AngelLestat

O_o! Airships is the only vehicle were install solar panels had sense.. but not just sense.. it has perfect sense. Just put in google Solar Airship (pictures) and you will see how many designs and real prototypes from big companies as lockheed martin or even boing there is. Solar panel benefic: In the 250 tons version, if we cover only a 50% of the top surface 180mx55m "10000m2" with a cheap PV of 20% efficiency, we get 2000 KW of power with direct solar, and a average of 700 kw by day, which give us a total of 16800Kw/h The 66tons version has 3 engines of 274kw, which I guess the 250 tons version needs 5 engines of 300Kw (only double drag than the 66t) (365horsepower = 274Kw) So it has enoght power from the sun alone to travel at cruise speed, this counting the time load and unload cargo. The weight of the solar panels depending its efficiency, would be between 5 to 10 tons. But they help a lot to extend the range and speed, it also gives the chance to delivery cargo without the need to refuel (not in all places you can get refuel.) Welcome and I appreciate the info.. but let me guess, you only read a 4% of this topic? I am totally agree, but like this aeroscraft with the proposed changes dint come out yet, then this does not apply. I already explain several times that these ships would not be remplaced, but the niche between planes and ship is so big, that there is a huge potential for this kind of Airship. We were all agree that airships will not use TEU containers, also not really need them if you move cargo between big companies directly to their storage place. In any case they can use light containers as the ones mentioned by Nibb31. 8000 TEU would be close to 100000 tons, then we need to rest the containers weight which give us 75000 tons of cargo. From the center of China to the center of US, we have 6000 nautical miles, 5000 by water and 1000 by land, which it will take 10 days cross the sea + unload load 2 times with trucks + 4 extra days on the road. Lets round in 15 days. The aeroscraft would do that in 2 days, so it can make 8 round trips in the same time than ship+truck do 1. So an aeroscraft with double of side than the 250tons version will be able to carry 8000 tons, *8 = 64000 tons. These numbers can or can not be accurate or realistic, but lets be agree in something, its niche is not so small. A plane can be faster, but if you take the time to sent the truck to the airport, papers, unload, plane, load in truck, destination. You have a similar time with airships in case the delivery is from point to point instead distribution. Also you are used to not have other possibility than "plane or ship" when you speak of cross water. So in your experiences the airship middle option never existed, so you can only measure how the market reacts to the lack of that option, but if this bridge between very slow and super is created, then a lot of new markets or ways to make things can arise. Food for example between others. 5 days a trip? This thing travel at 125 knots, you turn around the world at even cruise speed in that time. But if you have 4 pilots, what is the matter? They can sleep, play the ping pong or watch some movie. If you are moving 500 tons or more, 4 pilots is a negligible cost. You need 1 person for truck, and they need to sleep too. 250000 per year moving 500 tons by trip or maybe 8000 tons by trip. That is nothing compared with profits. Because this thing would not consume fuel, and if it does will be very few. Sorry I dint follow you in that one, but according to your calculations all transport companies should be in bankruptcy. Check the ones that I pointed. In open field I said that there is not much problem aside the money paid to field owners. But this is a very different case: http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/ee223/beatbum07/03BairesTrenesactualesmassubteco-1.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oed5jKeSz4c/TbDa4j6b-_I/AAAAAAAABsI/QuMriN_nQ1k/s1600/Mapa_Buenos_Aires_1.jpg How many bridges or tunnels you need to make in the first image, what is the investment cost? Also not all streets can cross. Then there is the maintaince cost for each cross, which if a barrier is broken they take as 1 week or 1 month to fix it. That is why trains are subsidized over all the world, because they are necesary and we dont have other option until now. But they are very good to move people in cities, but what I want to said, make new infrastructure to train freight is not worth it.

