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19th Century Airship Technology for Port Security
fenimor writes "Airships - known today mainly for advertising flyovers at football games - are the core of a new coastal surveillance system in development for the the U.S. Department of Defense. These
stationary platforms 25 times the size of a Goodyear blimp will be equipped with an array of cutting-edge equipment for remote sensing, communications, and risk analysis, providing surveillance coverage over a surface area of 500,000 square miles from an altitude of 70,000 feet."
Currently the USCG employes a pair of blimps "Fat Albert" on Cudjoe Key to watch for dope smugglers, air traffic, etc.
Ob: SovietRussia: For Soviet Russia YOU spy on the blimp!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It really is SO obvious that they need to put some giant laserbeams on this shit.
I can find out where they are and have the option of not being tracked I'm ok with this. Otherwise we just have Big Brother gone lighter than air. -I
Sounds like a really good terrorist target to me.. In fact anyone with an air rifle could do some damage!
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are not the responsiblity of the user, as I probably stole them anyway
...the S.H.I.E.L.D. Hellcarrier?
Let's hope they don't fill it with hydrogen...
And it occurs to me something that large and stationary is a very large target. What about one single engine Cessna flown into the side of it?
Put a couple of these near the Mexico border and along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, and we will have a safer America to enjoy.
Just a bunch of hot air!
vicious, untreated political sewage...niche entertainment for the spiritually unattractive...worshipless pap
when Britain starts making 'em?
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
All ok, but how suseptible are those against sabotage. I am sure we have came a long way from Hindenburg, but wouldnt still be easy to bring one of those down? I mean its hard to miss a target like this. Surely there is a a degree of redundancy in the system?
"These stationary platforms 25 times the size of a Goodyear blimp will be equipped with an array of cutting-edge equipment for remote sensing, communications, and risk analysis, providing surveillance coverage over a surface area of 500,000 square miles from an altitude of 70,000 feet."
I see these guarding the Afghanistan and Iraqi borders.
...the workaday needs of security and counterterrorism continue to go underfunded.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
So now we have even more national security data that we can't monitor in real time. What good is all this info supposed to be if we can't use it to stop a problem before it happens? Technology is great at recording, storing, and retrieving information, but I don't see a database server walking down to the beach to make an arrest. Are the politicians considering an increase in the Coast Guard, Port Authority, and other applicable agencies? If not, all this new technology won't do much good.
New coastal surveillance system
Dosn't this seem terribly innefficient? I mean, mantaining these things in the air at all times, to do a job that seems to already be done by survelience satellites, airplanes and ground. And how does this reduce the risk to terrorism?
I, for one, will not tolerate the Bush administration tethering Michael Moore 70,000 feet above the ocean.
/cue Bush-bash
The possibility of an unprecedented ecological disaster is far too great. (Besides, it'll really ruin the view.)
Sure, the tinfoil protects them from the invisible mind control lasers, but the reflected solar radiation just makes them easier to target from the air with the onboard plasma cannons.
Also, what if it gets punctured or damaged while at 70,000 feet? Will there be an immediate action plan to send up a replacement? As it's unmanned, I guess this means that every little defect requires a ground-based overhaul?
Personally, I don't see it working at the moment.
Due to lack of disk space this user has been discontinued
A terrorist with a really big slingsghot.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Mr Smithers, my devious plan is to block out the sun! Release the blimps!
Whew! Total safety is so close I can taste it! Thanks, guys. Without your cameras everywhere, we'd all be blown up tomorrow. (Well, I'm not sure the one in my bathroom is necessary, but I do store bleach there and it could be used as a weapon if terrorists break into my house.)
Use the Firehose to mod down Second Life stories!
These airships would be a great advance in transportation, cargo, and exploring/inhabiting greater volumes of the Earth's capacity. But how do they protect our ports from some asshole with a stick of dynamite and a scuba tank stowed away a petroleum supertanker? This money and Defense management would be much better spent infiltrating terrorists with spies, cutting their financial, political and media sponsors, and investing in democratizing the tyrannies that pressure the populations from which they recruit. Unless our goal is to keep the Pentagon fat on job corps and science budgets, some state capitalist corporate welfare for defense contractors.
