21–30 of 385 posts
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...
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...
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…
I don't think you can send perishable goods via a very slow and delay prone transport medium. More likely this can be used for the opposite sort of goods: durable, low urgency supplies.
A dirigible flying with the jetstream is almost twice as fast as a cargo ship doing the same.
I think they're impractical for lots and lots of other reasons, and your "delay-prone" critique is probably salient, but "slow" needs to be contextualized somewhat.
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.
For one thing they struggle a bit when it's windy.
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.
I remember in the UK Airship Industries tried to make the things work economically for ages but never did. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airship_Industries For one thing they struggle a bit when it's windy.
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...
Doesn't Venus have sulfuric acid clouds? Would that happen above those?
The problem with pressure suits is that positive pressure prevents the suit from being flexible, requires it to be made from durable materials, makes doing anything very hard and if there is any puncture you will loose the pressure immediately.
Sulfuric acid can be kept away with a tiny layer that covers your entire body. Also, you will not die (immediately) if you get a small puncture. Very minimal positive pressure is enough to keep vapours outside of your suit even in case of pretty large tear, giving you plenty of time to fix it.
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.