yeah but you keep ignoring all good cases that I mention. Is like said than helicopters does not have any benefic from their vertical take off against airplanes. I explain many of the cases why this had a potential to become a common way of transport, where things like food which are time sensitive, or the 5 trips against 1 trip of ship which multiply the payload capacity for 5 and increase the benefic of point to point delivery with zero fuel consumption and how much the cost can be reduce going big. Just take the example of the europe union, lets said italy-sweden or spain-ukraine or even closest routes, they are way more efficient than trucks to delivery big payload from point to point, and it does not need to make 4 trains transfer to reach that. But not.. you keep saying that the niche is small, which only translate into negation or inlogic thoght. But take a look in your example.. in that time technology advance very slow, so it was a sure bet that trains would be a good option (and their was our only option), now is different.In those times you dint need to pay for lands or cut roads to install rails. So yeah, when I said 25 years is with a solid logic behind. haha but the same for this.. once you build them, then is almost free to transport. Trains still are very good to transport people at short scales. In this case an aeroscraft is not good for short scales, its max speed only is reached at higher altitudes. The load and unload of passagers it will be always much faster in trains. Nobody is saying to remplace current trains with aeroscrafts, I am saying that in many cases, there is not point to make new rail infrastructure to transport freight or people between 2 distant places.. Also flights between 2 countries in europe (without much baggage) are cheaper than the same trip in train.. how do you explain that? If this technology receive only the half of support than trains receive in their time, it will conquer the skies. Lets me explain how I get those numbers. Aeroscraft models, the prototype was the 66tons model, sadly the roof of the hangar collapse in a storm which destroy the prototype, that slow down the things for the company. They are already sue the marine corp which rent them the hangar. And not all test was already complete like high altitude fly. Ellipsoid volume: Those are radius. So if we convert the units to a decent system we have: 66 tons 166 53 36 radius 83 26 18 Volume: 162756m3 * 1.2 = 195 tons Proportional drag: 2980 250tons 231 88 55 (40% side increase from the 66tons version) radius 115 44 27 Volume: 572437m3 * 1.2 = 687 tons Proportional drag: 6894 500tons 276 106 64 (20% size increase from the 250tons version) radius 138 53 32 Volume: 980661m3 * 1.2 = 1176 tons Proportional drag: 9870 *1.2 (helium lift by m3 at sea level, of course that volume is not real, we need to rest the payload volume + airship weight + ballonets volume) proportional drag (drag in airships is proportional to the exp 2/3 of the volume, but the formule is more complicate, so the numbers that show are only to have an idea how the drag increase, it has not unit) http://ae.sjsu.edu/files/public/nikos/pdf/VLLAirship%20AIAA.10.pdf You can have safest routes for bigger craft, about the hangar side, hagars may construct semi rigid hangar tents able to resist 140km/h winds, in my country the winds never overseed the 120km/h. These hangar can be much cheaper and bigger than the old concrete hangars. For very big airships, yeah. You need to think a little more about how to design the hangar. Is going to do more than that.. In the diesel design they need to take care of the fuel consumption, more speed it rise much more the consumption. In this case you get the energy from the PV (but is not enoght for the total power you consume) so the extra power comes from the hydrogen (lot of it without tank weight), once you reach a destination the PV keeps restoring the hydrogen lost. Also if you use hydrogen you get 10% more lift, this provide less envelope surface, so less drag.. Or you increase your payload, or you increase your altitude so you reduce drag and instead venting helium when you reach max altitude (which you cant because is expensive, so you reduce your altitude) with hydrogen instead of venting, you added to the propulsion. So is already proven than zepellings had a 35% more range than hellium dirigibles due this virtues. Which can be translated to more speed, or cruise speed unlimited range. Not sure about the effect on airplanes, but let me point the basic. -power and speed translates into less vulneability against wind. -craft density translates into less vulneability against winds. -bigger size translates into less vulneability against turbulance. More size in airships equal to less exposed surface in comparison with its weight, more speed and bigger size of course. You can see how speed and range increase with the aeroscraft models. And all the airship literature points to the same thing. But you dont realize that this effect is more an advantage than a disavantage for airships. You choise what height you fly and the route. So you choose always the winds that most fit you. Take a look at this: http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/250hPa/orthographic=-55.24,22.57,346 Change the height from 250 to 500 and 700. Some trips can take you up to 25% more time, but you have equal chances to reduce your trip time up to 50%.