--
make install -not war
What keeps some random person who owns a gun from taking one of these down, exactly? Does the impact get distributed in such a way that it will not be hurt by conventional arms? Do keep in mind that being in American, conventional arms is a 50-caliber sniper rifle capable of going straight through body armor (of several people).
What about the weather though? If these things are supposed to be flying 24/7 and being used by emergency personell, what if a nice thunderstorm comes through? Some of those cloud tops (thus updrafts, lightning and associated electromagnetic phenomena, etc..) reach about the altitude they plan on crusing around at. In a plane you can just go around it, but when its supposed to be in a certain place because an EMS worker just saw a tornado touch down and needs to report it...
E pluribus unum
cid's gonna be pissed
If one starts having problems, send up a replacement THEN bring the bad one down.
No problems that wouldn't be issues with any other technique in use (satellite, helicopter, airplane, etc.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
70,000 feet is 13 miles straight up. You got something that can shoot that far?
Deleted
They could probably subsidize operational costs by providing wireless brodband over their patrol areas.
19th Century Technology for Port Security
October 13, 2004
Researchers at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) are putting a 21st century spin on a 19th century technology to make the nation's ports and coastal waters safer. Airships -- known today mainly for advertising flyovers at football games -- are the core of a new coastal surveillance system in development for the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) of the U.S. Department of Defense. But the new models will bear little resemblance to their predecessors. These High Altitude Stratospheric Airships (HASAs) will be unmanned, stationary platforms 14 to 16 miles above the ground. At 500 feet long and 150 feet in diameter with a volume of 5 million cubic feet, the HASAs will be 25 times the size of a Goodyear blimp.
The airships will be equipped with an array of cutting-edge equipment for remote sensing, communications, and risk analysis of suspected threats -- and that's where NJIT comes in. The university is partnering with StratCom International LLC to serve as the academic research and development base for the project.
NJIT's component of the project is under the direction of Donald H. Sebastian, PhD, vice president of research and development and director of the university's Homeland Security Technology Center. Sebastian says the project is a natural fit for NJIT. "We have expertise in the whole range of applicable technologies -- terahertz imaging, advanced materials technology for the airship skin, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), intermodal freight transportation through our transportation centers, wireless telecommunications, and information-assurance systems. We're also an agile university with a strong entrepreneurial character that allows us to respond quickly to an emerging need such as homeland security."
While the airship technology is driven by important defense applications, the impact on civilian life may be far greater. When production can be scaled to meet the need of widespread deployment, the airships will become an important layer of our telecommunications infrastructure, empowering a wide variety of applications based on mobile, bi-directional exchange of voice, video and data -- broadband access anywhere at any time. Closer in time, homeland-security applications ranging from first-responder communications for emergency response and command through border security and surveillance systems will be important markets for HASA technology.
One area of development that has been proposed to the federal Transportation Security Administration concerns "maritime domain awareness" -- pushing the national boundaries out to sea where problem cargo can be identified and handled far from our populated port cities. The primary focus of the project is shipping containers, considered to be among the most serious potential threats to homeland security. More than half of all U.S. trade travels in sealed containers 20 to 40 feet long, piled by the thousands onto ships for delivery to ports, where they are often transferred, unopened, to trucks and trains for shipping to secondary destinations. Some six to eight million containers arrive in U.S. ports annually, and fewer than four percent are ever inspected for contraband or dangerous materials.
"The threat is a serious one, but container traffic is also one of the keystones of the global economy," Sebastian says. According to recent statistics, $728 billion in goods were shipped in containers, accounting for nearly seven percent of the gross domestic product. Many American businesses are dependent on materials and components shipped from other nations. Equipped to scan quickly and remotely, the airships won't disrupt commerce."
