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Lockheed's High Altitude Airship
swordboy writes "Lockheed Martin has just awarded a contract to UniSolar Ovonic regarding development and delivery of flexible, lightweight solar cells for the U.S. government's High Altitude Airship security project. The proposed 500-foot-long dirigible is to fly at a stratospheric 70,000 foot altitude - above both jet stream and severe weather. The thin-film solar technology, although low in peak conversion efficiency, can potentially deliver a whopping 2500 watts/kilogram. This is the same technology as the previously discussed GE organic LED project - just with the physics in reverse. Broadband communication blimp, anyone?"
...would be a tad more dramatic then wouldn't they?
Though the really great thing is that you could use the ol' tinfoil beany to actually reflect the "mind control waves" then.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
first they put up a blimp at 70K feet then they tell us its for national security and they LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE!!!!! This "blimp" will be beaming MIND CONTROL BEAMS into the brain of every citizen of Planet EARTH!!! We will become pawns of the ILLUMINATI and sheep in their WORLD domination MACHINE!!!
Already I feel the tin foil on my head being penetrated by THEIR MIND CONTROL RAYS!!!!!
@!(#U@)#U@U#()@!U#()@#)(@!U AAAAAHHHHAAH
There are many astronomy/aerospace missions that need to get above the bulk of the atmosphere. For science, having a controlled station at an altitude of 70,000 feet would be wonderful.
Now, in addition to all the cool cosmic ray stuff that could be done up there, putting a near-space telescope up there would be a wonderful (and relatively cheap) idea... any thought of other scientific (rather than solely comm satellite) uses for this?
If your shotgun can hit something at 70,000 feet I think you may be in for a visit by Mr. Ashcroft & Co.
Trolling is a art,
it's 250 miles tall!
Also Geo-syncronous satalites have to placed very high in orbit around the earth to stay in one spot with using a lot fuel. This causes a significant delay in transmission time to/from the satalites. The blimp would eliminate that.
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance" - Isaac Asimov
just with the physics in reverse
... .. like my rain coat.
Colonel Sanders: Prepare to reverse physics!
Peon: Preparing to reverse physics!
Colonel Sanders: Reverse physics!
Peon: Reversing physics, sir!
President Skroob: Oh sh*t! Quick turn it off!
Colonel Sanders: We can't, it's irreversable.
Dark Helmet:
"Death Balloon" just doesn't have the same ring as "Death Star". :(
The above link has folding instructions and fashion advice. Just make sure your browser has cookies enabled. No real reason. Honest. Just, well, it'll enhace your AFDB experience.
Trust me on this.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
A few years ago a German firm was going to resurrect the Zeppelin for commercial flight. Though it never received the financial backing to bring it to market, which is a shame since it is a much more efficient, safer and cleaner form of air travel.
Maybe this military use will someday translate to some sort of commercial use.
If your shotgun can hit something at 70,000 feet, I think you may be in for a visit from every military and weapons contractor, each with drool covered checkbooks in one hand and unsigned exclusive use contracts in the other.
Now if they could just stick some broadband transceivers on the thing....
Satellite service is my only option (until bb-over-power-lines succeeds), but the built-in latency of the roundtrip to geosynchronous orbit makes it useless for realtime, and the crippled upload speeds makes it useless for teleconferencing.
Shouldn't be too hard to add a motor and SNR tracker to have a dish follow that thing around the sky....
I knew this story seemed familiar...
/black_triangle_020805.html
check this out (illustrations and sidebars at space.com):
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technolo gy
Investigation Casts Light on the Mysterious Flying Black Triangle
By Leonard David
posted: 07:00 am ET
05 August 2002
They are big, black, and triangular. In UFO folklore they are proof-positive that planet Earth is a rest stop for joyriding, but road-weary, extraterrestrials.
A just released study by the National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS), based in Las Vegas, Nevada, sheds new light on the dark and mysterious craft. They offer a more down-to-earth hypothesis.
NIDS researchers contend that these type vehicles are lighter-than-air, blimp-style craft of the U.S. military's making. Likely powered by "electrokinetic" drive, the lifting body-shaped airships have been skirting the skies from perhaps the early to mid 1980s.
Illinois sighting
NIDS has followed up on their study of last year that correlated sightings of large triangular or delta-shaped objects with Air Force Materiel Command and Air Mobility Command bases throughout the United States. Matches were made suggesting flight paths in and out of certain base locations.
The new assessment focuses on what four police officers, and more than a dozen others observed on January 5, 2000: A large, silent, low-flying black triangular shaped object. It flew on a southwesterly direction between Highland, Illinois and Dupo, located less than 30 miles (48 kilometers) from St. Louis, Missouri.