Kiryten was already very clear. But let me elaborate. If we have a similar structure is because life was seed from a common place. You are right that life find always the optimal solutions, but only if this happen under the same enviroment. Look earth, almost the same enviroment and timeframe conditions but species are so so different from us. In this case we are talking of a very different enviroment without any common ansestor (which we know). Some examples of these error of thinking in the past: -earth is the center of the solar system -humans are not animals, we were created as an image of our creator. -life cant exist without oxygen (one of the biggest dumb claim that I hear from scientist) -Life exist in earth due the big coincidense of earth, if one is change it would not be possible... jupiter to stop comets, moon at the perfect distance, earth perfect distance to the sun, sun perfect distance to the center of the milky way... Those can be true if we take only the possibility to other creatures exactly like us. -organic life only can derive from exactly the same compunds of our adn (later we find silice could produce life, also we discover than phosphorus can be remplaced by arsenic studyng bacteries from earth, etc Every time we open our mouth to make a centered human claim we found how wrong we are not later on. Life can exist in ways that we can not imagine, that is why we still have not a good definition of life. But that is how our brain works, we can only make assumptions from the things we understand, the same than in the past we could understand the utility of fire only if someone else show us.

Both had good chances. Yeah, that is a centralized point of view like we always had in the pass and we always discover how wrong we were.

Heh, I guess that kind of logic was not really needed to reach that conclusion Is small than delivery goods to consumers.. yeah.. But this does not mean that is small.. Is huge!mostly all manufacture companies only assembled components to make the final product. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knock-down_kit There is also many others examples. We can have a 250 or 500 tons version aeroscraft which does argentina-spain, so in each trip companies of those countries contract the service and they load and delivery cargo directly from those companies (no more than 4 scales for country). The only drawback of country to country is that you need an customs officer in each of the 4 destination, also you may sent an extra incognit inspector once a while to control these officers. Places like European Union can have free trade between their members. Yeah.. I would not be so sure. As I said rails had a huge drawback, the infrastrure cost is huge. You cut several roads which translates in time waste for their citizens, you need to pay all the land owners to place the rails. Also all rails transportation in the world (maybe there are few cases were dont, not sure) are subsidized! I am not saying that we should get rid of trains, they are awesome and green. What I am saying that in many cases, the benefit does not cover the disadvantages if you have something like this alternative. Instead of all those subsidies and infrastructure and drawbacks to the citizen, you use that money in high production of aeroscrafts which will cut the cost to less than 1/4. We were talking of the 3.4 tons standard containers in ship, trucks and trains. And this containers usually does not leave the airport, and their size vary depending the plane. But yes, something similar would help in the aeroscraft case. Because you can not think beyond the initial year they come out.. They dont have a size limit as airplanes, in fact meanwhile bigger they are, better become. for each 20% increase in their proportions you double the capacity. long payload 233m 250tons 278m 500tons 332m 1000tons 400m 2000tons 480m 4000tons 576m 8000tons 691m 16000tons 830m 32000tons 996m 64000tons. The surface does not increase much, so the wind affects less, you can reach greater speeds and higher altitude, the cost rise as the surface. Is the same as ships, but these vehicles had the potential to be very cheap if they had a similar mass production, you dont need tons of steel. Althought they will be always expensive than ships, but lets take the 576m case 8000 tons. No fuel consumption, 100% green, it can make 5 trips in the same time than a ship do 1, so 5x8000=40000 tons, is easier to load and unload cargo because you have a mechanical ramp. Even with its size, they dont need bigger space than an airplane does "runaway". They are complex machines? Not really, just an envelope, a rigid structure and the pressure envelope bags to compress the lifting gas. An airplane needs much more complex mechanism, a turbine for example cost like 20 times more than a electric prop. Yeah, to remplace the ship you are right, and they will always rule the most heavy cargo, but airships are in the middle of all niches, that is why is niche can grow so big. They are average good in so many task, and meanwhile its cost reduce and their capacity grow, they can become compared in all its virtues in the best vehicle of transport (using general comparison)

