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Sergey Brin's airship gets FAA clearance
- hartator 3y agoI don’t want to sound unthankful, but shouldn't Sergey Brin focus on fixing back Google? That will be more helpful to humanity then whatever this is.
- varelse 3y ago[dead]
- prepend 3y agoI think Brin has Google exactly the way he likes it.
- mfrc 3y agoAgreed.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ben_w 3y agoDoes he even own enough shares to do that if he wanted to? (I genuinely don't know, it isn't clear from his Wikipedia page). I'm not sure if Google is fixable at this point, though I agree with the sentiment; the financial incentives were always pulling this way, even if Google wasn't itself selling advertising, and even if generative AI wasn't better than spam-content detection AI.
- xiaq 3y agoMy understanding is that Google’s stock structure was set up specifically to allows Sergey and Larry to retain a majority in terms of voting rights when combined.
- Rebelgecko 3y agoSergey and Larry combined have a majority of voting shares
- dragonwriter 3y ago[flagged]
- Belopolye 3y agoGoogle is still a colossal money printer. Since that’s the only real goal of the people who own it (the shareholders), what’s broken that needs to be fixed?
- MrRolleyes 3y ago[dead]
- suoduandao3 3y agoIt's prioritizing next-quarter profits over ten-year profits.
- rtkwe 3y agoThat's just life as a public company.
- Belopolye 3y agoFrom the perspective of the owners that’s a feature, not a bug. Shareholders want big number go bigger so they can cash out, why would they care about the state of Google ten years from now?
- dbwastedspace 3y ago[dead]
- suoduandao3 3y agoIf you owned a significant percentage of google, what would you sell it for that would be worth more than google in ten years if it was optimized for value in ten years?
- rebolek 3y agoIf he fixed google, where would he get money for zeppelins?
- prepend 3y agoI love airships, but we really seem to be hitting peak something when billionaires can not just live in their floating city (124 meters long), forever. I can’t wait for the jet packing up and down for parties and whatnot. This seems like it’s out of Altered Carbon.
- whalesalad 3y agoThe notion of using these for disaster relief is really a great benefit to society. Imagine islands in the Caribbean or south east Asia impacted by a hurricane, typhoon, tsunami etc and cannot receive supplies. There is a very real need there.
- pixiemaster 3y agono need to wait, helicopter tech is good enough for nearly all situations, some billions would help enough, rather than investing those into some kind of pipedream. Cargolifter already tried.
- whalesalad 3y agoHelicopter tech is absolutely not even close to being able to do what an airship can do as far as longevity and carrying capacity.
- mitthrowaway2 3y ago>Cargolifter already tried. Sort of? It was a startup that went bankrupt before building its first product. The light bulb was also "tried" 50 years before Edison. There's something to be said for trying again.
- carapace 3y agoGood! I've been saying for years now that we are going to need LTA mass transport to deal with climate change. My only suggestion is to build them out of cellular swarm robots.
- joshmarinacci 3y agoSince we always choose the lightest / least dense possible lifting gas, would it be possibly to use a pure vacuum as a lifting gas? You'd need an insanely strong cover and internal structure, but would it theoretically work? And if not a pure vacuum about using regular air and then pumping out the air until you reach a partial vacuum that meets your current lifting needs?
- rsynnott 3y agoIt would work, if you had magic impossible materials, yes. However it wouldn't actually provide _that_ much more lift than hydrogen. Vacuum airships largely show up in sci-fi, as a sign that someone is showing off (they require absolute magic materials technology, but aren't really all that useful). Iain M Banks liked them.
- aidenn0 3y agoAlso if you had those magic impossible materials, you could probably use even less of them with hydrogen for greater lift than more of them with a vacuum.
- tastyfreeze 3y agoTheoretically, yes. The insanely strong structure is the problem. The required strength is too heavy to be lifted by the vacuum. http://cba.mit.edu/docs/papers/19.01.vacuum.pdf http://cba.mit.edu/docs/papers/19.01.vacuum.pdf
- rtkwe 3y agoEven if you could build it so that it is positively buoyant you're only saving a 1-2 grams per liter of helium you replace with vacuum. He and H are extremely good at being light filler gasses.
- RandallBrown 3y agoI guess it's theoretically possible, but not really on earth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_airship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_airship
- agotterer 3y agoDoes anyone know if these are expensive to manufacture at scale? I like that they are being used for aid, but I’m curious why they couldn’t also be extended to commuter travel? Is it not cost effective?