Part of the flight path took the enormous object near the perimeter of Scott Air Force Base.
NIDS does not come up with definite conclusion regarding the origin of the object sighted in Illinois.
However, the reports jibe with over 150 separate reports of sightings of large triangular or deltoid shaped objects. Those eyewitness accounts, accumulated by NIDS, have mainly come from the United States. A small number of the sightings they have on file come from Canada and Europe.
Ballooning expectations
To bolster their case about military airships being taken for UFOs, analysts at NIDS make a historical note.
Lighter-than-air vehicles held all records for payload, distance, duration, and altitude within the first four decades of the 20th century - even with the advent of the airplane. In fact, save for rocket-powered research aircraft, like the X-15 and the space shuttle, all absolute altitude records are still held by high-altitude scientific balloons.
NIDS makes the case that Big Black Deltas, or BBDs, are U.S. Defense Department airships. They are so large they can carry massive payloads at low altitudes, cruising at speeds three to five times as fast as surface ships.
Among a range of NIDS observations, the group believes the BBDs are powered by electrokinetic/field drives, or airborne nuclear power units. These craft also fly at extreme altitudes, high above conventional aircraft and the pulsing of ground-based traffic control radar.
Elecrokinetic propulsion means that no propellers or jets are used. A hybrid lighter-than-air craft would rely on aerostatic, lift gas, like a balloon. No helicopter-like downwash would be produced. Except for a slight humming from high-voltage control equipment -- and in older BBD versions an occasional coronal discharge -- a Big Black Delta makes no noise.
Given a slew of BBD capabilities -- from silent running, diminished drag, elimination of sonic shockwaves, to operation from ground level to full vacuum -- NIDS calls for pushing this black world technology out into daylight for commercial benefit.
Wheat from the chaff
"What we're trying to do is transform unidentified flying objects, UFOs, into IFOs, or identified flying objects," said Colm Kelleher, deputy administrator for NIDS.
"We want to limit the number of cases that are unidentified in our data bas
(Cut to interior of a zeppelin. A party. Expensively dressed guests. Champagne. A palm court orchestra playing. Some guests looking out of the windows in wonderment.)
Von Bulow: (approaching Zeppelin) Herr Zeppelin - it's wonderful! It's put ballooning right back on the map.
(Zeppelin goes instantly berserk with anger.)
Zeppelin: It's not a balloon! D'you hear?... It's not a balloon... It's an airship... an airship... d'you hear?
(He hits him very hard on the top of the head with the underside of his fist.)
Von Bulow: Well, it's very nice anyway.
Tirpitz: (to Zeppelin) Tell me, what is the principle of these balloons?
Zeppelin: It's not a balloon! You stupid little thick-headed Saxon git! It's not a balloon! Balloons is for kiddy-winkies. If you want to play with balloons, get outside.
(Drags Tirpitz over to the door, opens it and flings him out into the clouds.)
Tirpitz: Aaaaaaaaaghhh!
The organic LED based technologies (polymeric / organic /nanostructured / Titania / Gratzel / Graetzel) cells are not yet ready for prime time, though they have huge promise. Check out Konarka or Nanosolar. GE and HItachi are also fooling around with this. The idea is that you can make solar cells out of TiO2, which is almost infinitely cheap in industrial quantities (see here toothpaste or white paint.)
Uni-Solar's product is in fact based on conventional silicon, just like 90%+ of the market today. The difference is that instead of slicing it out of crystals, they sputter it onto a backing, enabling them to make, e.g. peel-and-stick solar panels for commercial raised seam roofs, a conventional shingle for residential roofing, as well as, here, a flexible backing product for airships. Many are working in this area; it's sort of the next generation for solar cell cost decreases (which have come down by more than half in the last ten years; world production doubled between 2000 and 2003 - however, we're going to run out of tricks with conventional silicon within about 5 years at this pace.)
I find everyone's obsession with conversion efficiencies touching; what sense does it make when your fuel source is infinite and free? Area - related costs are subtle, so focus on this: with solar, efficiency matters not at all - the be all and end all is cost per watt.
Gerald Bull, a Canadian big gun engineer, made large guns and was killed by Israel's Mossad for daring to talk to Iraq about building a "super gun"
Trolling is a art,
Actually, the company, CargoLifter, got several million Euro in backing. They were *very* slick. However, the technical difficulties ended up taking too long and costing too much money. This is also in addition to the huge cost of construction of a hangar and air facility to support such operations.
