Quote:
Originally Posted by redpoint5
What's the payload?
I'd like to see a vacuum lighter than air ship that has no gas requirements. Would probably need nanotube tech to finally be developed to achieve the materials strength and weight requirements to make such a thing feasible.
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1) 750- LBs / 340-kg.
2) Only a sphere could structurally survive the stress of a vacuum.
3) Which would be an aerodynamic fail.
4) Enclosing metal vacuum balloons inside a streamlined outer hull would be a weight fail.
5) And we'd have to prove the buoyancy of an evacuated metallic sphere.
6) Hydrogen and helium are known quantities.
7) Additive manufacturing a cubic-octet, 3-D laser-printed hollow sphere would be an extremely interesting proposition.
8) Flying 'above' the weather would probably be a mandatory limitation.