At an altitude of 70,000 feet, a HASA's advanced radar would provide surveillance coverage over a surface area of 500,000 square miles. Advanced sensory technology in each cargo container would be in communication with the airship to ensure the integrity of the ship's contents during transit. Unmanned air and sea craft would
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Conventional arms can't easily hit a target a few thousand feet above you, let alone SEVENTY thousand feet.
Even fighter jets have trouble exceeding 50-60 thousand feet IIRC. Only specialized aircraft (Scaled's White Knight is one such example) can reach these altitudes.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Will Vikers, the makers of the R101 be entitled to place a bid?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
How many inspectors, Gieger counters and bomb-sniffing dogs could you pay for with the cost of one of these fool things.
Methinks Der Fuhrer is dabbling in miracle weapons again...
I'm sure they wouldn't use hydrogen, but that still begs the question of how these will affect the worlds helium supply. Probably not that much, but from what I have read it comes from limited places (mostly Texas) and once has a tendency to escape into space once it is out of the ground. I have to imagine having lots of these large helium balloons will not help matters.
Underloved Movies and Pub Quiz: donotquestionme.org
In principle this isn't that new, it's an expansion upon an existing program.
For example, if you check the north Florida (Jacksonville sectional) aviation chart there's an obstacle along the west coast of the state, a border observation balloon at the "bend" between the peninsula of Florida and the pan handle. It has been used for years to monitor the Florida coast against smuggling from the Gulf of Mexico.
What looks different about this program is that the "balloons" will move at a very high altitude. It's unclear to me why stationary stations aren't sufficient for border monitoring, unless you want to monitor activity by all sorts of people in the interior of the country.
It does give them another excuse for UFO debunking though.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
First thing this made me think of was Nick Fury from S.H.I.E.L.D.
Even more mony waisted on US military. Do you feel safer now?
yeah, that could be useful for monitoring port activity, but will these be manned, or unmanned airships? to me they sound like giant targets, i sure wouldn't want to be in one, esp if the only good egress was a HALO jump.
Cogito Eggo Sum, I think therefore I'm a waffle
This reminds me of JP Aerospace's plans and ideas for high altitude platforms to launch airships into orbit. Looks pretty nifty.
Underloved Movies and Pub Quiz: donotquestionme.org
There are much cheaper alternatives in the works, such as the High Frequency Surface Wave Radar being developed by Raytheon Canada and Defence Research Development Canada.
The big problem with conventional radar is that it only works in line-of-site, but Raytheon's SWR-503 Surface Wave Radar uses high-frequency radar waves that "wrap" around the curvature of the earth. The system has been proven to detect and track aircraft, surface vessels and icebergs out to 500 km from the shore in a sector of up to 120 degrees. Suspicious objects can be investigated by satellite, surface ship, patrol aircraft or very cheaply & covertly via unmanned drone.
Canada plans to install an array of radar installations along the East Coast in order to provide a seamless picture of all maritime activity occuring in the country's economic zone. Similar research is being carried out in the US, Australia and other countries. This seems like a much more effective use of resources than a massive blimp installation
When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
THz radiation?
It says in the article it can be adjusted to see through plastics, clothes, etc
Clothes! Isn't this the same stuff that was responsible for all the X-Ray vision claims? Do we really want sensor platforms over most all of our major cities with the ability to see through people's clothes? I mean, I'm all for having the government check up on my library habits, but this may be taking it a little too far, no?
Port security? I thought we already had that pretty much covered, what with port knocking, firewalls, and ssh tunnelling...
Stupid like a fox!
70,000 feet.. Damned good rifle you got there.
Nevermind that holes the size of your fist wouldnt matter much anyway......
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Who else saw the title and automatically tried to figure out how on earth airships were supposed to revolutionize firewalls? Just me? Fine. Be that way.
So, how far does one of these snipers rifles fire?
Deleted
What happened to satellites? Just a few years ago there was an "oh my god the government is watching me" movie that featured satellites following people as they move about in the cities. I take it this was not true. (I think it was called Enemy of the State.)