- flashback2199 3y ago> why they couldn’t also be extended to commuter travel? It takes an airship a while to take off, land, get up to speed, slow down from top speed Not sure whether the latency is suitable for commute Edit: hmm now that I think of it, so does a ferry, and a good amount of people commute by ferry in SF..
- FabHK 3y agoThey might be nice for a one-week safari over Eastern Africa or so.
- flashback2199 3y agoSounds vaguely like the plot of Up, lol
- bertil 3y agoIt’s a reasonable idea in practice, but they can’t carry that much weight, so either you land often for showers or water would have to be recycled. They can have a lot of power by having the top covered in flexible solar panels (ignoring the risk of a spark) so you can run reverse osmosis… but it might be a tough sell.
- simpaticoder 3y agoFor commuting, you're better off with a powered paraglider: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_paragliding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_paragliding
- jodrellblank 3y ago> "That piece of paper allows the largest aircraft since the ill-fated Hindenburg" We can't mention airships without mentioning the Hindenburg. This[1] was the cockpit of the Hindenburg's sister ship Graf Zeppelin, yep flying technology hasn't improved since then or anything. And Brin's airship isn't even Hydrogen lifted! [1] https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/photograph-from-the-official-album-of-the-zeppelin-naval-news-photo/90744634 https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/photograph-f...
- JumpCrisscross 3y agoWhat’s wrong with that cockpit?
- s_dev 3y agoHave you seen the cockpit of modern plane? The number of controls/instruments telling you about the status of the plane for instance is a big differentiator here. That is a major safety flag -- the pilot in that cockpit knows nothing really about the ship he is steering.
- AlecSchueler 3y agoIt's not a plane though. Will be curious to see how the new one looks.
- SV_BubbleTime 3y agoI’ll bet you it looks exactly like a plane. You aren’t going to get FAA clearance without aviation rated parts, and you wouldn’t make them from scratch for no reason.
- permo-w 3y agojtpda, how many dials do you need in a hot air balloon?
- woodrowbarlow 3y ago
- cratermoon 3y ago[flagged]
- bertil 3y agoIf anything, he would have to be considered behind Waymo.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago“…lidar systems to track the gas levels within” How does this work?
- Jemm 3y agoGreat use of our limited supply of helium. /s
- mthomasmw 3y agoOur forever limited supply of helium, the most vital non-renewable resource on Earth, the only supply the human race will ever have. https://www.npr.org/2019/11/01/775554343/the-world-is-constantly-running-out-of-helium-heres-why-it-matters https://www.npr.org/2019/11/01/775554343/the-world-is-consta...
- spir 3y agoI was hoping somebody would chime in on the sustainability of helium for airships. I'm a total amateur here. Is there no hope of finding a new source of helium? Is there any opportunity for airship gasses that are reasonably competitive to helium but have a much more abundant supply? Is helium the only possible such gas (besides hydrogen)? Are competing gases 30% less efficient or 3,000% less?
- SV_BubbleTime 3y agoFusion and fission breeders are expected to create helium to some degree. No idea if it’s even worth mentioning here, but basically we’ll get more by atom manipulation and that’s it.
- pdonis 3y ago> Is there no hope of finding a new source of helium? Not on Earth, or anywhere in the Solar System except the interior of the Sun, as far as I know. Mining the Sun's core for helium is unlikely to be practical any time soon. :-) > Is there any opportunity for airship gasses that are reasonably competitive to helium but have a much more abundant supply? No. The problem is weight. More specifically, the weight of the airship in total including the gas inside, compared to the weight of an equal volume of air. So obviously any gas that is as heavy as or heavier than air won't do. And that only leaves, by my count, three possible gases that aren't already in air, that are lighter than air at all. The comparative weights are, roughly speaking: Hydrogen: 2 Helium: 4 Neon: 20 Air: 29 So the maximum amount of weight available for all the rest of the airship--its structure, engines, passengers, cargo, etc.--would be, roughly speaking: Hydrogen: 27/29 Helium: 25/29 Neon: 9/29 The hydrogen case is known to be easily doable, but of course it also has the huge downside of flammability. The helium case is doable, but not easily: once you've done the structure and engines, the weight left over for any kind of payload, i.e., passengers and/or cargo, is not very much. The neon case is simply not practical: there isn't even enough weight left over for a reasonable structure, let alone engines and payload.
- lalalandland 3y agoAirships, virtual reality, flying cars, space hotels... What other tech tropes are there ?
