[extropy-chat] balloon stations at the edge of space

[Adrian Tymes]

--- Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Vacuum balloons, while a nice SF fantasy, are not
> physically practical
> compared to the next best things, like hydrogen and
> helium. These
> gasses are so light that the envelope mass needed to
> reinforce a vessel
> to hold a vacuum (not really holding it, but holding
> matter out of it,
> eh?) would be greater than that saved by not using
> one of these gasses.

Barring fantastically light and strong materials,
and/or extremely large balloons (square-cube law:
envelope mass scales with the surface area, but lift
scales with the volume enclosed), this is true.  But
neither one is practical at this time.