Is This A Good Idea? Solar-powered Airships?

October 26, 2009

Unless you’ve been locked in a sensory deprivation tank for the past 10 days or so, you probably were horrified by the recent “balloon boy” that played out on the cable news networks, which authorities now allege was nothing more than cheesy publicity stunt. And while you may have relieved some of the tension by playing the Balloon Boy Game that some snarky software developers quickly posted on the web, this still probably isn’t the best time for me to be touting the advantages of lighter-than-air craft. In fact, it might be the worst possible time since the German hydrogen-inflated zeppelin Hindenberg burst into flames while tethered in Lakehurst, NJ in 1937. That disaster that pretty much put the kibosh on airships as a mode of transportation, even after non-flammable helium became available as an alternative lifting gas.

But I’m going to tout a revival passenger airships anyway, and not just because I’m a knee-jerk contrarian. A Spanish-based company named Turtle Airships hopes to launch new generation of solar-powered airships, equipped with banks of lightweight CIG photovoltaic cells on their exteriors for daytime flying and biodiesel generators for night flights, could make it possible to travel across the country or even around the world without adding much, if anything to your carbon footprint. That’s a big deal to environmentally-conscious travelers, since jet airliners are a small but significant source of the greenhouse gas emissions that threaten to wreak havoc upon our planet. (For a basic primer on the effects of human-caused climate change, read this.)

But solar-powered airships would have other advantages, too. Since they’d generate most of their own power rather than relying upon costly jet fuel, lighter-than-air travel conceivably could become a much cheaper way to get around. And since the airships would fly at a lower altitude than jets do, passengers would have a much more interesting view of the landscape. They’d also have a lot more space to move around. In charmingly fractured English, here’s how Turtle Airships’ web site describes the experience:

Airship passengers will enjoy private staterooms with showers. Large picture windows that can be opened for fresh air during flight. Meals prepared in on-board kitchens and served in fine dining salons. Dance floors Libraries, Internet connections. Airships flight is silent. There is no "turbulence", or banking as on an airplane. Airship flight is so smooth that the FAA does not require seatbelts. Passengers can walk throughout the airship while in flight, including take-off and landings. Airships fly at very low altitudes above the surface; allowing passengers the opportunity for the most spectacular aerial sightseeing! And, in many instances, airships will are able to stop in mid-air and silently float above scenic attractions below such as wildlife, whales, volcanoes, icebergs, city lights, etc.

Naturally, there would be some disadvantages, too. Perhaps the biggest drawback is that airships are way slower than jet aircraft. Turtle Airships is envisioning a top speed of 200 miles per hour, which skeptics view as a bit, well, over-enthusiastic. But even if that 200 mph can be achieved, it’s less than half the 530 mph cruising speed of a Boeing 767. That would turn a typical six-hour cross-country flight into a 15-hour journey. On the other hand, it’d be a lot more comfortable trip, and it’d be easier to get some productive work done in the relatively spacious confines of an airship—without being confined to a seat, it’d be possible to hold business meetings, for example.

Turtle Airships is just one of a number of companies interested in the promise of lighter-than-air craft. Projet Sol’R, a French group, has built a solar-powered airship called the Nephelios that it plans to fly across the English Channel. Late 19th-early 20th Century airship pioneer Ferdinand Count Zeppelin’s eponymous company, amazingly, is not only still around, but they’ve developed an updated airship called the Zeppelin NT that a California company, Airship Ventures, uses for sightseeing tours. Another California-based outfit, Aeroscraft, is aiming to build a massive airship that could function as a flying hotel and/or conference center. And earlier this year, Lockheed Martin won a $400 million Pentagon contract to develop a high-altitude military airship—not for transportation, but as a geostationary platform for surveillance and communications.

So what do you think about solar-powered airships for transportation? Express your opinion below.

Is This a Good Idea? Full-Body Scans at Airports?

May 29, 2009

A lot of the time, I blog in this space about speculative inventions and applications of technology, such as bacteria-sized medical robots or transoceanic underwater maglev trains. This week, however, we’re going to look at a controversial technology that is already here: active millimeter-wave full-body imaging, which penetrates clothing to reveal anything concealed beneath the fabric, from hidden objects to the human body itself. The federal Transportation Security Administration already is using such scanners at 19 airports across the nation to thwart terrorists trying to sneak bombs or weapons through security checkpoints.

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Is This a Good Idea? A Flying Saucer?

May 20, 2009

Cue up the spooky theremin music. 

What if we actually had a disc-shaped vehicle that could take off and land vertically,
hover, and fly without burning a drop of jet fuel, just like the alien spacecraft in The Day The Earth Stood Still?   (I’m talking about the 1951 version, not the recent Keanu Reeves remake.)

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Personal Jet Packs?

