I know that JP Aerospace doesn't seem to make much headway with their "airship to orbit" concept.
Still, I wondered whether their concept of a stratospheric station (based approximately 140,000 feet above sea level or about 40km up) would be an interesting addition to the sub-orbital "space"travel crowd. Yes, it is technically not in space and no, there is no weightlessness involved, but the view would be quite stunning and could be enjoyed for some time, not just a few minutes.
Day trips or one-night stay-over trips up there including "dinner with a view" could be an interesting (cheap?) alternative to the 250k 6 minute joyrides with Virgin Galactic.
Quote from: AlexCam on 08/07/2011 01:33 pmI know that JP Aerospace doesn't seem to make much headway with their "airship to orbit" concept. A huge surprise QuoteStill, I wondered whether their concept of a stratospheric station (based approximately 140,000 feet above sea level or about 40km up) would be an interesting addition to the sub-orbital "space"travel crowd. Yes, it is technically not in space and no, there is no weightlessness involved, but the view would be quite stunning and could be enjoyed for some time, not just a few minutes.If you could make such a station, it would also be quite attractive for astronomy and cosmic ray research. Depending on location, it could also serve as a communication relay. Depending on how your transport worked, you could also get quit a bit of free-fall on the way down. For the adventurous, you could offer the option of jumping But building something with such a large payload and indefinite life at that altitude appears quite challenging. Especially if you want to maintain it at a relatively fixed location.QuoteDay trips or one-night stay-over trips up there including "dinner with a view" could be an interesting (cheap?) alternative to the 250k 6 minute joyrides with Virgin Galactic.6 minutes is the zero G time, the whole flight is a bit longer, and both the powered portion and reentry should be quite thrilling in their own right.Edit:There has been some successful work done with long duration high altitude balloons with fairly significant payload, e.g. http://www.csbf.nasa.gov/balloons.htmlHowever, these are at the mercy of the wind, and the payloads are still small in comparison to what is being discussed here.
I tend to think that lighter than water "vehicles" could go the fastest- they seem to me to be the easiest to get to 300 mph or faster. Or for a few thousand dollars or less, a lighter than water vehicle could "achieve this record speed" with what I tend think as less trouble than a lighter than air vehicle could do it.
QuoteI tend to think that lighter than water "vehicles" could go the fastest- they seem to me to be the easiest to get to 300 mph or faster. Or for a few thousand dollars or less, a lighter than water vehicle could "achieve this record speed" with what I tend think as less trouble than a lighter than air vehicle could do it.I can't find a link but there was a proposal for a positive buoyancy submarine or bottom launched torpedo that would "fly" up to attack surface ships with only its buoyancy and hydrodynamics to get pretty good lateral speed, from memory 30knots(??), a few years ago that I read about it, its big advantage was its stealthiness.
Guy with balloon wants to do "near-space" tourism:http://www.wired.com/autopia/2011/08/inbloon/
Question: Wouldn't a combination of hydrogen with flame-retardant materials be more cost-effective?Hydrogen is about one-fifth the cost of helium, and gives slightly better performance. But working with hydrogen requires permits for everything. Due to much larger insurance costs and permit costs, it actually turns out that using helium is cheaper than hydrogen. Helium is somewhat scarce, but it is actually an artificial scarcity - helium is vented in the U.S. in order to keep the price up.
Just found this thread.Quote from: AlexCam on 08/07/2011 01:33 pmI know that JP Aerospace doesn't seem to make much headway with their "airship to orbit" concept. Yes it's hard to see progress as they do a lot of testing on such a small scale (and it is a 30 year programme that they're only a bit over halfway through!).Things are due to get a bit larger scale in the relatively near future. They're hoping to fly their scale 90 foot Ascender by the end of this year: http://jpaerospace.com/blog/?p=5147
The JP crowd seems to be in denial about basic physics. You simply cannot have lift from the atmosphere without also having drag, whether that lift comes from buoyancy or aerodynamics.Go up where the atmosphere is thin and you can have lower drag, but that means lower lift from buoyancy or aerodynamics. If you add a large surface area, you can get back lift, but drag comes right back along with it. It's those same gas molecules bouncing off your craft that give both lift and drag.