Yeah, new train infrastructure had sense if you will use it for sure on the next 25 years at least. Right now we can no be sure if in 20 years we would not have a better solution. yeah of course, but it reach a point where the production cost and efficiency gained in some cases encourage to make the investment and save money for the future. Yeah there are all complicate manuvers and I will not bet to become in a standard producedure. Big airships are less affected by turbulance, but the benefic does not worth the risk added. I read this for airships: "As a rule of thumb, wind exceeding the top speed of the ship in flight puts it in danger, and wind exceeding half its top speed makes landing dangerous." In this case would be: avoid more than 120 knots in fly and 60 knots for landing. What laser? They might have other benefic, even without lifting gas due a huge hole explosion, they may try a soft landing using its lifting body shape if their control surfaces still work. But it will be a hard to convince people than now hydrogen airships can be safe. Is not practical technology what keeps hydrogen airships out, is public fear. So if a vehicle like this is made one day, they will need to sacrifice one to show people how safe they might be. What is absurd that they dont provide certificates (at least in USA) for even freight hydrogen airships no matter how many safety mechanism they had. I would love to fly on those, other possibility is a moving hospital. It can have everything a hospital needs, like plenty of space for beds, Medical equipment, electricity day and night, the envelope can function to gather water from rain or dew, it can be purify with the fuel cell, the electrolysis also give you oxygen. comic sans if for april fools? Airplanes does not use containers to transport goods, neither trucks in most cases. Containers are needed when you use transport combination like ship, train and trucks.

You are talking of TEU, 1 cargo container has 20 foot and some toes, weight 3400 kg empty and 24000kg max weight. The average weight will be 13000kg. There is this image in the official page but I agree that there is not much sense to use this containers. Also, you dont need them, these containers are designed to move the cargo between different transport methods. These kind of cranes had more sense: Lol why not? The lake has shore.. And your ramp only needs to touch shore. But these can be confusing because until now transportation was like this. Many cities had ports and they move cargo between them by ships. But the true is that almost all goods are manufacture in the edges of the cities and the big ones in open fields far from the cities where the terrain is cheap enoght to make huge factories. They need to cross all the city traffic to reach the port. These produce more traffic and waste time for a lot of citizens which translate in lower country production. But instead gather 100000 tons in one place, you can move 250, 500, or 1000 tons from point to point. Of course these does not count for all kind of goods, only for goods between big companies, not to the final consumer. Is a niche I know. but is a big one. They can be very efficient in transport food. Food needs to be transport fast, is bulky and producers does not need to add so many preservatives. I am not sure either, but I know that zepelling gain extra efficiency injecting (instead venting) hydrogen from the envelope into the diesel engines which increase a lot the diesel efficiency. Diesel trains had electric motors (they are like the prius), this is because fuel engines does not have the torque and smooth than a train needs. But they can not use regenerative brake unless they use electrify rails because they cant storage that energy. But my hypothetic PV-hydrogen-fuel cell aeroscraft produce its own energy without external sources more than sun. I already had a discussion about hydrogen production efficiency and electrolysis + fuel cell in the hydrogen car vs battery car topic. There are some misconceptions about how hard is to produce hydrogen. Yeah I already explain this above, it has more sense if you transport between companies and not products which final destination is the consumer. But there are always some exceptions were it may have a lot of sense even with the help of trucks. Maybe that is the case for USA, but in other countries the story is different. In my country Argentina, many rails were abandoned, resurrect them cost a lot of money and there is many destinations who never had rails.. All the transport to the country interior is by trucks, and many places were abandoned or not exploited due lack of roads. Make a new infrastructure it does not justify either. This craft would be perfect for my country. Electrolysis had a efficiency of 90 to 95%, fuel cell had a 60% of efficiency, but in this case you dont need to compress the hydrogen which it cost you 5% more to liquid, also the way than aeroscraft compress the lifting gas, it can recover that energy when it realese it (because it moves the same engine which compress it producing energy) Hydrogen is a very efficient way to storage big amount of energy, and in this case you dont need a heavy tank, you use the same envelope. Batteries weight a lot, their energy density is awfull in comparison with hydrogen. In fact there is already an airship concept using this: 20000 meters of height, operation full time over its lifetime. https://youtu.be/6alsthqayLo?t=2m54s

