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

[Dan Clemmensen]

Robert J. Bradbury wrote:

>On Tue, 25 May 2004, Dan Clemmensen wrote:
>
>  
>
>>http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/NS%20Savannah
>>    
>>
>
>Dan, I don't see this as a good reference for nuclear
>powered ships.  There are some derivitive references such
>as those for the Russian ice-breakers that seem informative.
>
>But overall I don't see a good comparison between the
>engineering that has been done for nuclear powered
>submarines (which clearly work relatively effectively)
>and the same kind of effort put into nuclear powered
>ships.  I'm not attempting to say that they are cost
>effective -- it just seems as if not as much engineering
>effort was put into them.
>
>Now, with respect to nuclear powered airplanes, balloons,
>mass drivers, etc. there has been some (but minimal)
>investment into engineering them.  It would be nice to
>see some real hard core analysis on such topics so their
>merits could be discussed constructively.
>
>  
>
I misunderstood the original poster. I thought he meant that he
knew of no civilian nuclear ships. I knew about the Savannah, so
I did a quick Google simply to prove that such a ship existed.
She was a freighter with accommodations for passengers also.

Sure, there are lots of plans on the drawing board, but this was
a real vessel.

My favorite thought-machine is a nuclear-heated hot-air areostat.
i.e., a rigid hot air balloon. A 5km diameter sphere made of
currently-available materials should lift with only a few degrees
of differential temperature.