The usefulness and aesthetics of airship parts

[JMBuilder]

Since airship parts have been suggested dozens of times and it falls into the "MOAR PARTZ" category, I will instead discuss the usefulness and overall aesthetics of giant blimp-style balloons and the like.

First off, edge-of-the-atmosphere airships are efficient and reusable ways to get heavy loads to a high altitude for launch. They would also make hovering atmospheric probes a reality. For runway-to-orbit missions, you could use normal airship balloons, while for interplanetary missions, you could have deployable balloons for post-reentry maneuvers. The deployable balloons would be especially important for missions inside of Jool's atmosphere. You can't land on Jool and it's hard to study the atmosphere while in orbit. Airships are the solution.

In addition to hovering launch pads and probes, there's another important advantage of floating platforms, and that's fuel transportation. Sure, you could make a simple rover that could drive fuel to another vehicle, but you can't drive across water and there's a chance that your docking nodes might not be level with each other. With an airship, you could travel anywhere you needed to for fuel delivery and you wouldn't need to worry about level nodes.

Because hovering vehicles are relatively easy to control, docking in mid-air would be fairly simple. This would open up the possibility of floating bases and other gigantic hovering structures.

Now, let's be honest, aesthetics are a HUGE part of Kerbal Space Program. With airships, just imagine launching a rocket from a huge hovering launch platform or walking around catwalks aboard an enormous Hindenburg-style blimp (hopefully without the enormous Hindenburg-style crash).

What do you guys think? Shall airships rule the skies, or is it just a "meh" thing?

[Decent Weasel]

I wholeheartedly agree.

An airship is the ideal solution for a place like Laythe, too - a boat can generally only explore the body of water it lands in, a rover can only explore the landmass it touches down on, and while an airplane can reach the entire planet theoretically, it has to be babysat every mile of the way, and it has to have a smooth place to land and refuel. But an airship can go anywhere at all and land on virtually any terrain. While rovers are ideal for airless bodies, airships are ideal for ones with atmospheres and seas.

You've used Hooligan's airship mods, I assume?

[NoMrBond]

Even simple weather balloons would be neat, maybe enough to lift a small probe so you could have a floating atmospheric research (or comms relay) station on suitably endowed planets, or Jool (+ other future gas giants).

[JMBuilder]

I've seen a lot of Hooligan Labs, but I never used it. I did, however, use one of the older blimp mods once. I forget who made it.

Today, I prefer to keep KSP stock due to large mods messing with the game speed.

[chaos_forge]

I also agree that airships are a great vehicle for exploration, especially in places like Eve or Jool where the dense atmosphere and lack of oxygen means that airships are much more efficient than planes in terms of cargo-carrying capacity.

Another benefit of airships is that, given electric propellers and some solar panels, you have a craft with effectively infinite range.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Not to mention how useful airships would be for returning from Eve. With the density of Eve's atmosphere, every kilometer of altitude you can gain cuts down drastically on the size of the launcher vehicle.

[lajoswinkler]

Maybe a bit offtopic, but I didn't feel like opening a new thread: why are the parts all scrambled? I'd like to see them ordered. Tiny decoupled, small decoupler, large decoupler.

[Decent Weasel]

I've seen a lot of Hooligan Labs, but I never used it. I did, however, use one of the older blimp mods once. I forget who made it.

Today, I prefer to keep KSP stock due to large mods messing with the game speed.

Totally understandable, I've really cut down on my mods for the same reason. Still, Hooligan is really worth a try; it's every bit as fun as it sounds and it's one of the few mods on my short list. (Scott Manley coupled it with B9 Aerospace so he could use the intakeair-powered RCS thrusters to move the ship without having to carry onboard fuel, but B9 kills my game speed.)

[JMBuilder]

Le bump? o_o

[boomerdog2000]

I love his combination blimp, submersible. That was a great idea and inspired me to build some underwater bases.

[KSP orbiter]

Airship parts have obvious immense utility for probing the atmosphere of gas giants too. Eventually we're going to need something like that, there's only so much data a probe can send back as it parachutes towards crush depth.

[ixolate industries]

Probes in the gas giants would still be as hard because real gas giants are made of the lighter gases like hydrogen and helium the very same thing the balloons would have to be filled with.

It would be like filling a balloon with air and expecting it to float.

So jool's atmosphere is probably out of the question for any long term missions.

However who knows what anything is made out of in KSP I could be completely wrong in my statements.

[KSP orbiter]

You make a good point about the composition of the atmosphere.

"It would be like filling a balloon with air and expecting it to float."

But we do exactly that already. Hot-air balloons aren't great, but they do work pretty reliably. Perhaps something like that would be more practical.

[JMBuilder]

I always assumed that Jool was made of methane.

[leax256]

Probes in the gas giants would still be as hard because real gas giants are made of the lighter gases like hydrogen and helium the very same thing the balloons would have to be filled with.

It would be like filling a balloon with air and expecting it to float.

So jool's atmosphere is probably out of the question for any long term missions.

However who knows what anything is made out of in KSP I could be completely wrong in my statements.

then fill the enevlope with nothing,

http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-myths/question194.htm

[JMBuilder]

A giant vacuum chamber. I never thought of that.

[Winter Man]

The problem with vacuum balloons is the negative pressure involved means you need big heavy structures to hold them, i.e. they don't float too good. Hydrogen, helium and hot air are all easy because they're contained at atmospheric pressure so don't need the support.

[OgreMagi]

the idea of a blimp for exploring other planets is old.

several sci fi book I read used it. one was a flying wing with ballest balloons inside it for use on mars, hydrogen was used to help it get aloft and the physics do work out , the hydrogen filled wing supported rought 2/3 of the weight and a small gas turbine move it around.

before the modern aircraft the blimp was the way to go, very long range it was used to explore both poles and was generable more reliable than the aircraft of the era.

MORE BLIMPS nuff said

[Nuke]

this would be a good way to drum up early science. you might need to gather atmospheric data to unlock spaceplanes. or you may not initially have access to space suits, so you would have to do a high altitude test of a space suit to unlock them.

[Nemrav]

Well, I have hooligan labs airship mod... but I never actually use it,mainly because i'm too lazy to bother trying to go to eve, so i'm stuck at kerbin with one simply ship...

the biggest thing I used it for was a hybrid ssto, blimb, the blimb part didn't give it flight alone, but it was enough to decrease significant mass of the aircraft...

guess il give it another try

[Herbert McCheese-Wang]

I definately think there should be some sort of 'ballon' part, but maybe not fully fledged Zepplins