Ah, last mile means that? Yeah of course you would not deliver that pendrive than someone in the 44 floor buy. But you can use airports or any open space outside the city. You can do 10 more scales to deliver more goods in some key places. It has more sense in the point to point cargo delivery. For example manage the transport of 2 or 4 big companies which deliver goods to one or more countries (no matter how far from your original source) it will be very efficient, you load the cargo directly from each of these companies, then are directly send the cargo to 3 or 5 destinations. You have not range issues, if there is a storm in the place, you dont need to change destination or make a risky landing, you can wait until the storm pass and then land. This method would delivery goods at similar speed than airplanes, because in the case of airplanes (or any other transport method), you need to first load a truck, then send to the airport, unload, load in the airplane, fly..., unload in the airport, load in the truck and reach destination (with all the paper bureaucracy that you need in each step to avoid frauds) Trains are efficient, more if they use regenerative brakes in those electrify rails. But you can only travel at few locations and that efficiency is for freight trains which travel at 40km/h average. Rails infrastructure also means waste time for cars and trucks due cut roads, these means more infrastructure needed for bridges or tunnels over all the rail route. And even with all that efficiency they would not beat a hydrogen-fuel cell-PV airship, because the only energy consumed would be in its construction. Then they fly for free, the only you need to pay is for the 2 pilots and some maintenance. And if you increase the volume it becomes more and more efficient in cost, I read that if they overseed the 500 to 1000 tons, they already can compete with ships+other methods in transport cost. They are not very sensitive to weather, that is a misconception. The zeppeling in 1930 fly faster than the airplanes of that time, and the accidents due weather was mostly due over pilot confidence on how good they were. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/Airships (read misconceptions) "Modern airships are actually quite safe, and compare favorably to helicopters. It's hard to make generalizations, though, because airships are just like airplanes when it comes to safety: an ultralight plane is less safe in inclement weather and crash situations than a 747. In the same way, some hot airships are blown backwards in a light breeze, but on the other hand, in the 1950s an American naval blimp program manned an Arctic airborne early warning station continuously for 10 days in the winter. The weather was the area's worst in years, grounding all other military and commercial airplanes with combinations and variations of ice, snow, rain, fog, and 65 mph winds. The airships went on sorties that lasted for days, in extremely heavy icing conditions, and succeeded in their mission with no crashes- effectively crushing the misconception that airships are inherently more vulnerable to weather than other aircraft. In fact, their natural buoyancy, lengthy endurance and ability to maneuver at low speeds makes them very well suited to ride out storms." As I said before, at big scales, the good thing of airships grow much faster than the bad things. Yeah that is a good idea, you reach one place, unload all the payload then most of that payload can be delivery by a swarm of quadcopters. ------------------------------------------------------------------ This is how to achieve zero emmisions and zero fuel consumption (only sun), and is the only vehicle which can be like this at such low cost. That image I made it for a blimp case, but it can be applied to any dirigible. You dont need much tanks, because you use the same dirigible as a hydrogen tank, and instead full inflate the ballonets with external air you can compress the inside gas. Container ships can use kites to gain something of propulsion but it will be not more than the 30% of the total energy. Cpast: I will answer you later.

