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NASA Competition Could Net You $1.5 Million For Next Great Airship (networkworld.com)
coondoggie quotes a report from NetworkWorld: NASA this week said it was considering a new Centennial Challenge: Build an airship capable of long-duration flight for scientific missions. The agency issued a Request For information to see if there was enough industry interest in the challenge and to further develop rules for the competition.
The challenge would award prizes for successful demonstration of a stratospheric airship that would be required to accomplish the following: Reach a minimum altitude of 20 km, maintain the altitude for 20 hours (200 hours for Tier 2 competition), remain within a 20 km diameter station area (and navigate between two designated points for Tier 2), successfully return the 20 kg payload (200 kg for Tier 2 competition) and payload data, and show airship scalability for longer duration flights with larger payloads through a scalability review. The proposed structure for this competition is [centered around two main awards]. Award 1: A proposed $1.0 million will be split between teams successfully completing Tier 1 within 3 years of the challenge initiation. Award 2: A proposed $1.5 million will be awarded to the first successful demonstration of Tier 2 within four years of challenge initiation.
The challenge would award prizes for successful demonstration of a stratospheric airship that would be required to accomplish the following: Reach a minimum altitude of 20 km, maintain the altitude for 20 hours (200 hours for Tier 2 competition), remain within a 20 km diameter station area (and navigate between two designated points for Tier 2), successfully return the 20 kg payload (200 kg for Tier 2 competition) and payload data, and show airship scalability for longer duration flights with larger payloads through a scalability review. The proposed structure for this competition is [centered around two main awards]. Award 1: A proposed $1.0 million will be split between teams successfully completing Tier 1 within 3 years of the challenge initiation. Award 2: A proposed $1.5 million will be awarded to the first successful demonstration of Tier 2 within four years of challenge initiation.
'How many bottles of helium to you have?'
'That many? Great, I'll be down in a sec.'
Got my 3D printer, some mylar blankets and a roll of duct tape.
I'm all set.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Seriously, what's the budget of NASA and how many PhD's do they have working there? This is exactly why Trump is going to win next November. People are sick of stupidity and waste.
You'd need more than 1½ million to make a sucessfull GP Airship these days.
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
20km vertical, 20km range for 20hr...
1.5 million divided between the members of those who complete Tier 2
1 Million divided between the members of ALL teams that complete Tier1
NASA's funding shortage is showing...
If it works in KSP, does that count?
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
You'd have to be independently wealthy to even consider building this. It's all the way out of the reach of any normal person. So no, it can't net you anything.
It's called the Hindenburg.
--sf
Is it time to take another look at the Aereon 26?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
How about that nice airborne aircraft carrier in the Avengers? It was even able to stay aloft with 2 broken engines. You're welcome. I'll take a cashiers check please.
Google's Project Loon already meets or exceeds most of these specs. The payload they use is only 10kg, but industrious web watchers have calculated the vehicle is actually capable of handling payloads between 100-150kg, so it closes in on Tier 2. It may not have the airship form factor, but it's also likely to be sh'loads less expensive.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
You'd need more than 1½ million to make a sucessfull GP Airship these days.
For a full-sized airship, maybe. But this request is only for something to carry 10 kilograms; not all that much more than the high-altitude balloons that high school students keep sending up to "the edge of space".* If you're clever, I wouldn't be surprised if you could probably do it for a few tens of thousand dollars.
--
(And, boy, am I glad that slashdot got tired and stopped posting those "students send random object to the edge of space" stories.)
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
You could do it with a solar powered hot air balloon. Use light weight solar panels to absorb heat and also use the electricity generated to heat the air within the balloon. Obviously starting with helium provides a huge boost, so hot helium will rise further and faster than cool helium. This will also help with icing up. You can also use the energy to power high efficiency light weight motors for better directional control. The balloon material would have to be thicker than normal to provide greater insulation. Only problem daytime only operation.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Lockheed Martin once built an airship to go over 18km. Due to budget cuts and the required removal of equipment, a critical valve froze at about half that height, cutting the test flight short with an "unplanned controlled descent". The airship landed in a forest, and when the sun came out the next day, the solar panels started a fire.
I'm sure they're watching this intently.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
scale all you wish, from Deca drone to 6D Omni-directional aerodynamic brushless inverted coanda rescue platform. Tm. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
See title
Lockheed Martin once built an airship to go over 18km. Due to budget cuts and the required removal of equipment, a critical valve froze at about half that height, cutting the test flight short with an "unplanned controlled descent". The airship landed in a forest, and when the sun came out the next day, the solar panels started a fire.
Well, all except the part about "the solar panels started a fire." No, nothing caught fire. It just sort of crumpled and sat there in the trees.
http://defense-update.com/20110729_hale-d-high-altitude-airship-crashed-in-ohio.html
http://www.ohio.com/news/break-news/lockheed-martin-s-prototype-blimp-crashes-during-maiden-voyage-with-video-1.226880
surprisingly enough, I was thinking mylar. I have a box full of them, probably enough to build a 100,000cu.ft envelope.
Now all I need is an adhesive that can withstand hard solar radiation as well as extremes of temperature.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Bad moderator. Bad moderator. Go to your room.
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
Boom. I will take my prize money in large bills, thanks.
Pros: worldwide flight range; can take you to the moon
Cons: cannot fit through volcano portals that take you to the underground world of the dwarves
Nothing posted to
Getting to the top of the troposphere (about 10km) requires the same amount of helium as barely lifting your balloon.
The scale height of the atmosphere is about 7.5km, so getting up to 25km will require your balloon to expand by about a factor of e^3, or about 20x. So your balloon should be able to expand to 20x the volume that it has on liftoff. Also, the stratosphere is dynamically stable -- so you need a little extra helium to rise through it.
The lifting power of helium is a little over 1.2 grams per litre at sea level (but that has to lift the balloon itself too). So if your camera has a mass of 1kg and you're not carrying anything else, your balloon has to be about 1,000 litres (a ~4 foot diameter sphere) on launch. But since you want to rise through the stratosphere you should add another 50%-100% -- making it 2,000 litres (a ~5 foot diameter sphere). The balloon needs to be able to expand by a factor of 20 as it rises -- so it needs to be able to stretch to a ~14 foot diameter sphere.
Anyone know the going rate for tanked helium?
A 9 cubic metre tank (76.5kg gross weight) goes for £165 at retail. You'd need three of those (27,000 litres) just to lift the payload. One on board for topping (you'd get away with a smaller tank for this, say a 12kg, 2.61cu.m one at £104). So your total lift on the ground would be payload + helium tank + envelope + control/propulsion. Probably looking at 35-40kg. Your balloon would need to be able to hold half a million litres of rarefied gas. This isn't a case of just chucking things at a balloon and hoping for the best, we're talking about advances in materials science and NASA on the lookout for up-and-coming aero engineers.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
addendum: having run the numbers I'm short on mylar by a factor of about 5.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Oops, I stand corrected! The news reports on the HALE-D in the few days after the crash landing show pictures of it in the treetops, deflated and definitely un-burned... but apparently two days after it crashed, it was burned by "a fire of unknown origin."
http://www.ohio.com/news/top-stories/lockheed-martin-s-prototype-airship-burns-1.227688
According to the dates in the article it was two days after the crash, not the day after, and it's not clear that it had anything to do with the solar panels (although I'd say that an electrical short circuit would be a good guess)