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Cargo airships could be big

elidourado.com

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Re: Cargo airships could be big

#11

Post by traceroute66 »

jacknews wrote: post #2

There's no doubt they'll be big, but will they be practical, economically viable and successful?

> There's no doubt they'll be big, but will they be practical, economically viable and successful?

Frankly no.

Its like every few years people remember about airships and suddenly start shouting how its the answer to the world's problems.

I mean, just search here on HN... 11 years ago there was "Blimpocracy - Is the airship the transportation system of the future?"[1] .... now here we are 11 years later, and, well, yeah ...

The trouble is that the present system already works well.

If it's not urgent, you can put tons of it on a massive ship. That ship can make multiple stops along the way.

If it's urgent, you can put it on a plane. Modern airfreight is reasonably efficient and not that expensive.

I really don't see what airships all bring to the party. Except perhaps being a slow-moving target for miscreants and bringing high-profile failures in newspaper headlines.

As for the people who say combine AI + airships ... yeah, like that's going to seriously happen any time soon. AI can't even do FSD in a Tesla properly yet. Putting AI in an airship, in today's complex busy airspace, add in real-life weather conditions and real-life technical issues ... yeah, erm, thanks but no thanks.

[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3000819

Re: Cargo airships could be big

#12

Post by splitrocket »

This, my friends, is why we should colonize the upper atmosphere of Venus, where you could chill outside with only a respirator, rather than the inhospitable, irradiated, mangnetosphere free mars.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Altitude_Venus_Operationa... https://spectrum.ieee.org/nasa-study-proposes-airships-cloud...

Re: Cargo airships could be big

#13

Post by elidourado »

thworp wrote: post #3

This is a nice theoretical summary, but it's missing an analysis on why previous attempts at cargo airships failed (see https://www.airship-association.org/cms/node/214 ).

Did you read the whole thing? There's an entire section at the end that talks about what current players are doing wrong, while raising the question of whether even the suggested approach is fundable.

Re: Cargo airships could be big

#14

Post by actionfromafar »

nradov wrote: post #7
qikInNdOutReply wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they could automate overseas transport of (e.g. fruit and other time-critical) cargo, with no pilots and very much reduced fligth costs, while being much faster then ships. Then off the coast its remote take-over and steering towards the freight air-port of destination. The critical part here is good enough automation to keep the thing on track and prevent accidents, while not trying to integrate it into the airways…

It is highly unlikely that uncrewed cargo aircraft will be allowed to operate in most US airspace any time soon. They can't reliably see and avoid other aircraft operating under VFR, and so are restricted to only limited designated airspace. Airships are unable to cruise at high altitude due to loss of lift, and are vulnerable to damage from severe weather. For ocean routes it's not always possible to route around st…

If/when forecasts will be good enough to only dispatch and route airships when they can be safely flown to either destination or safe harbor, is the wildcard I could imagine to make them viable options. But as you say, is the niche large enough to make work?

I think the pull for wanting them isn't so strange - they offer the promise of much lower fuel costs, which is a big stigma and problem of current aircraft.

Re: Cargo airships could be big

#16

Post by actionfromafar »

splitrocket wrote: post #12

This, my friends, is why we should colonize the upper atmosphere of Venus, where you could chill outside with only a respirator, rather than the inhospitable, irradiated, mangnetosphere free mars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Altitude_Venus_Operationa... https://spectrum.ieee.org/nasa-study-proposes-airships-cloud...

A respirator and a teflon suit to keep the sulfuric acid clouds away from your skin?

Re: Cargo airships could be big

#17

Post by meindnoch »

splitrocket wrote: post #12

This, my friends, is why we should colonize the upper atmosphere of Venus, where you could chill outside with only a respirator, rather than the inhospitable, irradiated, mangnetosphere free mars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Altitude_Venus_Operationa... https://spectrum.ieee.org/nasa-study-proposes-airships-cloud...

And what are we going to do there? Mine sulphuric acid from the clouds?

Re: Cargo airships could be big

#18

Post by [deleted] »

splitrocket wrote: post #12

This, my friends, is why we should colonize the upper atmosphere of Venus, where you could chill outside with only a respirator, rather than the inhospitable, irradiated, mangnetosphere free mars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Altitude_Venus_Operationa... https://spectrum.ieee.org/nasa-study-proposes-airships-cloud...

[deleted]

Re: Cargo airships could be big

#19

Post by carapace »

I've been slowly and sporadically working towards making large airships. Basically you make a large (like a square kilometer or more) rigid kite (see Alex G. Bell's cellular kites) and add enough drone guts to make it into a giant drone. Then you lodge an Airstream trailer or something in it.

I'm not an engineer, but the small models I've built make me think that there's no effective upper limit on the size of these structures. I think you could build a kite that girdled the world, an arch with no pillars.

I've got all the parts now for a first prototype, but I don't have any room to build it, so I'm studying origami etc. to design a folding version. It's a PITA but the designs are pretty: like a blooming flower, (like https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/learn/project/space-origami-mak... )

Re: Cargo airships could be big

#20

Post by ansible »

splitrocket wrote: post #12

This, my friends, is why we should colonize the upper atmosphere of Venus, where you could chill outside with only a respirator, rather than the inhospitable, irradiated, mangnetosphere free mars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Altitude_Venus_Operationa... https://spectrum.ieee.org/nasa-study-proposes-airships-cloud...

Venus also does not have a magnetic field:

https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/news/in-search-of-an-ancient-g...

So baseline humans would still want radiation protection.

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