Why all our names are green? Container ships sounds great, but if you start to compare all the virtues and drawbacks with different way of transportation, then you realize that they can be beaten in many scenarios. For example: Ships only travel by water so they depend on different transport methods, you need to add the cost transfer the cargo to trucks or trains plus the cost of these. In some cases you dont even have the chance to reach some places because there is not sea connection (or you have a continent in the middle). You not only need to pay for the fuel consumption, you need to pay also to maintain all that infrastructure (roads, rails, ports, or to make new ones). All that it will be added to the total transportation cost, of course in most cases the aeroscraft would not transport each container to its place, for that trucks are better in case they had roads. I guess I share your opinion but why you think is so awfull to load or unload cargo without infrastructure? Some models of aeroscrafts are designed to have their own bridge crane system to select and grab containers and place them on the ground without the need to land, some others had a similar system but with a ramp to load/unload. You may be able to load or unload container directly to trucks without external infrastructure. They can unload cargo without land, but lets be seriously, how many places does not have at almost flat place to land close enoght? It does not need to be so flat. It can land also in lakes. The military are the ones more interested, they with nasa provide the money to the prototype. Military wants a dirigible transport able to land and take off without ballast or infrastructure since "always.." They even did a test with an average helium blimp, they fire all they got (missiles, high caliber bullets, etc) to the blimp, the blimp complete the mission and 2 hours later return to the base. A bigger rigid dirigible is even more strong than this, the only way is to shot the cabin, but without heat signiture or anything to guide a missile to the cabin is not easy task. They may be silent too so on night you have more chances to not be seeing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airship#Safety They need a runway to land.. and the speed is useless against the moderns missiles, they hit anything, even aircraft fighters had almost not chance to dodge them. The only you need is a not flamable envelope and hydrogen sensors. Even with ignition and holes, the fire would not extend, and the same fire would prevent any high mixture in close enviroments. Was already discover than paint surfaces with 100nm of reduce graphene oxyde (very easy to make) removes in a 100% any leak. The same compound can be used to make hydrogen sensors able to measure even 0.1% in the air mixture. Also helium leaks more easy than hydrogen becouse hydrogen is a diatomic molecule. The cargo structure and cabin can be made as a lifting body with some control surfaces, then it can be detached from the envelope in case something happens and plain to the surface, this will allow transport people with enoght safety, even more than airplanes. Also dont believe they are so fragile, take a look in all the iron than zeppiling had in that time, you can make even harded structures with carbon composites as the same aeroscraft is made. I am agree that container ships are difficult to beat in their own niche, but in more general cases they can be beaten. About weather, we can not compare the old airships from 1930 to now (and they had a good safety margin even then). Now airships will had their own weather radars on board, they had international weather info in real time. Now they can reach higher altitudes and fly over the storms (maybe not a Cumulonimbus) but they are easy to dodge. Take a look in this list: - Air cargo - .8063 kg of CO2 per Ton-Mile - Truck - 0.1693 kg of CO2 per Ton-Mile - Train - 0.1048 kg of CO2 per Ton-Mile - Sea freight - 0.0403 kg of CO2 per Ton-Mile - Zeppelin - 0.0887 kg of CO2 per Ton-Mile This takes into account zeppelin from 1930, a hydrogen-fuel cell-PV airship would had zero co2 or fuel consumption. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_transport ?????

by efficient, I mean what vehicle has the highest average virtues like: energy consumption by ton of freight speed (includes the time for load and unload) payload capacity operation cost locations able to operate and range vehicle cost infrastructure needed co2 emissions All vehicles have their perfect task and circustance where they shine over the rest, but lets focus in general. In my opinion the vehicle which has the most chance to become the ultimate transport choice and solve its current drawbacks is the aeroscraft (which is still in prototype stage). To those who still never saw it: https://youtu.be/GceGS-g8hbI https://youtu.be/T4f89uJEhOE?t=1m7s Pros of this design: 1/3 fuel consumption than any cargo plane for the same payload. 1/10 co2 emmisions than any ................ it can land and load/unload without infrastructure or assistance on ground or water, its landing cushiond can act as suction or overcraft. the aerodynamic shape acts as a lifting body which increase the altitud --> decrease drag --> increase the speed (120 knots) 250 tons version cost similar to a 747 (100 tons of cargo), it can transport bulky cargo. In airships the good stuff grows faster with volume than the bad stuffs. So a 2.5 times longer vehicle than the 250 tons version would carry 10000 tons, drag increase mostly due surface which does not increase so fast as volume. drawbacks: It uses helium which it cost 10 times more than hydrogen and it can not be used as an energy source and managment, also due the lower lift and altitud the fuel consumption rise. it need big hangars to be covered from storms when is not in service which increase the infrastructure needed. How to transform this in the ultimate transport vehicle: hydrogen + solar panels + fuel cell which it gives unlimited range, extra speed, zero emmissions, zero fuel consumption. To accomplish this it needs a not flamable envelope, plus to avoid hangars, it needs a system to fly over storms or dodge them and a good anchoring system to be able to resist medium storms without the need of take off. You can make few tents hangar to apply manintainance on those who needed.

