4 ms·
They mostly had trouble with landings and takeoffs. Cargo ships could have specialized cranes load and unload cargo while airborne.
by m0llusk 4y ago
They mostly had trouble with landings and takeoffs. Cargo ships could have specialized cranes load and unload cargo while airborne.
- krisoft 4y agoThat would be very tricky with conventional airships (and even trickier with hybrid ones). You would need to keep the system rougly at the density of air as you are tensioning the crane hoists. Probably by shedding ballast at the same rate you are appying tension on the lifting ropes. While the ship is blown about. And any cable failure would result in the airship violently jolting into the sky. With hybrid airship this is even trickier, since they relly on airspeed to generate some portion of their full lift.
- moring 4y agoCould they use a circular lift that loads ballast at the same rate as they unload cargo, the way usually proposed for a space elevator? That would at least solve the ballast problem and lift problem (while still needing a solution to keep the airship in place horizontally AND needing tough materials for the lift).
- hef19898 4y agoOr one could stick with the existing transport solutions: sea, air, rivers, truck and rail. Those work just fine to get basically everything anywhere on the planet.