.
Re: The US military is testing stratospheric balloons that never have to come down
#8Don't balloons expand in the day and contact at night a bit due the sun heating the gas inside? Couldn't this stretch/release weaken the material a little and result in potential gas leaks?
To counteract this, I recall reading about people trying to send balloons across the Atlantic and needing to use ballast to stabilize the altitude and handle the gas losses. I wonder how DARPA can go without this requirement, as Helium really likes to escape whatever it's trapped inside of.
Re: The US military is testing stratospheric balloons that never have to come down
#9Don't balloons expand in the day and contact at night a bit due the sun heating the gas inside? Couldn't this stretch/release weaken the material a little and result in potential gas leaks? To counteract this, I recall reading about people trying to send balloons across the Atlantic and needing to use ballast to stabilize the altitude and handle the gas losses. I wonder how DARPA can go without this requirement, as H…
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Re: The US military is testing stratospheric balloons that never have to come down
#10Don't balloons expand in the day and contact at night a bit due the sun heating the gas inside? Couldn't this stretch/release weaken the material a little and result in potential gas leaks? To counteract this, I recall reading about people trying to send balloons across the Atlantic and needing to use ballast to stabilize the altitude and handle the gas losses. I wonder how DARPA can go without this requirement, as H…
Maybe the balloon could condense water in its environment and electrolyze it to refill itself with the produced hydrogen. (Though I'm pretty sure you also need salt.)