There are many other commercial blimps, Lightship, Goodyear, etc. Not to mention several student groups working on similar topics (check out Univ. of Virginia Solar Airship, Surrey, and Univ of Japan)
The final closing of military use of airship, the Snowbird in the 60's I believe, was heavily influenced by more political factors that technical or monetary.
Just so somebody else doesn't have to look this up, geosynchronous orbit is at 19,323 nautical miles, while the various radar and broadband blimps are proposed to be at around 12 miles up. So satellites have an inherent 100ms delay each way, the blimp version would only have a one-way delay of 0.06 ms.
Two logical uses I can see are as replacements for cell towers. One of these could potentially offer as much coverage as many cell towers at a small fraction of the cost. The immediate followup thought is that this would break down barriers to high speed broadband too. At 70,000 feet, it could be an effective 'last 13 mile' solution. (har har)
...and more.
Another use for the tinfoil hat & central government crowd is surveillance. Put high resolution cameras in place and you could have low cost monitoring of everything from:
- Fires
- Traffic jams
- Speeders (digital VASCAR, anyone?)
- Traffic patterns
- Police tails of vehicles under investigation with no possible detection
As it happens I submited the story about that Zeppelin to Slashdot a bit over a year ago when they first began commercial flights and we all had an evening of fun making Hindenberg jokes.
The company is alive, well, and making commercial passenger sightseeing flights. If you want to take a zeppelin ride all you have to do is go to Lake Constance with 190 euros to spare in your pocket.
We be rigid gasbags and shit
KFG
They are a heavy engineering company. But they do indeed have a new ship which is flying now, the Zeppelin-NT:
http://www.zeppelinflug.de/pages/E/haupt.htm
Cargolifter were going to create a f*cking *huge* ship which with a cargo capacity of 160 tonnes but ran out of money. When I say "f*cking huge", imagine an ocean liner floating in the air in front of you.
http://www.cargolifter.com/
It seems that military spending is needed for these kinds of projects to succeed.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Well, thinking about the nature of the X-Prize (straight up, then straight down), a bouyant launch platform sounds to me like an excellent idea.
Geosynchronisity without requiring a high orbit.
Of course, there are technical issues to work out regarding flame safetey, what to do if you lose pressure in your balloon, etc. But it's definately worth a look.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
It's also a lot easier to replace a blimp than a satellite.
No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.-Ronald Reagan
so...
It uses "the same technology as the previously discussed GE organic LED project"
in a new dirigible?
Making it...
A LED Zepplin?
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
There's also a huge difference in the energy budget. With a geosat, you'd have to transmit a RADAR signal several thousand miles, whereas you're sending one around 100 miles with a Derigible. That means that you can get a much stronger RADAR return for a given energy output.
In addition, with a derigible, you have the ability to loft a much larger amount of mass than you could with a rocket booster, at a fraction of the cost. This would allow you to put in a lot more power generation capability, more powerful transmitters, and greater computing power and communications equipment than you could ever fit on a satellite.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
Not only that, you won't have shrapnel occupying the former "orbit" of a blimp.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Shoot down? with what? There is a short list of nations with firepower that can make it that high in the atmosphere.
The list is longer than you think. Most air-to-air missiles can reach that height, and the supersonic flight ceiling of modern jet planes (including MiGs) is classified information. A blimp like this would probably need some air cover to operate inside a war zone. (Not that air cover is a problem when you've got over a dozen carriers with the capability of delivering planes anywhere in the world.)
I remember a documentary on the Discovery channel where they were discussing how a pilot accidently shot down a LEO satellite with a missile. The realization that missiles could reach that height lead to the creation of the Pegasus launch solution.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Or more importantly, over border areas to give "over the horizon" view at ground targets for ground forces. At 12 miles up and 100 miles away, how many 3rd world ground forces are even going to spot it, much less shoot it down? Imagine all the advanced optics you can't put onto a Predator, and now only available on spy satellites, loaded onto this baby and you've got a nice spy platform.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
A SAM hitting an airplane does a lot of damage from hitting a rigid, delicate structure with a lot of mass moving at a high velocity (both it and the target).
.50 caliber weapon at the Sta-Puf Marshmallow Man. Proper fireproofing, flexible partitions between segments, shrapnel-puncture resistant panels between major sections would resist most single-strikes of any weapon capable of reaching 70K feet.
The velocity and mass simply isn't there in a lighter-than-air craft of this size. (Well, the mass is but it's spread over a huge area.) This is like shooting a
So long as the electronics were hidden, shielded, or replicated throughout the volume the craft would be difficult to take down or fatally damage.
Get off my lawn.