Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Cargo airships could be big

elidourado.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 385 posts

Re: Cargo airships could be big

#101

Post by Retric »

twawaaay wrote: post #32
marcosdumay wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does have plenty of atmosphere, so radiation isn't a problem. (The problem is everything else, as usually is the case on space.)

Venus has plenty of atmosphere above the surface, but not above the point where there is 1 ATM of pressure. In case of Earth most of protection comes from our magnetic field. The reason is that magnetic field sweeps ALL charged particles coming from the sun while atmosphere only stops some. When a particle drops into atmosphere it has a chance to collide with an air molecule, the deeper the higher the chance. But the…

1 ATM of air is the same amount of material as 33 feet of water which provides a great deal of protection from charged particles. I doubt enough charged particles can penetrate to the surface that it’s a meaningful issue.

I’ve seen many books etc suggest the earths magnetic field is required, but I haven’t found direct evidence for it doing anything beyond protecting the ozone layer.

Re: Cargo airships could be big

#103

Post by padobson »

nwatson wrote: post #87

Not mentioned in the article at all: security. Unmanned airships over water at low altitude, and pirates with drones.

This. It was all I could think about while reading the piece. The US Navy is capable of making the seas safe, but under current political conditions I don't even see THAT happening forever.

To make this work, the air force would almost certainly have to get in on the act, and that makes even less geopolitical sense.

Re: Cargo airships could be big

#104

Post by mastax »

hguant wrote: post #97
jp57 wrote: post #55

The airship renaissance is the fusion of transportation world. It's always ten years away. Seriously, I've been hearing about the great promise of modern airships for twenty years. Where are they? Are there any airships operating commercially now outside of niche applications?

I know some of the Canadian provincial governments were looking at using airships to provide a means of supplying some of the more remote northern towns - because of weather/terrain conditions, you can't build a rail head that far north, and the roads aren't reliable, so light cargo planes are the only reliable means of getting goods around. Airships, even of the good year variety, would be far cheaper for the weight…

How do airships fare in bad weather?

Re: Cargo airships could be big

#105

Post by TillE »

vintermann wrote: post #83
rsynnott wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Partially or completely wind-powered cargo ships appear to be on the way, so this might happen anyway.

Personally I'm pretty disappointed that hobby drones use so much power, when the seagulls just glide out there, not even flapping their wings for minutes on end. We should be able to manage the same with microcontrollers now, surely?

Birds are extremely light. Hollow bones, etc.

Re: Cargo airships could be big

#106

Post by Jean-Philipe »

jodrellblank wrote: post #66

I'd like to draw your attention to " killing 35 of the 97 people on board in the inferno. " The Hindenburg had 7 million cubic feet of Hydrogen gas. It was the biggest aircraft disaster of its time. It had such rudimentary technology that the cockpit looked more like a sailing ship than an aircraft[1]. Despite that, well over half the passengers jumped out the windows[2], ran away and survived with few or no injuries…

I completely agree. In addition to that, the Nazis neglected a lot security measures that this aircraft actually had in place. There's a nice episode of "well there's your problem" on the Hindenburg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chlF5oubFHU

Re: Cargo airships could be big

#107

Post by TylerE »

credit_guy wrote: post #77
jodrellblank wrote: post #66

I'd like to draw your attention to " killing 35 of the 97 people on board in the inferno. " The Hindenburg had 7 million cubic feet of Hydrogen gas. It was the biggest aircraft disaster of its time. It had such rudimentary technology that the cockpit looked more like a sailing ship than an aircraft[1]. Despite that, well over half the passengers jumped out the windows[2], ran away and survived with few or no injuries…

There's actually no need for hydrogen. Helium would do just fine. From the blog post, filling the hypothetical airship with helium would cost $8 MM, while filling it with hydrogen would cost only $100k. Sounds like a no brainer. But, the overall cost of the airship would be at $100 MM. Hydrogen would result in a less than 10% cost reduction. Now, the FAA approved unleaded jet fuel in 2022. Yes, that's how conservativ…

Lift gas is a consumable. You have to vent it to descend in many cases, and that’s ignoring the inevitable leaks and diffusion.

Re: Cargo airships could be big

#108

Post by elihu »

andbberger wrote: post #45
meindnoch wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

what are we going to do from mars

Tourism, mining high value minerals for Earth, mining low value minerals for construction on Mars, manufacturing rocket fuel so that Mars can be the gas station for ships headed for the asteroid belt (enabling more high value mineral mining), low-gravity retirement communities for people with mobility issues who would be wheelchair-bound on Earth, real estate speculation, movies, sports, manufacturing space infrastructure (easier to launch things into orbit due to lower gravity), and basic science.

Re: Cargo airships could be big

#109

Post by danbolt »

the_af wrote: post #76
bobthepanda wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I played a very interesting scifi game that solved the “how do humans travel millions of light years” problem with “well, they’re actually clones produced at the destination planet.” I’d list the title but it is a pretty major spoiler.

Sounds very interesting, could you share the title anyway? I once had an idea to write a collection of scifi stories with this premise, where every "seed" pod reaches a different planet and each society of clones evolves differently, providing a bunch of different stories related by a "framing" story.

I think it’s Mighty Kaiju Deimos.

Re: Cargo airships could be big

#110

Post by unsupp0rted »

meindnoch wrote: post #17
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?

Build a second basket for our eggs. There are obviously better baskets than Venus though. I'd sooner choose an orbital habitat.
Post reply on HN