Astronomers have occasionally used balloon borne telescopes for getting above most of the atmosphere, as it is much cheaper than a satellite. If there is a mass-produced long duration stratespheric balloon/airship available, it could make this much more viable.
As an aside - the article also discusses "Terahertz imaging." One terahertz corresponds to wavelength of about 0.3 mm or 300 microns - extreme IR, or short sub-millimetre, depending on your point of view.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Build IFVs, HURRY... HURRY... Almost there...
KABOOM! Good bye vehicle factory.
Build more rocketeers, HURRY... HURRY...
KABOOM! Good bye barracks.
Build patriot missiles...
Just what was the significance of that big white ball that followed Number Six?
When I predicted this in 1995, THEY CALLED ME CRAZY!
Now they'll see... MWAHAHA- oh wait, isnt that kind of draconian and uncool?
Oh well. At least I was right.
ok so we can see explosive (drugs) from inside their plastic containers... but we can't see the plastic containers inside their steel cargo containers. duh. this blimb will spot a ship, and count the metal boxes onboard but not the stuff in the boxes.
It could probably spot stuff being drug behind a ship underwater. that would be useful. I guess I better have my drugs/ cars tugged here soon. Plus I need to install tetrahertz stealth on my submarines.
Spearheading the airship project is Lieutenant General James A. Abrahamson, USAF-Retired, chairman and CEO of StratCom International LLC, who directed both the Space Shuttle program and "Star Wars" Strategic Defense Initiative
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Inefficient in terms of what?
Peak Oil is defined as the point at which oil demand continues to go up but supply turns down. It will cause massive price rises.
It makes sense to do the stuff that cab be done without jet aircraft... without jet aircraft.
"Read the FAQ."
:) Seriously slashdot is the "E!" of nerd websites. It's all about entertainment, nothing more.
You must be new here?
1) No one "Reads The F*!$%" whatever.
2) Articles that push, if not exceed the bounds of "News for nerds Stuff that matters"
2.5) Articles that do fit are passed over for "pagecounter" material.
3) Rent a Moderator: doesn't work. There's a reason paid people run serious websites.
4) Editorial control? What's that?
5) Majority Biases even though they hide behind the "we all are different people" mantra. Well no Duh!
I checked with them.
Apparently the planes will simply crash through the cables - diverting idea too much hassle.
Hunters used them for target practice!
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
Sorry, had to be said.
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I've seen some questions about how small arms and weather will affect these things.
.308 cartridge (which has a bullet roughly a third of an inch [7.62 mm] in diameter) at 100 yards, that rifle would shoot about 11 inches lower at 600 yards. That means the bullet would drop (due to gravity; bullets are not immune, no matter how fast they go) 11 inches in that distance.
.223 cartridge
.308 (Again 7.62 mm bullet, but this time inside a cartridge that is closer to 53 mm long; the .308 is also called 7.62 NATO)
.308 machine guns (like the FALs) pack a heavier punch but are used less often (soldiers don't like to carry around the weight)
The largest thunderstorms I have ever heard of only go 8 miles up (someone please correct me if I'm wrong; I'm just reaching back to high school science here).
I've built a few mail order rifles (from kits), and have yet to see a rifle that can shoot 14 miles vertical.
As far as I know most people are incapable of shooting accurately more than 200 yds. I can hit a dinner plate at 600 yds (given a decent bolt action) and I've been shooting for a while. The longest competition shot I have ever heard of was 1000 yds (with M1 Garands).
If you sighted in a rifle chanbered for the
14 miles is about 24640 yds. Keep in mind that would be 14 miles straight up.
It seems to me that no bullet (not even those giant 50 cals which have bullets that are 1/2 inch in diameter) would have enough inertia to fly that high.
So the only danger from small arms would be small arms that were mounted on an aircraft.
