On Tue, 25 May 2004 01:41:10 +0000, Orval Fairbairn wrote:

In article ,
(sanman) wrote:

Can an airship travel to orbit?

I was surfing at www.jpaerospace.com and they say it can be done.
They have a nice little presentation on PDF that gives a detailed
explanation.

Is it possible that the oldest aerial technology can also be the first
to take the masses to space?

NO! An airship requires atmosphere to give ir buoyancy -- the difference
between the mass of the entire ship and the mass of the air displaced.
It cannot fly to vacuum conditions -- balloons have gone to about
120,000 feet.

I think their idea is to use aerodynamic lift to take the airship to
200,000 feet.

Also, the speed of an airship is WELL below the required orbital
velocity -- some 200 ft/sec vs tha required 18,000 ft/sec.

At which point an ion drive will accelerate it to orbital velocity.

I'll look again when it's working, but it's kinda novel (at least to me).

AC