At Commonwealth Games, the World's Largest Aerostat

GillBates0 writes "Last weekend saw the world's largest aerostat of its kind featured at the opening ceremony of the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi. The helium balloon or aerostat measures 40x80x12 meters, contains 20,000 cubic meters of helium and features lights, mirrors, cameras, a 360 degree projection screen, projectors and a reflective underbelly. During the show, it was raised 25 meters off the ground and transformed into a giant Bodhi Tree and a meditating Buddha, with giant puppets to complement the cultural performances beneath. These slideshows tell the story."

Comments

It's a balloon

[BadAnalogyGuy]

It's a big balloon.

For those of us who live in America, these things are pretty run of the mill.

Re:It's a balloon

[cappp]

Yeah and Pamela Anderson just had a pair of breasts. For those of us who live on Earth, those things are pretty run of the mill.

Re:It's a balloon

[BadAnalogyGuy]

That's why we're #1, BABY!

Re:It's a balloon

[pegasustonans]

It's a big balloon.

Although it seems jaded, I have to say I agree.

The photographs clearly illustrate a large decorative balloon.

There's nothing wrong with that, but it's not exactly earth-shattering.

Re:It's a balloon

[BadAnalogyGuy]

The Irish?

Re:It's a balloon

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah and Pamela Anderson just had a pair of breasts.

And for a few thousand dollars, you'd be able to put Pam to shame.

Or, in the words of the great Sir Mix-a-Lot: Plastic parts are made for TOYS!

Re:It's a balloon

[GameboyRMH]

Obviously not #1 in Wooshing, because your country now holds the crown.

Aerostat not the only thing of note

[jrumney]

The video projections on the aerostat were pretty, but more remarkable is the size of Prince Charles's codpiece in photo number 4.

Re:Aerostat not the only thing of note

[nitehawk214]

The video projections on the aerostat were pretty, but more remarkable is the size of Prince Charles's codpiece in photo number 4.

Actually, I am pretty sure that was a bong.

The director must have taken a hit as well, its the only way I could explain the giant creepy dolls.

Helium

[TD-Linux]

So for the last month ./ has been running stories about how we are quickly depleting our remaining helium supplies, and now we're floating a TV with 20,000 m^3 of it?

... I don't know what to say.

Re:Helium

[BadAnalogyGuy]

It's okay. The audience was able to help themselves to a lungful upon the end of the closing ceremonies.

They were tweeting in real time.

Re:Helium

[Anonymous Coward]

How about "Fuck, that's a lot of helium"?

Re:Helium

[lxs]

Going to waste.

Re:Helium

[flyingfsck]

It is only the US that is running out. The rest of world doesn't have a problem.

Re:Helium

[Sockatume]

The US accounts for 80% of the current supply. If they're running out, the rest of the world has a problem.

Re:Helium

[sempir]

Best not to say anything then!

Re:Helium

[Anonymous Coward]

Insightful?

Re:Helium

[Iskender]

I think the controversy has mainly been about helium prices being kept artificially low.

This fits that perfectly - until the prices become real market prices we'll keep seeing things like this.

Of course, even with sane prices someone might splurge on helium like this as a stunt. But in that case the aerostat would likely be half the size at best. I'm not a big free market fan but raising prices on something is an excellent way to make people use less of it.

Re:Helium

[TheRaven64]

We're going to run out of helium in 100 years at the current rate. Given that it's one of the most common elements in the universe, actually running out of it seems pretty unlikely. If anything, helium is going to become less attractive for this kind of use. It provides less lift than hydrogen, but is used because of the lower risk of fire. Monomolecular carbon balloons (which have been made in the lab, but not yet mass produced) can store hydrogen with zero leakage, making hydrogen safe for use in this context.

Re:Helium

[GameboyRMH]

First thing I thought. I really hope that they'll at least recapture what helium is still in the balloon when they're done with it.

Re:Helium

[modecx]

Very much more helium goes to waste every second from natural gas production, because it's simply uneconomical to collect it all. There's only five or so gas processing plants in the US capable of distilling it out of natural gas--and I understand that even those few plants don't run at full production capacity because the market price of the stuff is so low.

Re:Helium

[Overzeetop]

Yeah, but that will lead to teenagers asking for balloons at their birthday parties. Oh, yeah - and a couple of matches.

Most states don't firecrackers, which don't have more than 50mg of flash powder. Hydrogen balloons - even small ones - make a much nicer bang; I don't see it happening until they figure out how to make H2 non-combustible.