Here there is good info about efficiencies, speeds and why there is a big change after 0.85% in fuel consumption. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_transportation#Aircraft

But we dont need to have cities in the first mission dont you? Just a blimp is enoght.. we can do that, at least since the the 19th century - - - Updated - - - I will not, I am leaving.. But why I cant be in disagree with the topic assumption? It would be fine if I start a topic about... what would be the next planet for a manned visit after venus?

we did not know how to do Supersonic Retropropulsion in the 80th, you can land in mars using that, but not in a efficient way or with a good budget. Is not the same to land 1 tone robot than 50 tons manned. Yeah but is not the surface the most interesting of venus.. Its clouds, the place more similar to earth in the solar system. But even landing on the surface of venus is much easier than mars, you dont even need parachutes, the atmosphere is so dense than a probe survive the landing with without parachute deploy due a malfunction. I guess there is a 75% of success in venus mission vs a 50% on mars mission.

homeopathic was already disprove scientifically. In the final homeopathic dose there is not 1 single atom of the initial "medicine". Is like drop a spoonful of penicillin in the atlantic, then wait 5 years and drink from the pacific.

Venus is better target for colonization and way easy to accomplish a manned mission, so dont be so sure than mars will come first... We already have the knowledge/technology and maybe budget to a manned venus mission, but we dont have any of those for a mars mission yet

this should be in the general section. This section is for real science topics.

Not sure if is just a pressure issue, is a hot spot. I remember seeing a documentary which they analize the possibility to reduce the danger placing several geothermal plants (hundreds) over the place. (If you will do all the drilling just to leave escape the heat and pressure, then better to take the avantage of that) But even with hundreds of these plants, the effect would be negligible.

Fun video, hard reality.. I guess there is two kind of people, those who search for answers with a certain level of skepticism and those who accept just the answers which they most like. I'm not entirely sure if these behavior had their root/trigger in genetics or if they totally depends on the individual learning enviroment of each subject. If is genetic trigger, then ban these alternative medicine methods may do more bad than good.

I am agree Kulebron, this will be partially solve if the range increase, so you fly from dubai to san fransisco or between other distant high rate cities. but then due the fuel added, the amount of passagers decrease. Maybe as Cantab said Internet could have some implications in the final desicion, if you want to reach fast a place and then go back it will be mostly due business reasons. Right now you can do some kind of business using internet, but if you are traveling for vacation I guess no much people care if the airplane takes 2 or 4 hours less. Other way is making your travel as part of your vacation, as cruise lines, when the speed does not matter.

Ok, you got me there. Is not the definition of nautic mile 1 min arc? If is not that, what it is? Heh, I have sailboat licence but I dont rememeber to learn this. Yeah I am agree, but still.

Yeah, speed in any flying vehicle will be always wind speed, but I guess they should change it to km/h instead knots as everything else, because we don´t use ropes with knots anymore to measure depth or ship speed. Well I saw this new supersonic aircraft transport concept from Russia which it looks very cool but it seems pointless (even if they can achieve it) Although it looks very cool. Sorry If I derail a little from the original topic but I dont wanna make a new one just for this. source: http://www.gizmag.com/russia-supersonic-cargo-plane-pak-ta/36693/ Is a military transport vehicle.. But lets be realistic.. What is the point to keep doing weapons? Today the media is in everywhere and what most matter is the public opinion. So you can not invade any country without a very very good excuse and with the other coutries support. So any future war will be fought in the economical, media and politic ground.

first, not all space elevator problems are solve it, second we are talking of a very different scale, third is in space. We are already have and companies sell not defect graphene layers smaller than a hand, put many of those at certain distance with some defect added and you have already a better fuel cell than using platinum. How large and how many layer without defect you need to make a space elevator? These kind of comparison does not help in nothing and does not make any point.

