From: The Butterfly (salsbury_at_bootstrap.sculptors.com)
Date: 04/19/98
Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1998 18:23:46 -0700 Message-Id: <199804200123.SAA26320@bootstrap.sculptors.com> From: The Butterfly <salsbury_at_bootstrap.sculptors.com> Subject: Re: Been kinda quiet, lately...
-Date: Thu, 09 Apr 1998 13:30:39 -0500
-From: Horkheimer <hork_at_execpc.com>
-
-I have noticed that all the lists seem to be slowing down a little bit.
The best way to combat that is to post something! (hint-hint) :-)
-> I'd been thinking that an autonomous house (like the one outlined
-> in my paper at: http://www.sculptors.com/~salsbury/Articles/house.paper )
-> would be incredibly cool to have dangling from a balloon/airship, and spend
-> perhaps 6 months living at an altitude of 5-6 miles up. (Pressurized cabin,
-> of course.)
-
-Why would you want to live that high up, if you don't like flying, it would be
-difficult to enjoy sitting in a pressurized cabin, your whole life basically.
But I do like flying. This is just a way to stay aloft for longer
than on a commercial airliner.
And as noted, I'm thinking about only a few months, not my whole
life, at altitude. In fact, I've considered the idea of moving the house by
balloon rather than helicopter during the various times you want to move
it. Thought it'd be cool to send up the balloon, float for a while, then
come down someplace new that looks nice.
-> I think it would be possible to make a house considerably lighter
-> than 13.5 tons, and thus need an even smaller bag for it
-
-Definitely, there are a lot of ways of cutting weight on a house. I am
-guessing you are a Buckminster Fuller fan, so I would suggest you look up how
-much his Dymaxion houses weighed.
Yes, I'm a great Bucky fan. The Dymaxion house weighed about 3
tons. With modern materials, we could do even better than that. We discuss
this sort of thing a lot over on the domesteading list, if any folks here
are interested.
-With all the talk and efforts of a round the world flight, there was an old
-article in the New York times that interviewed one of the representives of the
-balloon efforts, probably Richard Branson, who felt once they achieved this
-record flights and they build on it more successes they may offer
-balloons, for
-honeymooners and tourists, who want to fly around the world and pay big bucks
-for it. Materials and fuel are the key, to these flights.
-
-Sincerely,
-Don Horkheimer
-
That would be quite cool. I think there's a definite market in
people who want to live above the pollution where the views are
spectacular. Even if just for short periods of time.
--
Pat
___________________Think For Yourself____________________
Patrick G. Salsbury - http://www.sculptors.com/~salsbury/
Check out the Reality Sculptors Project: http://www.sculptors.com/
---------------------------------------------------------
I can't hack caps lock being anywhere but a dip switch you have to unscrew
a cover plate to use. -- Brad Templeton <brad_at_clari.net>