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Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo

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Re: Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo

#41

Post by weberc2 »

JasonFruit wrote: post #12

What I don't see is a discussion of how these airships would avoid the sort of weather-related accidents that destroyed the Shenandoah, the R101, the Akron, and the Macon. The Hindenburg disaster gets all the attention, but the bigger problem with the large rigid airships was their inability to avoid or weather storms. I'd love to see it --- I really would --- but I never see this point addressed.

I know very little about any of this, but our ability to forecast weather has certainly improved in the intervening century; might that be helpful for avoiding storms?

Re: Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo

#42

Post by cforrester »

VonGuard wrote: post #36

This 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 un…

I wouldn't say that helium is becoming scarce in the sense that we can't get any more, though. I may be wrong, but my understanding is that it's just expensive to store, so nobody wants to do it if it's not worth the money. If air ships started to "take off", there would surely be more money in producing helium.

Re: Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo

#43

Post by tropo »

crca wrote: post #37

Airships 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.

An ordinary suburban location is difficult to serve by road if you'd like to ship a large house.

Re: Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo

#44

Post by weberc2 »

symplee wrote: post #40
ericd wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No idea if this idea is any good or not, but I wouldn’t recommend marketing this solution using the words “nuclear” and “torpedo”.

Re: Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo

#45

Post by ryacko »

crca wrote: post #37

Airships 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.

Narrow gauge is a good solution for mountainous or rural areas, but infrastructure intensive solutions require government investments.

Re: Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo

#46

Post by dr_dshiv »

Airplanes fly high and have tiny porthole windows. You can't appreciate the beauty of the earth.

Zeppelins can have huge windows and fly relatively low. The experience of flight would be amazing -- focused on the beauty of the natural world.

Zeppelins offer a low-carbon earth-conscious luxury good that the superrich should spend money on -- so that eventually it's affordable to the rest of us.

Re: Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo

#47

Post by tristor »

john_moscow wrote: post #29
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except we're not demi-Gods, able to decide what to do at will with the entire planet. Pursuing some serious efforts in one area can't be turned down simply because there's something else that could be done in another area.

On the contrary, the rational way of solving a complex problem that cannot be addressed entirely is to break it down into smaller ones, estimate their individual cost/impact/risk and start with the most cost-effective options. In fact, people who actively shame others for eating meat, having vacations, and raising kids, are doing exactly that. Except, instead of optimizing the ecological impact, they optimize their o…

Exactly correct, which is why wealthy nations converting away from fossil fuel electricity production to nuclear baseload generation and renewables for peak load is critical. It’s the only thing which is feasible, has clear outcomes, and is obvious once the problem is broken down.

Unfortunately being anti-nuclear is more emotionally fulfilling for people.

Re: Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo

#48

Post by nradov »

ericd wrote: post #35
nradov wrote: post #18

Earlier 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.

Boundary Layer Technologies is developing small cargo hydrofoils to compete with air freight. This may be a viable niche market. But their design looks like it has only about 1% of the capacity of the largest displacement hull container ships. Hydrofoil technology doesn't scale. And the cruising speed won't be much over 50kts.

Re: Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo

#49

Post by scythe »

tropo wrote: post #43
crca wrote: post #37

Airships 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.

An ordinary suburban location is difficult to serve by road if you'd like to ship a large house.

I hadn't even considered that. You could blimp all sorts of things that won't fit on the road. Houses, windmill blades, HVAC units, pods for modular buildings, extremely large pianos, ...

Re: Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo

#50

Post by etaioinshrdlu »

I got a dumb idea. Permanently stationed blimps around the world that never land. And cable cars for moving between them, on pulleys.

Pros: Energy efficient: no need to generate lift. No need for fans to move the cars as you are on pulleys, which are more efficient. Minimal noise! You could go as fast as you want but your efficiency will start to drop due to drag.

It can't be any worse an idea than a hyperloop can it?

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