Re:Helium

[treeves]

If this is what you mean by monomolecular carbon "balloon", I'd add a note to let people know not to look for them at the next birthday party they attend.

Would have been more interesting...

[Retron]

...if they'd broadcast pictures showing the - ahem - "wonderful" accommodation, or the frantic finishing of the athletics track...

Re:Would have been more interesting...

[rapiddescent]

one of my family members went out 2 weeks ahead to view the accommodation and it was totally awful. Builders had been living there for months with no furniture and no sanitation and so had been toileting on the floor etc, In the end, my country's, management team went out ahead of the athletes and bought loads of cleaning fluid and protective gear and cleaned it up themselves (with no help from the games organisers).

The reports I'm getting is that so many things have gone terribly wrong and aren't being fully reported by the press. The training pool is full of raw sewage, massive inconsistency with how things are finished and travel chaos -- and that's after a budget over run of many many times the projected costs.

It's just as well that we don't allow a culture like this to build complex computer systems...

Re:Would have been more interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

you forgot to mention about all the child labour and mass genocide at the end of it.

Re:Would have been more interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as we making stupid, bigoted comparisons, here is my raise.

  Europeans (in Europe and elsewhere) should all sterilized and not allowed any offspring for centuries of uncivilized behaviors - Two World Wars, colonization, slavery, Wars in Congo, Nam, Korea, Central America, Afghanistan 1, Iraq , Afghanistan 2.... , sponsoring coups for profit and bad dental hygiene...

nothing new....

[advocate_one]

reminds me of this

Let me guess:

[deathtopaulw]

"The chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure.

Let's go to The Colonies!"

Re:Let me guess:

[TheLink]

So why doesn't the US join in the games? They were a colony once right? ;)

I find the Commonwealth Games rather amusing. After all how many countries would be able to pull the following off:

1) Take over other countries (often via military force)
2) Extract resources from those countries.
3) Get kicked out by those other countries.
4) Organize an event to celebrate the Commonwealth :).

FWIW, I think the reason why the Brits can pull it off is in many cases they were actually better to/for the local population and country than the local rulers were...

The other reason is you probably have to a Brit to be able to actually think this is such a great idea :).

Imagine the Belgians or Dutch trying to hold their own Commonwealth Games. How many would want to show up?

Re:Let me guess:

[AHuxley]

actually better to/for the local population
The brits did a few population counts in India - the results where a massive drop. Something about very few doctors, trade goods had priority and the land conditions needed produce lots of one way trade.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Leopold's_Ghost shopws what other European powers tried, basically a locked down one way system of export, empty ships arrive, full depart.
Again massive population loss when 'counted'.

Re:Let me guess:

[Chrisq]

I think the reason why the Brits can pull it off is in many cases they were actually better to/for the local population and country than the local rulers were...

Particularly India, where they took over from the Mhoguls, who were mozzies and naturally tried to follow the Qur'an and make non-Muslims feel subdued.

Re:Let me guess:

[kuthkameen]

It is Moghuls or Mughals, not Mhoguls. Apart from Aurangazeb, none of the other Muslim Moghul rulers were anti-hindu. In fact Akbar was known for his religious tolerance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Din-i-Ilahi)

Re:Let me guess:

[Anonymous Coward]

What? You've all gotten it wrong. The answer is Blade Runner.
What the fuck are you all talking about?

Re:Let me guess:

[Chrisq]

Try telling that to the Sikhs. The murdering mozzies killed thousands

Re:Let me guess:

[tanveer1979]

The later Moghul rulers were the murderous ones.
Akbar was among the first, and is generally considered as a very good monarch.
The last one (Aurgangzeb) was pretty murderous, and also imposed taxes on non muslims to get them to convert.

Re:Let me guess:

[Anonymous Coward]

Try telling that to the people of the Akbar era. Akbar was a scheming mozzie, just as bad. He was responsible for demolition of temples just like all his glorious predecessors.

  Indian "official" history books taught in school are neutered shit. If we had real history taught in India, we would be like israel and the mozzies will be like the palestiniens. There are advantages to neutered shit; a more inclusive culture but the disadvantage is forgetting the past by hiding it from the "tender" young generation will help us repeat the past.

India is a joke; Mozzies get to marry four wives in India (LOL) and in Islamic pakistan they can have just one ! Really India is the worst country full of minority appeasers and mozzie lovers, stay away from that place!

Re:Let me guess:

[Anonymous Coward]

Why aren't the United States and other non Muslim countries paying Jizya to the righteous Muslim countries?

