Thunderbirds are Go!
Amazon.com Thunderbirds Are Go (International Rescue Edition)
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Posted on 02/01/2008 5:11:43 PM PST by Stoat
As for safeguards, the standard practice for rigid airships is to have not one, but several (many) gas bags to hold the lifting gas. They’d be using something nonflammable — most likely helium. In the event of a small explosion on board, (something that could take down a jet airliner) there would still be the possibility of landing without a crash.
All excellent points, thank you for posting.
It’s very exciting stuff with myriad possibilities...I can’t wait to see the next-generation airships!
The cost of a night on the airship is yet to be decided, but it is likely to be out of the reach of most pockets.
However, it could provide the perfect hideaway for camera-shy celebrities.
One thing the concept and the article underscore is how enviromentalism is generally driven by ultra-rich folks.
Most folks don't consider hotels "ugly". Most folks don't ascribe any significance to leaving a "trace" of their passage.
Only the ultra-rich can afford to have such pretensions.
Warp 9 Scotty!
Aye but Captain, we’ve burned up all our helium gas!
Very true.
Oftentimes cutting-edge technologies that are implemented for niche markets have a trickle-down effect, and after the inevitable bugs get worked out of the Manned Cloud, perhaps other airships that are more competitively-priced will become available both for popular recreational travel as well as for business and industrial purposes.
I hope that you’re right....having a disaster with loss of life with something like this will certainly cool investment interest in future projects.
Well do you thin they will ever make a UAV carrier out of one of these? An aerial carrier for UAVs would be pretty nifty. Although I am not sure how impractical it would be.
think* unngh
Feed it into your on-board particle accelerator, de-fuse it back into hydrogen, and burn the hydrogen.
Don't ask me where to get the power for the accelerator, or how the balloon will lift the accelerator. ;-P
Actually your answer gave me an idea.
If you get a lot of one of the radioactive isotopes that is a strong alpha emitter, you could use the heat generated by its decay. Since alpha particles are high energy helium nuclei, you could say it’s powered by helium....sort of.
The most famous Airship disaster, the Hindenberg, was caused by using hydrogen as the lifting gas. But a number of American helium filled airships were wrecked, mostly because of winds and storms. Has that problem been fixed?
Perhaps the designers feel that with the new technologies now available, the prediction, mapping and avoidance of high winds and storms is a more realistic possibility. I agree though, I wouldn't want to be in that thing in any sort of a high wind situation.
Make a nice ASW platform.
Not really, kind of hard to fix Nature.
It would look really nice with a big Ron Paul sign on it!
No more flying in circles over the target, and a spectacular payload ability coupled with minimal runway needs :-)
About time. I was wondering when somebody was going to address the ugly hotel issue.
She looks a little wooden to me.
Might we see the term “jet set” superseded by “dirigible set”?
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