I join this discussion because I know that there is so many misunderstandings and miths about energy sources. Is not all white or black, batteries are good in some cases in other cases hydrogen base technologies are better. I keep hearing drawbacks from one or the other which some were true 20 years back, others was driven without much merit by competing technologies, and the rest are true but they are already solve it in laboratory which it will take 5 to 10 years to come out. So in batteries vs hydrogen fuel cell, it all depends on vehicle weight and autonomy. Batteries became too heavy and costly after certain scale. Not, because you produce hydrogen in place, right now the few sites that are practicing this are nuclear plants, solar farms, wind farms and maybe geothermal sites (I dint hear or read, but it may work fine) Nuclear plants for example are always generating energy, even if they are using it for base load or not. So in the times that you dont need base load (or at least a %) you can produce hydrogen by electrolysis using the same waste heat from the reactor. In all these examples, you dont have 6.6 % lose in transmision or extra pollution. But in your case you want to use the energy from fossil fuels to generate hydrogen with the electricity created in the thermal plants. This is a very bad way to do it.. Instead that, you extract the hydrogen from all kind of hydrocarbons first (with a 80% of efficiency, this is how the 95% of the world hydrogen is produced) and then if you want to generate electricity, you do it with a fuel cell plant, which are much efficient than any thermal plant. The problem is still the prices of the catalyst used which it will drastic change in the next 10 years. So with this way, you capture all CO and CO2 from the begining, and you recover a big part of the effiecient lost with the fuel cell plant, or... you just sell and transport the hydrogen. Hydrogen transport is already mentioned in one of the sources I post, goes from 5% to 10% of energy lost, this taking into account that we dint solve yet (in market) the leak problem, but is comming. Hydrogen has not much energy density with volume, but in the case of pipeline it has lower viscosity, so much higher velocities can be achieve it. As I mention earlier if you want to avoid all these transportation and management problems on hydrogen, you intruduce nitrogen to produce ammonia (in fact almost all the hydrogen produced today is to make ammonia for fertilizers). If you have ammonia then all is much easier, the little extra energy you waste you save it in hydrogen compression and transportation issues, not pressurized plastic tanks is anything you need, it has 1.6 times the energy of liquid hydrogen for the same volume. And you can use almost the same fuel infrastructure with small changes to distribute ammonia. Any vehicle will charge ammonia and then with a small device will be splitted to hydrogen on demand. http://phys.org/news/2014-06-hydrogen-breakthrough-game-changer-future-car.html It needs some extra years of development, but we are close. Even with that efficiency lost which I already explain in detail, not all vehicles can use batteries.. Or what? Airplanes will keep using oil and producing Co2 the same as transport ship, bus or any kind of heavy vehicle? Because at those scales batteries are very very inneficient. I will said that the limit for batteries is 1500 kg and 500km autonomy, beyond that it will be hydrogen ground. No, it does not confirm that.. read again.. there is a lot of IF.. Read my explanatory comment about it. yeah now.. but I already post a lot of links showing that Reduced Graphene Oxide stop any hydrogen leak in a 100%, and rGO is very easy to produce and is cheap. You use it like a paint. It just need few 3 or 5 years to reach the market. It depends, some of those use cheap catalyst or they use air instead oxygen (as cars). Again.. for small city cars or medium cars yes.. batteries are better, but this is not true beyond that.. Just picture a farm truck with batteries.. Which it needs high autonomy and the full vehicle weight with payload is close to 3500kg With batteries the cost will be prohibitive and the autonomy awfull. Instead 3500 it will weight 4500kg. Yeah, dont make the same wrong assumptions on generalized choice, because the world does not work with a single product and not all is white or black. Batteries take the lead in progress for the moment, but the next years will be tie for huge jump improvement on hydrogen. Both are necesary if we want to eliminate co2 and stop global warming, and the most important, both will have more economic and efficient sense than fossil fuels.

Ok, that is another reason we need to add, but even without that, not sure if the today demand will be enoght due the reasons that I previous mentioned earlier, If I remember right, the concorde airline was with commercial issues the last years, so the last crash maybe just push the closure desicion. How many hours people waste in an airport before departure... average 3? Then take an airplane which takes 3 hours instead 6 is not much difference if you count the previous 3, only a 30% time save. Thanks for the info, but you can only break the sound barrier (with respect the same airplane) if your speed with respect the wind is higher than the sound.. Because sound is also traveling over this same medium (tail wind). But if you break or not break the sound barrier makes not diference.. you will reach much faster to your destination. Fast wind jetstream are very common at that height. Is not the first time that USA do something like that, dirigibles die in 1940 because USA did not allow hydrogen airships flying in their territory, one might said.. ok that was a good call due the danger, but not so much.. that was the excuse.. The main reason is that USA was and is the only country in the world which has hellium reserve without commercial exploit until that time. Now due that, the reserves are at 50% and is the only remaning in the world, once you use it, is lost. That is why scientist are trying to push to stop selling hellium for party balloons, and the hellium cost is rising.

Who is claiming that??? LEARN TO READ. Seriusly, quote me where I said that?