SInce we’re talking climate change I think we should bring back airships for short-haul flights. The fact it floats with little effort means less fuel is needed.
I figured in continents like Europe, for example, building an extensive high speed railroad would be far more effective.
Last summer I did a trip through Western Europe by train and I went from Basque country to Copenhagen without any major problems. I did 3800 km in total by train. If Europe takes trains serious, they could have a high speed connection to everywhere.
Hell, even China with a similar size as the US is doing wonders with their railroads.
yeah, this is like Musk trying to solve traffic with underground tunnels. The solution has been in front of our eyes this whole time; trains. Cheap, easy to build and maintain, efficient, easy to electrify… and in europe we also proved just how far you can go with railways. There’s one under the channel, and 60 odd kms of underground railway tunnel under the Gotthard pass.
On a continental level, there really isn’t anything stopping us
The longest train travel you can do in the world (as of 2021) is from Lagos in Portugal to Singapore. It take something like 21 days and multiple train changes though but still.
We gotta build a tunnel under the Atlantic between the Europe and the Americas
China demonstrated their viability for military and espionage purposes a few months ago, so why not.
I’m not an expert on the subject, but I imagine there is quite a difference between unmanned weather balloons and full on airships though
I suspect Sleepless One was making a joke. It made me laugh, anyway.
Yes, it was a joke.
Wink, wink.
there are like dozens of reasons why we got rid of them in the first place.
They are expensive, dangerous, not particularly efficient or fast, and tbh i’ll be fine without a 100 meters long amazon Ad in the sky.
Ridiculous idea, way too dangerous. HSR is the solution to short distance travel.
They’re very romantic and cool, so I’m for them. Obviously they have some major issues:
•Embarking and disembarking is a major pain. You need gigantic hangars and/or skyscrapers. You also needed a large crew. Perhaps we could develop some nifty machines for that part. Another issue is landing while it’s windy.
•No one wants to touch hydrogen, and helium is kind of rare.
•They’re slower than airplanes and some high speed rail. People want to go fast.
•They are very space inefficient. They don’t carry that many people for how big they are.
But it’s not a total wash. Hybrid airships combine a lifting body with lighter-than-air gas which makes them easier to land since they fall when unpowered. They might be useful for remote transportation. It would probably be easier to decarbonize an airship than a Boeing 737, and a ban on carbon dioxide would make them more competitive. Not everyone wants to go fast. Night trains are having a renaissance in Europe and people do enjoy cruises (I think ocean liners should come back as well - they could be wind, nuclear, or synthetic fuel powered). Airships were kind of dangerous in their heyday, but airliners were as well for the first few decades. Modern engineering, flight control, and weather forecasts would probably help a lot.
what’s the point when trucks already exist, and water-based fuel & electrification are just over the horizon?
Not to mention for safety reasons these ships would need to use helium and we kind of need to preserve as much of that as we can. It’s a non-renewable resource and we need it for lots of science and tech purposes. The fact we still use it for balloons and shit it’s mind boggling.
Most rational capitalist economy:
Using 8.5 million cubic meters of an extremely rare, nonrenewable, resource a year, that is otherwise needed for scientific development, semiconductor manufacturing, welding, and medicine for Lifting Fucking Balloons!
How else could we make things fun at birthday parties for children and people reaching the ages of 16, 18, 21, 40, and 60? Don’t you think these rare life achievements deserve celebrating in the fullest way possible? It’s not every day that people simply wake up one day older than they were the day before. What do we really need fridges for, anyway? We could always just put food in cans and salt instead if the woke left stopped pushing their agenda.
Filling party balloons with hydrogen world be significantly safer than airships, all without expending a rare resource. Even if you put a flame to one, the (tiny) blast would be anything but lethal. Worst case, some mild burns.
This sounds far more fun, tbh. Just be sure to warn Uncle Dennis not to stand too close if he’s hairsprayed his quiff.
Instead of blowing out birthday candles, one need only torch their balloons for a little extra fun!
It’s fucking depressing.
Feeling’s mutual.
Again, short haul flights (like between provinces)
if you want to focus specifically on flights the answer doesn’t really change. Suitable aircraft already exist, and alternative power is just over the horizon.
but if you want an argument for why blimps (or similar aircraft) aren’t great for transport, they require a lot of material to counteract the mass of their load and travel around 50mph as their top speed. If the distance you wanted to transport something was short and accessible by land, you’d be better off putting it on a truck. The only major advantage that airships have over other aircraft is lower immissions paired with helicopter-like performance. But once EV helicopters become more of a thing, that advantage goes away.
For transportation there may be a niche for deliveries to the middle of nowhere Siberia or Canada that electric aerodynes can’t fill well.
I keep forgetting they actually existed already
fun fact: there are only 25 of them in the whole planet, most of them used for advertising
I have two problems with this (admittedly fun) idea, both of which being the gasses needed to suspend the vehicles. One, hydrogen, the most effective of the two options, is extremely flammable (see Hindenburg). Two, Helium, is rare, nonrenewable, and invaluable in scientific equipment (such as FMRI machines and particle accelerators). While one could potentially make helium through the modification of nuclear (fission) reactors, that would massively increase the price (in both market and labor power terms), making it infeasible for transit after running out / low on natural helium deposits.
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Lifting gas is very rare on Earth and by the time we could harvest helium from other planets we would have more efficient means of atmospheric transport
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Lighter-than-air craft are highly susceptible to turbulence, which is why they fell out of favor when passenger planes came around, as planes are much more stable and are not liable to roll over or blow off course under heavy winds.
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Related idea, how about bringing about giant ekranoplan? (a soviet vehicle, part way between a ship and an aircraft.)
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