6 ms·

Very cool! Setting the helium supply aside, this is actually something that scales up well, right? The blimp's lift scales cubicly with size, but its cross sec

Very cool! Setting the helium supply aside, this is actually something that scales up well, right? The blimp's lift scales cubicly with size, but its cross section and surface area (drag and materials weight) only scale quadratically. Also, I remember someone trying to shape a blimp like a lifting body, so it gets a some extra lift from forward motion.

creshal 3y ago
Helium supply was never really an issue. All the media hit pieces were essentially triggered by the Pentagon stopping to run a price-fixing cartel to the benefit of US universities, who after endless wailing and gnashing of teeth finally adjusted to market prices and such desperate last ditch measures like "we actually have to recycle our helium now and can't just vent it carelessly after every run!!1"
- auspiv 3y ago
  You say that but helium is essentially not renewable and is not produced naturally at rates anywhere near human consumption. Not sure if you're aware but helium currently only sourced as a byproduct of natural gas production. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_production_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_production_in_the_Unite...
  - creshal 3y ago
    Yes, but for better or worse, we have lots of natural gas producers, and they'll be in business for a long time. And once the selloff of the US's strategic helium reserve is done with and prices stabilize, more natural gas producers will actually bother to capture their helium.
lukev 3y ago
Can we set helium supply aside, though? I really hope we can make airships work, but it seems like the volumes of helium required will be prohibitive for wide-scale deployment. Hydrogen works well but remains dangerous... perhaps modern tech can make it "safe enough"?
- creshal 3y ago
  Realistically, all the other fundamental problems of blimps will limit before the helium supply does — remember that it was artificially crippled by the selloff of the US's strategic helium reserve; it was sold under market value and so all the natural gas producers who could have trapped and sold off their helium production just gave up on doing so. Supply will stabilize again after the last of the reserve is sold off this month.
- zyang 3y ago
  Hydrogen fusion creates helium as a byproduct. But I don't see why they can't use hydrogen for cargo. We have the tech to make it safer than long haul driving.
  - wolfram74 3y ago
    This is a pet peeve of mine when people talk about the advantages of fusion, if you did all of the US power budget with DT fusion that would generate very close to 10 million moles of helium, or 4E7 grams of helium, or 2E8 liters at stp. This is a big number! but it's 2E5 cubic meters and annual US consumption of helium is 40E6 cubic meters, less than 1% of consumption.
    - notfed 3y ago
      I found the last sentence confusing
      - wolfram74 3y ago
        If you produced all the USA's electricity in a year with fusion and collected all the resulting helium with 100% efficiency, you'd have collected less than 1% of the amount of helium we go through in that year.
      - phs2501 3y ago
        A naive translation (not checking facts in any way): Converting 100% of power generation in the US to (deuterium-tritium) fusion would result in 200,000 cubic meters of helium generated per year. But the US currently consumes 40,000,000 cubic meters per year.
lonelyasacloud 3y ago
re: the lifting body thing, that's Hybrid Air Vehicles' Airlander https://www.hybridairvehicles.com/ https://www.hybridairvehicles.com/ (may also be others).
Yizahi 3y ago
It unfortunately scales up very well, or rather it completely doesn't scale down. The problem is while gigantic design seems to be good on paper you can't build a demonstrator blimp or a small scale model (kinda like airplanes can with widebody/narrowbody or shorter/longer fuselages) to break into the commercial industry. And they need not only individual scale of a single ship but also quantity scale to show that they can operate profitable. And even if someone build them, then they need to convince people to switch from ships, trucks and trains. And places unreachable by those already don't have enough production for the gigantic blimp transport. But it would be awesome if someone goes full Elon Musk on this idea and bruteforces the final giant design with a pile of money. Blimps are great :)
Tuna-Fish 3y ago
> Also, I remember someone trying to shape a blimp like a lifting body, so it gets a some extra lift from forward motion. They are all shaped like that. Famously, the R101 at the end of it's final flight was so overweight (reasons disputed) it needed dynamic lift to stay afloat, with eventually disastrous consequences when first one engine was down for maintenance and then the second was ordered to cut revolutions for unclear reasons.