I have never heard of a single engine plane flying over 10,000 ft. Passenger planes typically cruise at 30,000 ft. The Concord (RIP) flew at 60,000 ft.
I seriously doubt that there is much danger of these things being taken out.
NOTE: for those who care
The M-16 shoots a 5.56 mm bullet out of the
AK-47 - 7.62 x 39 mm (The cartridge is 39 mm long, and the bullet is 7.62 mm in diameter)
FN-FAL -
A 30 06 (thirty-ought-six) is the same bullet out of a even larger cartridge
Americans (this is huge generalization) use the M16
Most of the rest of the world uses AK-47s.
50 cals are mounted machine guns. Nobody fires these by hand.
Surely we would have our flying cars today in the form of personal airships. I mean, I'd feel a hell of a lot safer in one of those than I would with Moller's Skycar or something like that.
On Slashdot people repeatedly point out "what happens when you have an accident at 1000 feet?" and something like this would make those accidents a lot less fatal. Also probably because I'll bet they can't move that fast.
Does anybody have any interesting sci-fi that focuses on alternate timelines where airships are abundant?
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You ahhh... you DO realize these are unmanned craft... right?
This isn't "insightful" - it's just silly.
You don't know all the positions of the government's satellites, why should you care about the blimps? And no, this isn't a tinfoil hat theory. Do you have any idea how many payloads are launched each year and described only as a "4000 kg to 6000 kg chunk of mass"?
... lmao ... think again. It's amazing the things you learn when you get into defense - and then it's funny seeing people squirm about something so trivial as a blimp floating along the coast.
Remember that satellite photo of the 9/11 ground zero area that could show vehicles and people? Think that's the best the government has
With a 500,000 sq. mile observation area per blimp, a little math quickly reveals that you're talking a spacing of 800 miles between blimps. It might be remotely possible for airplanes to fly through those 800-mile gaps.
The system discussed in the article involves a fleet of airships communicating with an array of sensors installed inside cargo containers so they can scan the contents of the containers. Over-the-horizon radar may be an interesting subject, but it's not a cheap alternative way to do this and has nothing to do with the article.
At 70,000 ft, atmospheric distortion (looking down) because a huge problem. You might be able to have optics that can make out a license plate in theory, but in practice it wouldn't be possible without some seriously adaptive optics.
wait.. maybe we DONT.
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
It seems like every few years, someone trots out an idea to use airships for some mission requiring heavy lift or long loiter time (say, roadless logging or maritime sensor platform). After a while, the idea vanishes.
I've seen a Goodyear blimp flying along the California coast in a strong crosswind. It was barely under control.
Until such issues can be answered, airships have no future.
The clearance system sounds logical. It is not. It is completely arbitrary. -- John Bolton
They'll be 10-15 miles up. That's not exactly easy to pick out of a very large sky.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
Canada plans to install
So let's use the blimps now, until these come online.
Or, adapt and redploy the OTH-B.
but I don't like seeing the words 'blimp' and 'cutting edge' in the same sentence.
That big blimp just said for me to have a good year. Now its actually going to watch me? I thought you said that wasn't a alien. But seriously folks something thats actually proven to be used to stop terrorism? Cool.
My UID is prime is yours?
Their job is to park near the US borders, with big radars looking for anything suspicious, like boats or small airplanes that might have politically incorrect plant materials or trucks that might have people with politically incorrect skin colors or Canadians invading on snowmobiles. They're also talking about using TeraHertz Radar to look into shipping containers, though the idea of doing that from 300 miles away seems rather odd.
It's possible that they'll also be able to replace some of the functions of PAVE PAWS, a set of phased-array radars used to watch for Submarine-launched and intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Ok, didn't have to be said, I've modded myself down already, but the straight line was just sitting there....
