I think these blimp people are full of hot air.
Am I really to believe a bunch of gassy bubbles are a more efficient way of transporting people than an electric train or a ferry?
The other problem I see is that they will need to be relatively close to a hanger large enough for them in case of a storm.
Most failure mods of blimps are pretty graceful, whereas an airplane will fall out of the sky at high speed for lots of failure modes a blimp will just slowly descend.Compared to airplanes, blimps have two actual advantages: they're more fuel-efficient and they can stop in mid-air.
Someone will surely do the maths and see if it's worth it, but at the very least they could cover a niche similar to historic steam trains.
The capacity of a subway is not analogous to the capacity of the airport, but to the capacity of all roads leading to the airport (the latter usually include subways).
It is OK until you find a somewhat strong wind and begin flying backwards. Also, hellium is only found in some natural gas fields (mostly in USA) and it is not that abundant nor cheap. You can also use hydrogen but pretty bad things can happen then.
There was a number of reasons for people to chose airplanes instead as soon as they became available. So I see this as a recreative thing, not as a substitute for jetliners in any environmentally meaningful way.
Let's see... if something goes wrong, would I rather drown or fall out of the sky?Electric trains require land. Ferries require water and can't match airships in speed. Airships excel in crossing over both land and sea.
This might spur development of mining helium on the Sun.
Or, more likely, Jupiter and Saturn. Jupiter's atmosphere is 10% helium and Saturn's is 6%. It doesn't sound like much, but those are very large planets.
Of course they'd need to make sure there isn't any life there...
Yeah, blimp travel on Earth could really jumpstart more practical reasons for the space program!
Of course helium is the second most abundant element in the universe after hydrogen, but it's so light that in "small" planets such as Earth it floats over all other liquid and gases as oxygen and nitrogen and finally scape to space. Being a noble gas, it doesn't form any chemical compound either as hydrogen does, so under common conditions in nature it can only be found in pure helium gas form, which means, along with its lightness, that there is not any "original" helium in this planet, the only one remaining is a byproduct of uranium radioactive decay accumulated under a few zones where earth crust is hermetic enough to keep it underground, so a bunch of natural gas deposits.
This might spur development of mining helium on the Sun.
Or, more likely, Jupiter and Saturn. Jupiter's atmosphere is 10% helium and Saturn's is 6%. It doesn't sound like much, but those are very large planets.
Of course they'd need to make sure there isn't any life there...
Yeah, blimp travel on Earth could really jumpstart more practical reasons for the space program!
I hope people realize I was being facetious, at least about mining helium on the Sun. There are people who would in all sincerity say it would be doable if they went at night.Of course helium is the second most abundant element in the universe after hydrogen, but it's so light that in "small" planets such as Earth it floats over all other liquid and gases as oxygen and nitrogen and finally scape to space. Being a noble gas, it doesn't form any chemical compound either as hydrogen does, so under common conditions in nature it can only be found in pure helium gas form, which means, along with its lightness, that there is not any "original" helium in this planet, the only one remaining is a byproduct of uranium radioactive decay accumulated under a few zones where earth crust is hermetic enough to keep it underground, so a bunch of natural gas deposits.
Anyway, recently a huge not natural gas related helium reservoir was found in Tanzania, so it seems there is more than we thought firstly. Enough to build a few thousand airships, if anyone has a real interest in doing such thing...
By the time we could mine it, we should have working fusion reactors so I'm thinking...
How radioactive is helium produced by deuterium/tritium fusion? Any physicist here?