- permo-w 3y agoai
- emiliobumachar 3y agoVideocalls. Straight out of The Jetsons.
- the_sleaze9 3y agoRobot butlers, Ray guns, Laser swords and Aliens.
- gnicholas 3y ago> Ultimately, LTA intends its aircraft to be used for humanitarian missions, deploying cargo and personnel to areas that are inaccessible by road. How will they get the airship to the relevant region? It doesn't fly very fast (and presumably doesn't have incredible range, so would need to stop for refueling/recharging).
- moffkalast 3y agoIn the 1920s, the Graf Zeppelin could cross the Pacific on a single tank. I'd imagine we've made some strides in efficiency since.
- pasttense01 3y agoYou can have airships located in each of the regions where it is likely to be used.
- climatekid 3y ago> Brin runs a separate non-profit, called Global Support and Development, that has already carried out such missions by sea, in the Caribbean, Latin American and the South Pacific. It originally used Brin’s own superyacht to ferry medical personnel to the scene of hurricanes and other disasters Sounds like he figured out how to write off his superyacht
- boeingUH60 3y agoWhat exactly is he writing off? There's no superyacht property tax. I guess you're one of the "They just write it off!" guys..
- willcipriano 3y agoMan has income. Man owes income tax. Man writes off income tax due to his largess in buying himself a large boat beacuse he let's orphans on it once a month.
- climatekid 3y agoSounds like you’re not using tax law to your advantage
- mirekrusin 3y agoI thought helium is getting scarce, was feeling bad for getting it for birthday balloons?
- bertil 3y agoHelium is expensive, which is why they are considering Hydrogen. Yes, that’s what was in the Hindenburg, and yes, it can go big boom, but that’s the idea.
- mirekrusin 3y agoWhy not hot air instead?
- bertil 3y agoThere is an endless supply of that, but it's not much lighter than cold air, so it doesn't have a great lifting power.
- bombcar 3y agoHydrogen for birthday balloons is where it's at, and then you get a fun send-off, too. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_RKdWYqgu3Y https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_RKdWYqgu3Y
- bsbdbkeks66554 3y ago[flagged]
- butlike 3y agoLet's be honest. Dude just wanted a blimp.
- emgeee 3y agoVeritasium recently did a good video on airships and some of their potential modern applications https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjBgEkbnX2I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjBgEkbnX2I
- eagerpace 3y agoThis video was good and helped me understand it's not just lifting, but what happens when it drops the lifted object. The main issue is after you drop the weight the ship will take off into the sky if it doesn't vent or compress gas, both are non-trivial processes that require significant cost, waste or energy.
- gretch 3y agoWell another option presented in the video is to use weight offsets - when you drop the cargo off, also pick up something equally heavy. It’s not that hard to imagine that weight being return trip cargo or seawater in worst case.
- fellowniusmonk 3y agoI mean it seems like loading and unloading over ponds and other bodies of water and using pumps to displace weight is the most straightforward. During the transition phase of loading and unloading, tethering to ground seems like it would make things easier. Still cheaper and more flexible than equipment at an existing seaport.
- tschwimmer 3y agoPerhaps this is a stupid question but couldn't you just tether it down? I suppose this would not be ideal for very rudimentary landing zones but depending on the forces involved would cleats embedded in concrete be sufficient?
- ChuckMcM 3y agoThis will be entertaining, kind of steam punk like. I expect that they are really designing for hydrogen lift, the economics become a lot better and pretty much everyone understands what killed the Hindenberg wasn't the hydrogen rather it was the outer skin catching fire. "Teldar"[1] (I think that is a wonderfully stupid name) is much less flammable. If you ask "Why hydrogen?" The reasoning goes like this; The value of an airship is determined by its range and its cargo capacity raising either increases the airships suitability for various tasks. Hydrogen provides 8% greater lift per cubic liter over helium and costs 1/10th what helium does to source and supply. So economically it just makes more sense but we haven't had hydrogen airships because of the public perception of their danger (and thus the lack of investment). Anyway, there are some great applications for dirigibles and "disaster relief" and "heavy lift" are but two. Something about being able to just sit there for hours over a point that is unreachable by land is pretty appealing. [1] https://www.dupont.com/content/dam/dupont/amer/us/en/tedlar-pvf-films/public/documents/Tedlar-Properties-Overview.pdf https://www.dupont.com/content/dam/dupont/amer/us/en/tedlar-...