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
It really should be perfectly adequate to keep the tinfoil-hat crowd busy, and any radar capable of looking inside shipping containers from 400 miles away has a good start on the sharks-with-frickin-lasers market as well.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
These things have roughly 500-mile range, and yes, millimeter-wave radar is the stuff that Homeland Security wanted before everybody started reminding them that Ashcroft is a prude (so they started pretending they'd use image-processing to block that usage.) If you really believe all the funding applications here, you have to wonder when they'll put up a webcam...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
...seems like.. I don't know but seems like...anyone who wanted to down one of these things could use a two stage sort of weapon. Use a similar radio controlled mini blimp to get up near to the target big blimp, and once nearby could launch any old cheap normal rocket(s) at it, at least to disable the propulsion plant or sensor pods. There's no need to down the thing, just make it ineffective.
that's one way, another would be to try and hack any of the control or surveillence telemetry.
another way, use a ground based laser to try and blind it
another way, take out the ground control HQ
alternative, compromise (social engineering, coerced or bribed or both) a key operator in the project
This story is about a blimp currently in the skies above Washington D.C. What better way to have surveillance over a population than with a very quiet slow moving craft that can carry a large payload. Unmanned flying drones cost too much, travel too fast, don't have the long flight times, and have the payload capacity. Airships (or blimps) give more bang for the buck.
According to an article by Jock Gill on Dave Farber's list, there was a camera blimp over New York City during the Republican National Convention. No indication of who they were watching, what they did with the pictures, privacy issues, or anything, but it wasn't just a Goodyear football-watching blimp.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Actually you could get away with much smaller rockets than that, since you're only going 1/3 as far up and don't have to carry passengers, just enough incendiaries to cause trouble.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Captain Scarlet worked for an organization whose base was one of these air-platforms:
cloudbase
Funny thing about that guy, Captain Scarlet;
During the end credits, you would always see him pinned under a pile of boulders, with a lit fuse on a bundle of dynamite just out of his arm's reach,
Or you'd see him underwater, bound by chains attached to weights pulling him to the bottom as great sharks loomed towards him,
Or tied up with ropes while a cobra coils, preparing to strike him,
Or pushed from a moving car,
Or someone trying to run him over with a tank.
My point is this guy... It just didn't seem like he was very well-liked.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Sometimes those comic book writers showed an uncanny ability to imagine what the future might be like..
the 2 fatalities had little to do with problems in flight, but were rather bizarre accidents in 1995 and 2000
Oh, yeah, right... if they flew SIDEWAYS!
Fine. So, you build a nuke - not even a very good or small one - and wrap it in a foot of solid lead. Then put it inside something plausible, like the back half of a container, and then put a shipment of fish weights in front of it.
The container ship saunters into NY harbour and KABLOOEY!!!!
You don't even have to wait for it to dock. As long as it's within a few miles, you've just evaporated hundreds of thousands of people.
This thing is just another example of the American Empire's paranoia and willingness to blow billions of dollars on a technical solution to a problem that is fundamentally social (dependence on third world resource and a willingness to squander said resources), political (as the empire supports hideous regimes that provide said resources, viz the Middle East, Africa, etc), and ideological (as the empire is no longer concerned with being loved, as simply being feared will suffice).
The blimp idea is a waste of time, and it would be much better if we spent the money on ways to eliminate our petroleum addiction, get people into the valueing our resources instead of consuming them, and worked at really helping the peasants and working classes around the world instead of the ruling classes that exploit them.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
For some reason this got me wondering: Would it be feasible to actually have a blimp as your home? I guess you could use photovoltaics for electricity, use satellite or wireless for bandwidth, and periodically dock for sewage, water, and food.
Maybe I just played too many Final Fantasy games as a kid, but living in a blimp seems hella cool.
providing surveillance coverage over a surface area of 500,000 square miles from an altitude of 70,000 feet
;)
This is a stupid ass idea. I definately would not want to be stationed on one of these things, especially at that altitude. Oxygen.. gasp!
I fail to see the need for this, since we have a ton of other ways to more efficently do this. They should put one of these up in LA but at like 1000 feet... it would be full of holes.
Life was hell, then I discovered Linux...