creshal 3y ago

Helium supply was never really an issue. All the media hit pieces were essentially triggered by the Pentagon stopping to run a price-fixing cartel to the benefit of US universities, who after endless wailing and gnashing of teeth finally adjusted to market prices and such desperate last ditch measures like "we actually have to recycle our helium now and can't just vent it carelessly after every run!!1"

auspiv 3y ago
You say that but helium is essentially not renewable and is not produced naturally at rates anywhere near human consumption. Not sure if you're aware but helium currently only sourced as a byproduct of natural gas production. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_production_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_production_in_the_Unite...
- creshal 3y ago
  Yes, but for better or worse, we have lots of natural gas producers, and they'll be in business for a long time. And once the selloff of the US's strategic helium reserve is done with and prices stabilize, more natural gas producers will actually bother to capture their helium.

lukev 3y ago

Can we set helium supply aside, though? I really hope we can make airships work, but it seems like the volumes of helium required will be prohibitive for wide-scale deployment. Hydrogen works well but remains dangerous... perhaps modern tech can make it "safe enough"?

creshal 3y ago
Realistically, all the other fundamental problems of blimps will limit before the helium supply does — remember that it was artificially crippled by the selloff of the US's strategic helium reserve; it was sold under market value and so all the natural gas producers who could have trapped and sold off their helium production just gave up on doing so. Supply will stabilize again after the last of the reserve is sold off this month.
zyang 3y ago
Hydrogen fusion creates helium as a byproduct. But I don't see why they can't use hydrogen for cargo. We have the tech to make it safer than long haul driving.
- wolfram74 3y ago
  This is a pet peeve of mine when people talk about the advantages of fusion, if you did all of the US power budget with DT fusion that would generate very close to 10 million moles of helium, or 4E7 grams of helium, or 2E8 liters at stp. This is a big number! but it's 2E5 cubic meters and annual US consumption of helium is 40E6 cubic meters, less than 1% of consumption.
  - notfed 3y ago
    I found the last sentence confusing
    - wolfram74 3y ago
      If you produced all the USA's electricity in a year with fusion and collected all the resulting helium with 100% efficiency, you'd have collected less than 1% of the amount of helium we go through in that year.
    - phs2501 3y ago
      A naive translation (not checking facts in any way): Converting 100% of power generation in the US to (deuterium-tritium) fusion would result in 200,000 cubic meters of helium generated per year. But the US currently consumes 40,000,000 cubic meters per year.

lonelyasacloud 3y ago

re: the lifting body thing, that's Hybrid Air Vehicles' Airlander https://www.hybridairvehicles.com/ https://www.hybridairvehicles.com/ (may also be others).

Yizahi 3y ago

It unfortunately scales up very well, or rather it completely doesn't scale down. The problem is while gigantic design seems to be good on paper you can't build a demonstrator blimp or a small scale model (kinda like airplanes can with widebody/narrowbody or shorter/longer fuselages) to break into the commercial industry. And they need not only individual scale of a single ship but also quantity scale to show that they can operate profitable. And even if someone build them, then they need to convince people to switch from ships, trucks and trains. And places unreachable by those already don't have enough production for the gigantic blimp transport. But it would be awesome if someone goes full Elon Musk on this idea and bruteforces the final giant design with a pile of money. Blimps are great :)

Tuna-Fish 3y ago

> Also, I remember someone trying to shape a blimp like a lifting body, so it gets a some extra lift from forward motion. They are all shaped like that. Famously, the R101 at the end of it's final flight was so overweight (reasons disputed) it needed dynamic lift to stay afloat, with eventually disastrous consequences when first one engine was down for maintenance and then the second was ordered to cut revolutions for unclear reasons.