- coffeebeqn 3y agoI’m first reminded of final fantasy games. They (at least used to) always have a guy called Cid who would give you a airship to hop around the map quickly
- kridsdale3 3y agoAFAIK (have not played 16) there is still a Cid in each one.
- woleium 3y agoI suspect they will be using the learnings of project loon to use air currents and ai to provide heavy lift from anywhere to anywhere. A competitor to the Mississippi River system!
- kridsdale3 3y agoDoes Sergey automatically have access to the IP produced by one of his companies, to give to another?
- antoineMoPa 3y ago> [...] founded by Sergey Brin to explore the future of airships for disaster relief and cargo. Reminds me slightly of this xkcd https://xkcd.com/2128/ https://xkcd.com/2128/ Just tell us you just wanted to build a big airship.
- dopa42365 3y ago>We expect Pathfinder 1’s payload to be between 2,000 kg and 5,000 kg, depending on the final weight of the airship and the individual mission. That's...not a lot, is it? Compared to a Chinook or MI-26 or whatever. And it's huge and impractical. But it looks cool!
- c-smile 3y agoFloating takes zero energy.
- c-smile 3y agoWhy pure helium but not a mixture of helium-hydrogen? At some level [1] that mix is not flammable. That will add at least some additional payload. [1] https://h2tools.org/bibliography/experimental-study-safety-helium-and-hydrogen-mixtures https://h2tools.org/bibliography/experimental-study-safety-h...
- rtrunck 3y agoRelevant video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2mdsyEAO_M&t=14s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2mdsyEAO_M&t=14s
- bodecker 3y agocame across a related article recently that explored the economics and physics of airships [1]. seems like a monumental undertaking to actually bring to market but the principles seem sound [1] https://www.elidourado.com/p/cargo-airships https://www.elidourado.com/p/cargo-airships
- philip1209 3y agoInteresting that it uses helium. With a helium shortage [1], I'm concerned about the long-term viability of an airship - so I ran some numbers to understand it better. Helium is used in medical applications for cooling magnets in MRIs - I found the quote "An MRI unit requires approximately 2,000 liters of liquid helium to keep the magnet cool enough to operate." [2] This is interesting to be because, in a helium shortage, healthcare applications probably get high priority. Liquid helium has an expansion ratio of 1:745 [3], so the 2000 liters of liquid helium for an MRI is the equivalent of ~1.5 million liters of helium gas. I can't find the exact volume of helium the Pathfinder 1 requires, but their website says "Pathfinder 1 is 400 feet long and 66 feet wide" [4], which modeled as a cylinder gives a displacement of about ~38 million liters. So, my rough estimate is that an airship needs as much helium as ~25 MRI machines (with a high margin for error). To me, that seems like a lot of helium - I bet society would prefer 25 MRIs to 1 airship. [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/helium-shortage-doctors-are-worried-running-element-threaten-mris-rcna52978 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/helium-shortage-d... [2] https://www.rsna.org/news/2023/january/helium-shortage-for-mri https://www.rsna.org/news/2023/january/helium-shortage-for-m... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expansion_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expansion_ratio [4] https://www.ltaresearch.com/faq https://www.ltaresearch.com/faq
- shipscode 3y agoI doubt society cares that much about MRIs seeing how wasteful they are when used for preventative care. I’ve personally witnessed people get 5 MRIs to diagnose a health condition and still come up short. I’d rather we let Sergei fly his balloon. Maybe if we run out of helium doctors can go back to working instead of helping their imaging partners make bank on MRI machines.
- mensetmanusman 3y agoIt will have on-board nuclear plants to generate helium /s
- jazzyjackson 3y agoisn't the helium shortage affected by the market price of helium? just like we were afraid of peak oil until we broke through the price barrier to distilling oil from tar sands and suddenly there's plenty of oil to go around as long as people are willing to pay $80/barrel ?
- yieldcrv 3y agoAre sky cruises coming back?
- debo_ 3y agoIt took him awhile. I usually get mine in the air within the first 10-20 hours of any Final Fantasy game.
- trhway 3y ago>Pathfinder 1 has a hybrid propulsion system, with two 150 kilowatt diesel generators working alongside 24 batteries to provide power for the electric motors 300KW is 1500 m2 solar panels at 200 W/m2 which given the airship's length of 120 m means 15m width - i.e. the airship can just be covered with those lightweight flexible solar panels (with 1500m2 of those solar panels weighting about the same as those 2 diesels and say 300 gallons of fuel) and be self-sustainable for unlimited flight time.