Bye bye Space Elevator

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, wrote:
>
> wow zeppelins stay up for only a few days... wonder how they did
the round the world flights
>
simple they used refueling stops. the first nonstop around the world
flight occurred during the 90's but Dick Ratan and his partner.
>
> From what I see "something else" will be around and operating
before current ideas for space elevators will come around.
>
very possible. but i believe this will be about the same time. or
perhaps not even that soon.
>
> Healthy questioning is good, but one must also accept a certain
amount without challenging... I think there is not much doubt that
balloons have reached 100,000 ft and that the pics shown are "real" .
>
> Oh well, discussing "balloons" is fun but they will either be doing
something within a couple of years or not. Short enough time frame to
see where these things go.

100000 feet is one thing. the thing about what was said and shown, is
that they indicate that a large amount of cargo is possible. to my
understanding, there is still not real cargo ever carried up. the
balloons they used are extremely large, yet they can barely carry
the equipment to do the study of the atmosphere near the balloon.
that equipment is not that heavy. the picture suggest that the sign
is big, but it could just as easily be less than a mm big.
>
> the gondola or control room seen hanging below the old dirigibles
is deceptive, since the payload area was usually inside the airframe,
not exterior.
>
actually the majority of that space is filled with huge air bags.
there is little room for cargo there.

> Check out details sometime on the Hindenburg and you you'll see
quite a bit of "stuff' including staterooms, salon, and more.

unless I'm mistaken, those were almost all in the the Hindenburg is
one of the few airships to have the passenger area inside the
envelope.
>
> Modern day helium blimps like the advertising ones seen over
sporting events etc. are in volume quite small in comparison to the
huge dirigibles of old. Still, its pretty amazing to ride in one...
>
the thing is that they are all low lvl vehicles. the reason for that
is that their lift is created by replacing a volume of air with a
lighter gas. what ever the pressure is on the outside, the pressure
on the inside will be the same. since none of them ever get more than
a couple thousand feet off the ground at most, the air outside is
heavy and its easy to get a large difference between that amount of
air (7 million cubic feet for the Hindenburg) and the gas. one of the
big advantages Hindenburg had was that it used hydrogen instead of
helium. h2 is considerably lighter than he2. for that reason they
were able to carry 10 percent more. no balloon launched today would
carry hydrogen.

a 2 cubic mile balloon would have the same lift at that altitude as a
considerably smaller balloon in lower altitude. its unlikely it could
carry even half the capacity of the shuttle. much of that would have
to be used to carry spare helium, otherwise any punture would cause
it to quickly return to the earth. another point is that this airship
would have to be under full power or it could not return to the
exchange station, which must also be under full power. this means
constant use of fuel, which eats into cargo space.

what i still dont see is the use of putting something up that high
for that short of a time frame, since it would either have to be
dropped by parachute or come back down on the ship soon afterwords.
the shuttle can launch a hundred satelites, while this can only have
one thing up at a time.