4 ms·
Well that's cool. I'd be interested to know more about the technical details. The article mentions something about "cells" to reduce risk of buoyancy loss fro
by dgreensp 7y ago
Well that's cool.
I'd be interested to know more about the technical details. The article mentions something about "cells" to reduce risk of buoyancy loss from a tear, and something about ultracapacitors. While some of the details may be proprietary, I'm sure there are some interesting things to say about the technology that this article somehow manages to almost completely avoid.
Also aren't we running out of helium (because it's a mostly non-renewable resource on Earth)? I know it's not actually consumed by the airship, but that's a lot of helium, right? Edit: According to my calculations, filling up a Hindenburg with helium (0.2 million cubic meters) uses about 1/900 of the annual global helium production (about 180 million cubic meters).
- jeffreyrogers 7y agoYou can use hydrogen instead of helium. It's flammable sure, but so are gasoline and jet fuel. Plus it is hard to make it explode unless you inject oxygen.
- edaemon 7y agoHydrogen fell out of favor for airships after the Hindenburg disaster. It's much more dangerous than gasoline or jet fuel.
- klyrs 7y agoThere's an oft-debunked [1] theory that the paint on the Hindenburg was the issue. It was the hydrogen. https://www.airships.net/hindenburg-paint/ https://www.airships.net/hindenburg-paint/
- dmos62 7y agoI wonder if safe hydrogen designs are conceivable today.
- nwah1 7y agoEven if they were, which seems unlikely, the question of economic viability would come into play.
- dmh2000 7y agoAnd helium is getting expensive. I worked on an airship project in the early 2000's and it cost $100,000 to fill it. And there is always leakage from diffusion.