also, see CargoLifter for a similar project around the year 2000 which raised crazy amounts of money and then failed completely because of fundamental problems.
this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2024
34 points (92.5% liked)
Solarpunk technology
2417 readers
39 users here now
Technology for a Solar-Punk future.
Airships and hydroponic farms...
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
They didn't fail due to technical problems. At least try to do proper research next time.
They ran out of money. After realising that their original idea wasnt really that realistic and building a cargo airship is really really hard.
Running out of money is a fundamental problem.
Man people will try anything to anything except trains and boats.
Wait... We don't have trains and boats already?
But what about second trains and boats?
We do but I'm essentially accusing this of being a gadgetbahn.
Or sometimes, they will reinvent trains and boats, but worse.
Pods
I have been told that for years but so far it hasnt happened. Its like fusion.
The words SpaceX and Hyperloop appeared in this article, thats an instant self own in my book.
SpaceX is highly successful, but yeah Hyperloop is not the best reference, but I think cargo airships as a business is closer to SpaceX in terms of market fit.
Hyperloops business model is to scoop up funds meant to develop technology to combat climate change. It's Teslas business model, too. It definitely makes me skeptical right off the bat. It's just a matter of if the airships are like electric vehicles (oversold climate harm reduction, but likely still a harm reduction), or if they are like hyperloops (complete scams that can be defeated with high school level math).
I'm skeptical of the scalability.
On paper, it sounds like a good idea. Competing in air freight for medium speed / cost makes sense. Fuel for an airship is probably easier on emissions than bunker fuel used for freight ships.
Buoyancy is what I'm struggling with. We don't have an unlimited supply of helium. Thermal airships don't seem to be any faster than cargo ships. Hydrogen is too combustible.
So maybe this does have potential to carve out a small part of the market, but I can't foresee this being a huge disruptor in the global supply chain
That hydrogen is too combustible is largely a myth. The main problem with it is leakage through the hull membrane, but that is a solvable engineering problem.
TIL, thanks
is a solvable engineering problem.
yet still a hard problem. don't underestimate it.
You don't use Helium. You use Hydrogen. Hydrogen cannot burn without oxygen. Hydrogen is too tightly packed in an airship to get sufficient exposure to oxygen. Therefore, even in case of a fire, much of the hydrogen just escapes without burning. Airplanes too fell from the sky when the industry was not mature. We didn't just ban airplanes outright.
yup. and we don't dope the envelopes with aluminum powder either.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindenburg_disaster
Likely static charge from a cloud causing hydrogen to ignite. Hydrogen burns freely at all concentrations both very low and very high and is therefore far, far more flammable even than natural gas, so I'm afraid hydrogen airships will always be a catastrophe waiting to happen.
...no. Airships are *extremely" sensitive to wind. They could never promise delivery times that short when a bit of a gust on the atlantic could throw them absolutely completely off course. Airships can't start with "bad" weather. That is: slight winds. They cant land when there is wind. And many airships have been destroyed because of winds. Thats a fundamental problem that the hyperloop guys are going to fix just as much as they did fix the fundamental problems with the hyperloop.
These "fundamental problems" are not really problems for airships that only rarely touch down and can be loaded and unloaded with electric quadcopters which recently became available in suffient sizes.
Rigid hull airships regularly made transatlantic journeys with tight schedules, so your "gust of wind" problem is evidently wrong, and larger storms also effect airplanes starting and landing resulting in similar delays.
I think it makes way more sense for airships to be anchored down while loading and unloading, so the buoyancy doesnt need to be constantly balanced.
On the face of it, your point is valid, just like on the face of it landing rockets is too complicated. Both are likely solved the same way - active management by responsive computers to negate environmental effects to behave in a stable manner in an unstable environment. This idea certainly wouldn't have worked 100 or even 50 years ago, but may be quite possible now.
Those transatlantic journeys with airships are no longer done for good reason. And that would have to be a massive fleet of electric quadrocopters with an extreme lift capacity to load an entire airship. That sounds very expensive!
But I hope you're right, the idea is really cool!
Zeppelins largely fell out of use due to limited military application and because fuel was basically free back then due to abundant supplies. I think it is important to keep this historic context in mind.
As for electric quadcopters being expensive, yes, but the proposed business is end to end, so not like an airport that needs to be loaded and unloaded quickly with a large amount of cargo. So for the airships it will be rather pick and load individually replacing not only the airplane but also the trucks delivering the cargo to and from the airport.
It will likely need some good charging infrastructure on the ground to recharge these quadcopters, but the spread of electric cars makes this more realistic these days.
Please tell me Lou Perlman did not rise from the dead. *edited to fix error of "Ron" (oops) to Lou.
He's still very much alive??
Would it not be concerning that he raised from the dead, then?
oops, fixed error. :)