"For some reason this got me wondering: Would it be feasible to actually have a blimp as your home? I guess you could use photovoltaics for electricity, use satellite or wireless for bandwidth, and periodically dock for sewage, water, and food."
You have to think big if you want this to work.
Over the ocean with one of the feeder/anchor cables tethered to a large buoy. Said buoy will have a small osmosis unit. Water taken care of, with sewage going down an opposing feeder/anchor cable to the ocean. Sewage treatment buoy if you're enviromentally conscious. With flexiable photovoltaics for the blimp skin. All is a titanium gondula/home. Having a small lift means no docking required for food.
There is no way that a 50 caliber bullet can shoot 62,000 feet high. I remember reading that AA guns (which are more powerful than a .50) are lucky to reach 10k feet, and that's only 1/6th of your figure..
Hah. Everyone knows that the Dolphins will attack from UNDER the sea, not in the air! It is only a waste of money, we're expending resources for no reason, and we'll never be prepared for when the day of the Dolphin comes....
...is whether Mayor Dailey will make a bunch of noise to get one of these stationed in the Chicago area. After all, if New York City, Washington DC, Los Angeles are important enough, think about America's Heartland, and the Vienna Sausage company! He would probably put it right in the middle of Miegs Field's runway, as well, just to add insult to injury for what was one of the coolest little airports in the US.
MOD PARENT UP
:)
Not because he agrees with me, but he actually did some calculation
20th Century surely... the heyday of observation blimps was from WWI to WWII... their use started petering out after that
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
There were two huge zepellins above Athens with the latest surveillance equipment. One of them is still on duty. Athens citizens were worried about the spying capabilities of the ships.
"Curse the man who invented helium! Curse Pierre-Jules-Cesar Janssen!"
You must think in Russian.
Huh? 19th century technology?
What 19th century dirigible reached an altitude of 70,000 feet?
Someone must have "learned" history watching bad movies.
Typical.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
The other day, VP Dick Cheney was in town (Cincinnati) for one of his political events. While he was visiting, there was a blimp orbiting Lunken Airport (where he was arriving and departing.) There was a TFR (Temporary Flight Restriction) in effect for the Lunken Airport (LUK) as well as for Clermont County Airport (I69) during his visit. I'm based at Blue Ash Airport (ISZ) and that blimp was there the entire time of his visit. There were no visible markings on it and it certaintly wasn't at 70,000 ft (I'd say 3000') but it sure was there. We suspected they were "enforcing" the TFR.
Bill
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
OMG ITS TEAM AMERICA!!!
[insert IP port joke here]
"... but Goodrich doesn't *have* a blimp...."
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
Oh wow, that was so totally a surprise... when I read about it on /. the FIRST time, last year.
I did an earlier post about the Hindenberg that is relevant to this discussion. Basically, airships themselves were doomed simply by their nature, and on top of all that would be incredibly expensive to be in if you really wanted to book a flight on one like you would on a passenger cruise line.
It is fore this reason, and because fixed-wing heavier than air vehicles (normal commercial aviation that we now have) generally get you to where you want to go cheaply and quickly...usually anywhere in the world in less than 48 hours, sometimes less.
The only real benefit of the lighter-than-air airships is the grand view you can have of the world as you fly over it. Now that is truly something that can be marketed by itself, but other areas that the Hindenberg would have excelled in (rapid transit between Europe and America, delivery of bulk goods in less than a week across continents, etc.) are now done through other transportation systems. This cuts out most of the potential markets that could have supported and sustained the airship industry.
If you want to buy one right now, there are companies that will sell one to you. Also, back in 2000 there was regular passenger airship service offered in the Las Vegas area. (If you want to see the web pages, you need to go to www.archive.org to see them.) Unfortunately the service was discontinued and is no longer available. In this case it looks like the internet bubble took this enterprise down with it.
This reinforces my thesis, that with today's economic climate it just isn't practical. The technology is available and plenty of money has been poured down on trying to get it to work since the 1920's.