From: joshua geller (dclxvi_at_best.com)
Date: 04/09/98
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 11:22:02 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199804091822.LAA18503@shell5.ba.best.com> From: joshua geller <dclxvi_at_best.com> Subject: floating houses / floating villages
Chris McCoy writes:
> If I recall correctly, the Hind.. had a helium lift of 65 tons, and a
> hydrogen lift of about 70 tons. If you build a ship that size
> today, with modern materials, you would have far more payload.
the requirements for a floating town and for an airship for
transportation of people and goods are different. I'd scruple to call
the floating town an airship; I wouldn't expect it to navigate so much
as direct its course with the wind. a sphere or a lenticular hull
should be fine; you'd want to make it plenty big. this would be a
giant rigid balloon, but not a dirigible balloon. I'd say a two
thousand foot sphere or a suacer appreciably larger than this would be
the minimum practical size. you'd have flattened ovoids four hundred
feet long for tenders; probably at least two of them.
really, with airships, bigger is better.
> Concievable, you could put a small community of 5-10 families up
> indefinitely. The difficulties are maintenance, long-lasting
> materials, and power.
> Maintenance could be performed by the collective, but if you have 20
> adults and you need to run a hydroponics farm, service equipment and
> maintain materials, you pretty-much max out your workload.
I wouldn't think of something like this outside of the context of a
global civilization; food will be brought aboard on the tenders, as
will anything else that you need from the outside world. I'd imagine
that these would be specialized communities of people working on
something that they are as a group interested in.
so no hydroponics farm.
> Materials are the big question, as I am not sure how long mylar would last
> in a high UV, low-pressure environment 30-40k ft up.
I think aramid films or something better that I don't know about would
be the choice, not mylar. don't worry about expense; this is a
multibillion dollar project, here. this is not something that is
happening this year or next year. twenty years down the road when the
companies that come out of this group are multinational corporations
there will be money for this kind of project; don't expect it to
happen before that.
> Power ideally would be collected by solar, stored in large flywheels, and
> backed up with a methane-burning generator. The generator fuel can
> be produced by the hydroponics farm's waste. An atomic reactor is
> also an excellent power source, as helium is the by-product of a
> fission reaction, power and lifting gas from one source.
> Unfortunately, I know of no person who would be comfortable with a
> atomic reactor flying over thier head.
yeah, a whole bunch of attitudes will have to change before this is
possible. it might be possible to do it with solar and flywheels and
such.
on the other hand, a lot of people's attitudes are going to change in
the next hundred years.
> It would be hard to get
> cross-border clearance, and any tin-pot regime interested in your
> plutonium could bring you down with a well placed missle.
like I said, I couldn't reasonably see this being done outside of the
context of a global civilization. and I agree that it won't be
feasible to use nuclear power for a hundred years or so, so I am not
going to worry about nuclear power for these craft right now.
> Josh probably would have more info on what the Hindy could lift, and
> nuclear/helium results. How about it Josh? Any comments?
those that you see! and:
the hindenburg had a typical gross lift of 232,000 kg, with an empty
weight as percentage of gross lift of 56.1; if I am reading this
correctly this gives a disposable lift of roughly 130,000 kg, that is,
65 tons. this according to Peter W Brooks "Zeppelin: Rigid Airships
1893 - 1940".
the hindenburg was an 800 foot cigar. a 2000 foot sphere is much
larger than this.
best,
josh