When I see old pictures with zeppelins in the sky, I am jealous and think they're more futuristic than we are.
Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo
31–40 of 198 posts
Re: Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo
#32Better idea ultra high speed megascale nuclear powered cruise ships that never dock. They pull in 1 km from port and use deckside drones to transport tens of thousands of passengers safely on shore in different places all at once or as needed. Speed should reach at least 150mph. And with nuclear power become the domina t coastal form of circuit/belt transport. Not just people but cargo. Nuclear powered merchant marin…
I'd hate to think what the propellor noise would do to whales and other sea life.
Re: Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo
#33All air travel combined emits 2.5% of our yearly CO2 emissions. That’s hundreds of thousands of flights a day. We could just eliminate all coal electric plants in the world and make a real impact. Then use that cleaner energy to power our electric cars.
Is that adjusted for the increased impact of releasing CO2 at higher altitudes?
Re: Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo
#34And where will they source the helium? Gas wells?
We already waste the stuff and it's an incredibly useful substance.
Re: Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo
#35Better idea ultra high speed megascale nuclear powered cruise ships that never dock. They pull in 1 km from port and use deckside drones to transport tens of thousands of passengers safely on shore in different places all at once or as needed. Speed should reach at least 150mph. And with nuclear power become the domina t coastal form of circuit/belt transport. Not just people but cargo. Nuclear powered merchant marin…
It's effectively impossible to run a large surface ship at much over 40kts no matter how much power you have. The drag on a displacement hull is too high, and planing hulls and hydrofoils don't really work for anything large.
There was a company working on hydrofoils for cargo ships in one of the recent YC batches. No idea how it’s going, but they at least seem to think it’s possible to put foils on something large.
Re: Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo
#36This article doesn't seem to take into account that Helium is becoming scarce, and when used in airships, it's eventually just released and lost forever. NYT Article on the shortage: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/16/science/helium-shortage-p...
We used to have a strategic Helium reserve in the US for zepplins and so forth, then it was just kept for chemistry and other purposes. I think we started selling it down under GW. Helium seems like it's more valuable as a component in chemistry, super cooling, etc, rather than just using it for lift.
Also, we tend to think of Zepplins as rare things, like singular one-off vessels like the Hindenburg. In actuality, the Germans produced 131 of them! Most were used in World War 1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Zeppelins
Re: Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo
#37Airships don’t make sense for commercial travel. But they make a lot of sense for transporting cargo, specifically to regions that are difficult to serve by road or rail. LM has had a scalable, deployable system for years but no one has pulled the trigger on actually buying it yet.
Re: Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo
#38Like the render on the Lockheed Martin site the first thing that came to my mind was Africa. This could be a solution for heavy-load cheap transport across huge swaths of land where road or rail infrastructure would be inefficient or too expensive to develop. It could help extend commerce beyond coastal regions both on the continent and worldwide.
Re: Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo
#39The article's headline seems misleading: the article is actually about cargo, not traditional travel -- since airships are so slow.
But I don't see what needs this would meet -- either you need something to be shipped between continents quick (~overnight) so you use a plane, or you don't so you use a container ship.
This seems like it has neither the speed advantage of a plane, nor anything close to the size and scale advantage of a container ship.
So aside from the niche use of large deliveries to remote areas inaccessible by ship or rail... I'm not getting it.
Re: Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's effectively impossible to run a large surface ship at much over 40kts no matter how much power you have. The drag on a displacement hull is too high, and planing hulls and hydrofoils don't really work for anything large.
There was a company working on hydrofoils for cargo ships in one of the recent YC batches. No idea how it’s going, but they at least seem to think it’s possible to put foils on something large.
What about cargo torpedoes? I imagine you could fit an airplane load into a very large submarine/torpedo and send it at 200 km/h with a nuclear powered propulsion.