Airship Inflated To Create Monster "Stratellite"

yoderman94 writes "A huge inflatable vehicle as long as a 23-floor skyscraper is tall has become the world's largest airship in its bid to serve as a stratospheric satellite, or 'stratellite,' according to its developers."

Comments

Helium or Hydrogen?

[bmo]

What I want to know is if we're going to waste expensive helium on this or inflate it with hydrogen?

Weather balloons, hobbyist stratospheric balloons, etc, are usually filled with helium. But the only rationale for using helium is that it doesn't burn. It's more expensive than hydrogen. It's less efficient than hydrogen, and we only have so much helium left. We're not sending up people. There is no reason to use helium, really.

It's time to get rid of the Hindenburg meme.

--
BMO

Re:Helium or Hydrogen?

[mangu]

the Hindenburg was a thermite fire, not a hydrogen fire

You have been watching too much MacGyver. Anybody who has ever worked with thermite knows how difficult it is to ignite.

Even the Mythbusters have debunked that old bullshit about the Hindenburg paint. This story was funny once, it stopped being funny about the millionth time it was repeated on the internet.

Good news and Bad news

[DesScorp]

"and we only have so much helium left"

That's the bad news. The good news is actually two-sided. For one...

For helium-3's true believers - the ones who think the isotope's fusion power will take us to the edge of our solar system and beyond - talk of the coming shortage is overblown: There's a huge, untapped supply right in our own backyard.

"The moon is the El Dorado of helium-3," says Savage, and he's right: Every star, including our sun, emits helium constantly. Implanted in the lunar soil by the solar wind, the all-important gas can be found on the moon by the bucketful."

So all of the helium we could need is on the moon, and if we can reach them, the gas giant planets. So the second part of the good news is that this gives us a real, economically viable reason to go back to the moon and stay this time... to actually build a base and commence helium mining and collection. And there's other resources on the moon waiting for us as well.