Re:Let me guess:

[stiggle]

Not all members of the Commonwealth were British colonies.
A number of other countries have applied to join anyway as they see a regional benefit to being a member.

Mozambique - used to be a Portugese colony. Now a member of the Commonwealth (since 1995)
Rwanda - used to be a Belgian & German colony. A member since 2009.

Algeria & Madagascar have also both applied to join having no prior links to the British overseas

Re:Let me guess:

[Anonymous Coward]

God forbid but France wanted to Join in the 1950s after London choked on the port at their request to consider becoming part of the UK, despite Churchill offering an act of union in 1940... go figure

Re:Let me guess:

[TheLink]

Got to hand it to the Brits, now they've even got noncolonies wanting to join the exclusive excolonies club.

Jolly good show and tally ho :).

Re:Let me guess:

[Anonymous Coward]

But when they were snubbed they went off and created the European Coal and Steel Community which over time became.... the EU which now runs the UK - funny old world

Re:Let me guess:

[slack_prad]

Read about the siege of Chittor

Re:Let me guess:

[Anonymous Coward]

*JAW DROPS*

How about Babur, Humayun, Jahangir and everyone else?

Re:Let me guess:

[Anonymous Coward]

Who the hell keeps modding this troll up?

If you don't have the decency to refer to a group of people as "Muslims" and insist on using the derisive term "mozzies", why the fuck should anyone listen to what you say?

And who keeps modding those who (politely) disagree with you "troll"? And the anti-Muslim ferver on Slashdot really that high?

Re:Let me guess:

[TheRaven64]

Does anyone actually say 'mozzies' and expect to be taken seriously?

Re:Let me guess:

[Chrisq]

Who the hell keeps modding this troll up?

If you don't have the decency to refer to a group of people as "Muslims" and insist on using the derisive term "mozzies", why the fuck should anyone listen to what you say?

And who keeps modding those who (politely) disagree with you "troll"? And the anti-Muslim ferver on Slashdot really that high?

After all the Mozzies show great tollerance to everyone else don't they

Re:Let me guess:

[kuthkameen]

Why the hell did someone mod me troll?! I doubt if Babur, Humayaun, etc were as bad as Aurangazeb.

Re:Let me guess:

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of them are dicks, so you feel the need to be a dick to entirety of the Muslim religion?

What a fucking douche.

Re:Let me guess:

[Anonymous Coward]

I do! Fucking mozzies, I forgot my net and bug repellant and they keep. fucking. biting me.

Re:Let me guess:

[metlin]

Well, hey. Good luck trying to be reasonable and not bigoted. Who'da thunk that Slashdot had its share of racist religious nuts?

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkSWE9UZjdE

here's the video

And afterwards...

[clickety6]

...I hope they recycle that helium. It's not like it's a renewable resource.

Next time...

[nicc777]

... put down the slideshow first - I'm really not interesting in reading the story :-)

Good information

[winch44]

You can find more here http://secure.tracteurpool.fr/fr/advert

Is anybody watching?

[flyingfsck]

It seems that the games is mostly a non-event, with most seats remaining empty, despite the incredibly low ticket prices of about 50c a seat.

Re:Is anybody watching?

[kidgenius]

No one is watching, and no one is showing up to PLAY in the games either. Some of the athletes have flat out refused to show up due to the conditions of the athlete housing. Not to mention outbreaks of dengue fever going around right now, and specially built bridges collapsing, the games are turning into a disaster for India.

Re:Is anybody watching?

[slack_prad]

Last week called...

Someone should...

[6Yankee]

...tie an iPhone to that and let it go, see if it makes it into space :P

Re:Someone should...

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's like their trains, there'll be a couple of hundred people riding on top of it. Probably best not to send it into space until they can change onto another means of transport.

world's largest?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't the Hindenburg fairly big?
Heck could have saved a few Rupees booking the Goodyear blimp.

Helium cost

[cyberfunk2]

What with the rising cost of helium... what a terrible waste of a resource we're running out of ! It also must've cost a fortune.

Re:Good to see resources put in the right directio

[drinkypoo]

I'd like to sign this of as An honest troll.

That's called "flamebait"

Not the largest.

[molo]

Aerostats include airships. The Hindenberg had a volume of 200,000 m, this thing is small in comparison. Largest in current service, maybe? EGreen has a 16,400 m model.

-molo

Re:Not the largest.

[molo]

Gah, that is supposed to be m^3. Slashdot stripped of the superscript 3 char.

-molo

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