NASA Breakthrough For Solar Powered Aircraft

gilgsn writes "Planenews.com just received a news release from NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center about a breakthrough in fuel cell technology for solar powered aircrafts and how they used internet technology to broadcast data and HDTV video from the stratosphere above the Hawaiian island of Kauai. Their Helios Prototype could now fly through the night. I am sure that besides public communications, this will interest the military for their drones.."

Comments

Why not gravity?

[cperciva]

If I'm reading the story right (and it's 2:30 AM here, so maybe I'm not), the "news" here is that NASA has thrown a more efficient type of fuel cell onto a solar powered wing, thereby allowing it to store energy so that it can remain powered overnight.

Why don't they just use gravity instead? These wings already have motors and propellors; at night, these could be used as generators. The energy obtainable by dropping a few kilometers -- hardly a big deal for a wing 40km up -- would be just as much as could be stored in fuel cells, and the entire system would be much simpler and cheaper.

The NASA guys are pretty smart, so I'm sure I've missed something here; but what?

Helios -- way cool

[MacAndrew]

Apple Computer did a nice piece on Helios -- self-promotion, but it's still nice.

I don't think the military will be *too* interested in Helios. A very easy target to shoot down! The Predator is a lot faster, and I'm pretty sure they lost at least one to hostile fire in Afghanistan. On the other hand ... it would be useful for peacekeeping functions such as maintaining surveillance over [region] for long periods of time at low cost, such as to monitor (ahem) an arms control agreement. And I suppose it could drop bombs on things, though I'd rather it didn't.

Now with Helios, that unending 14-hour transoceanic flight you complained about really could be unending. You could just have the thing endlessly circling the globe, weather permitting.

When can I buy one?

[joelt49]

Seriously, it would be a cool toy, to float above you. Think of the potential implications: parents could buy one for their teen-age kid(s) and have it watch him/her/them to see where they go :)
Another idea: what about using it to generate electricity here on the ground? If we can get these things up in the air indefinitely, then maybe we could use the excess solar power, combined with the gravity idea above, to generate excess power. Not sure how efficient that would be, though. Eh, every bit helps ;)

Re:Replacement of Fossil Fuels?

[Xunker]

Not directly, but possibly with some changes or additions.

First off, cars have a lot more resistence pulling on them. Not just air resistance like the plane, but also rolling resistance, cornering resistance (vector changes loose engery quicker than consitant travel, IIRC), not to mention that a car will probably be carrying a lot more weight (e.g. frame, 4 people, bag of Cheetos, etc)

The biggest killer, though, is changes in velocity; this is one of the things that killed Gasoline turbine powered cars (I mean, purely turbine powered, mind you). This can be overcome however by using a "turbocharging" capacitor of sort that provides a monetary burst when accelerating that later slowly gets charged back up during driving (think Toyota Prius).

And, of course, obligatory trolling: In SOVIET RUSSIA... Solar powered Aircraft break YOU.

This is so NASA, again.

[Animats]

Here we have a commercial project, done by a private company, and partially funded by the Japanese Ministry of Telecommunications. And there's NASA, taking the credit.