These will be back - are coming back. There's a real market niche for them in the logistics universe - you might call it the cell phone of transportation. And probably luxury cruising too.Quote:
Originally Posted by earthJoker
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These will be back - are coming back. There's a real market niche for them in the logistics universe - you might call it the cell phone of transportation. And probably luxury cruising too.Quote:
Originally Posted by earthJoker
Did aliens do it?Quote:
Originally Posted by Timbuk2
I sincerely hope you are talking blimps and not Nazis.Quote:
Originally Posted by EyeKhan
Cargolifters? The concept was great until they found out that in practice you have wind.Quote:
Originally Posted by EyeKhan
That wasn't the actual problem. A friend of mine worked there as an engineer.Quote:
Originally Posted by earthJoker
The real problem was: The Cargolifter and its cargo have a certain buoyancy. Now, what would happen if you simply dropped the cargo at its destination?
Right. Up and away!
So, in reality you'd either have to:
a) release some gas (expensive!) to reduce buyoancy in equal parts or
b) take up some other cargo at the destination, like water tanks or something. This, however, reduces the usefulness of the Cargolifter as its main selling point was to carry unwieldy equipment to remote locations.
You could also
c) compress the gas.
But that would probably be to energy consuming. Anyway at least the world got the tropical island resort:
http://www.tropicalisland.de/tropica...03008x2000.jpg
http://www.blessthisstuff.com/imagen...s_resort_5.jpg
:haha::up:Quote:
Originally Posted by Enoch the Red
Dirigibles. Blimps are just balloons, without rigid internal structures.
http://www.gizmag.com/aeros-gets-faa...testing/28970/
Alternatively you can compress the excess gas into cylinders until you need more lift. Then release it into the lift cell again.Quote:
Originally Posted by Khendraja'aro
From the link in last post:
http://images.gizmag.com/gallery_lrg...-testing-5.JPGQuote:
The Aeroscraft airship was designed from the start to haul cargo, and it needed to solve a problem that has prevented airships to be used for cargo in the past: the problem of ballast. Airships are basically balloons with motors and steering, and like balloons, the helium gas inside provides a fixed amount of lift all of the time. If you picked up 10 tons in an airship and delivered it to a remote location, before the 10 tons could be removed from the airship, 10 tons of other weight must be added in order to prevent the airship from rocketing skyward from the extra 10 tons of lift. You could dump a lot of helium overboard, but that gets very costly, as helium is an expensive, non-renewable resource that is found under the ground in natural gas wells.
What the engineers at Aeroscraft have done to compensate for this problem is to take a lesson from submarines. The Aeroscraft airship can compress a certain amount of its lifting gas and put it into fabric tanks, under pressure. The density of the compressed gas is higher so that it is no longer lighter than air, and therefore this airship, unlike any of its predecessors, can change its buoyancy. The company calls this system COSH, an acronym for “Control of Static Heaviness.”
This ability adds another benefit: reducing the ground crew. Since blimps and other airships are always close to neutrally buoyant, they are in fact always flying. To land an airship, a large ground crew comes out to catch ropes and hold it down until it can be attached to something – usually a mast anchored in the ground or connected to a very heavy truck. This ballet of ground handling can take a crew of up to 20 people for even a small airship ... and the Aeros is not small.
With the Aeroscraft, the crew starts up a pumping system as it nears landing, which begins to compress the gas in the gas cells, making the craft heavier. The engines on either side power up to compensate, and by the time the vehicle touches down, it is quite a bit heavier than air and will stay in place on its own. The pumps continue to compress helium as cargo is removed and the craft remains heavy as long as it’s on the ground. When it is once again time for takeoff, a proper amount of helium is released from the tanks back into the gas cells, meaning the airship becomes lighter and the engines can easily lift it off the ground in a vertical take-off.
I wrote that already :downcast:Quote:
Originally Posted by EyeKhan
Yeah, I didn't see that 'til after I posted... Anyway, the Aeroscraft guys are doing it. Pretty cool IMHO. I think there's a market for luxury airship cruises. Glass bottom swimming pools... oh yeah. Their full scale airship could do it.Quote:
Originally Posted by earthJoker
http://blogs.lainformacion.com/futur...aerostabla.png
http://www.converj.com/sites/converj...aeroscraft.jpg
http://infranetlab.org/drupal7/sites..._airship01.gif
Police mugshots from the '20s?
http://i.imgur.com/cxemv50.jpg
Is that true or just photos with a clever label?
Skyfall:
Fight Club:
Cloverfield:
http://www.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-co...rkings-1-1.jpg
http://www.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-co...arkings-10.jpg
http://www.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-co...markings-8.jpg
http://www.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-co...markings-3.jpg
http://www.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-co...markings-5.jpg
http://www.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-co...markings-9.jpg
http://www.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-co...markings-6.jpg
http://www.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-co...markings-7.jpg
http://www.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-co...rkings-4-2.jpg
http://seat42f.com/images/stories/xzibit.jpgQuote:
Originally Posted by Timbuk2
The deadly typhoon that hit the Philippines, as seen from space.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/image...0_eumetsat.png
PS4 at midnight w00t
http://i.imgur.com/pKrQ6bA.gif
http://i.imgur.com/ZAGXNy5.gif
http://i.imgur.com/Qb4X4UJ.gif
Forest change mapped by Google Earth.
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/news/specia...mg/forests.jpg
The fully zoomable map shows forest change from 2000-12.
Green areas are forested; red suffered forest loss; blue showed forest gain; pink experienced both loss and gain.
Got a linkypoo?
http://earthenginepartners.appspot.c...-global-forestQuote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24934790
China launches a stealth drone, called Sharp Sword by Chinese media.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/image..._aircraft1.jpg
Amateur photograph of the comet Ison, taken through a 20cm telescope, on 15th Nov.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/image...7_71200788.jpg
For the whole month of December, millions of people across the northern hemisphere should be able to see its tail, which is several millions of kilometres long, stretching across the dawn sky.
Ison has come from the Oort cloud, a belt of comets on the very edge of the Solar System, where it has been for the last 4.6 billion years.
What makes Ison so special is that it is a "sungrazer". Many comets pass through the Solar System every decade, but very few go through the corona of the Sun. Ison will do just that.