April 11, 2008

I’m hearing complaints that I tend to blog too much about bleak, scary hypothetical end of the world  scenarios.  As a result, I’m going to put aside my previously planned topic — the pros and cons of various strategies for dealing with a global onslaught of flesh-eating zombies — and instead focus on a subject that inspires a tad more bonhomie: The personal jet pack.

If your only familiarity with the personal jet pack comes from the James Bond flick Thunderball, in which Agent 007 relies upon the gadget to escape some pistol-wielding bad guys, you may be surprised to discover that the jet pack — or rocket belt, as it’s sometimes called — actually is a real, functioning technology that’s been around for more than 60 years. During World War II, German scientists developed the Himmelstürmer (in English, “sky stormer”), a pair of what essentially were miniature V1 missiles  attached to a harness. The device was designed to enable Wehrmacht combat engineers to leapfrog distances of up to 75 yards over minefields, barbed wire and bombed-out bridges. A prototype was captured by U.S. forces and sent back home for study. After the war, the Pentagon wanted to develop a more powerful version, which it dubbed the Small Rocket Lift Device, for use in reconnaissance and amphibious landings.

The first functional personal flying device was the Bell Rocket Belt, invented by engineer Wendell F. Moore in the 1950s and early 1960s, which used nitrogen and highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide to power twin jet nozzles that sprouted from behind the wearer’s shoulders like angel wings. In 1961, a week after Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin first orbited Earth, an extremely brave individual named Harold Graham made the first unassisted jet-pack flight at an airport near Niagara Falls. He reached an altitude of just 4 feet and traveled about 30 yards, but it was a start. Eventually, Graham managed to elevate to a height of 30 feet and cover slightly more than the length of a football field. That year, he gave a demonstration for President John F. Kennedy at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.

Nevertheless, the military was underwhelmed by the original Rocket Belt, because it had one severe limitation: users could only stay in the air for a maximum of 21 seconds. In the late 1960s, the Pentagon took another stab at the concept, investing $30 million to develop Bell’s Individual Mobility System, which employed a gas-turbine jet engine powered by kerosene fuel. The IMS could stay aloft for 20 minutes and cover much larger distances than the Rocket Belt, but it too had drawbacks. The system weighed a hefty 170 pounds and was loud enough to make it useless for surveillance. The project eventually became a victim of budget cuts.

From then on, other than the jet-pack pilot who made a spectacular landing at the opening ceremonies of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and an occasional appearance as a prop in science fiction movies, the concept was pretty much relegated to the dusty corner of oblivion occupied by the likes of the Amphibicar, the Dymaxion House and the Picturephone.

That is, until recently, when two companies — U.S.-based Jetpack International and a Mexican competitor, Tecnologia Aeroespacial Mexicana — began marketing personal flying devices to civilian thrill seekers who happen to have $150,000 or so to spend. Both are developing next-generation gadgets that promise to break through the previous time and distance limitations. According to a 2007 story in Popular Mechanics, Jetpack’s upcoming $200,000 T73 model, scheduled for release sometime in 2008, will burn jet fuel instead of using hydrogen peroxide, and will remain aloft for 19 minutes with an 11-mile travel range. Meanwhile, TAM is working to develop its own Jet Belt, whose single titanium jet engine will be capable of delivering 490 pounds of thrust.

So will jet packing become the next hot extreme sport? As this YouTube video suggests, it must be incredible fun. The downside: As the manufacturers readily admit, personal flying devices are pretty dangerous and require lots of careful training. Is the prospect of a careless adrenaline junkie running out of fuel and plummeting to Earth — or crash-landing on the roof of your house — simply too great of a risk? Express your opinion below.

Flying Cars

December 14, 2007

Imagine being able to get in your car and soar like George Jetson over the traffic jam on the highway, and then touch down at your destination in a fraction of  the time it normally takes to drive. Tantalizing, huh? Call it a flying car or a roadable aircraft, but either way, it’s an idea that’s been floating around — no pun intended — since aviation pioneer Waldo Waterman built the Aerobile, the first vehicle that demonstrated the ability to both drive and fly, in 1937.  (Two Aerobiles actually managed to successfully fly from California to Ohio, though a third had to turn around when it got to Arizona.) As the explosive growth of the suburbs in the 1950s increased commuting distances, Ford Motor Co. did a study and determined that not only could flying cars be manufactured economically, but that there was a lucrative potential market for them. However, the idea met stiff opposition from the Federal Aviation Administration, which envisioned tens of thousands of small aircraft wreaking havoc with the national air traffic control system. (It probably didn’t help that the AVE Mizar, an after-market cross between a Cessna Skymaster and a Ford Pinto, crashed in 1973, killing the pilot and the vehicle’s developer.)

Nevertheless, the idea of putting automobiles in the air refuses to go away. There’s an online publication, Roadable Times, devoted to the subject, and in recent years, more than a half dozen companies have developed designs and scale models for flying cars. Moller International has tested a prototype of its rotary engine-powered, vertical-takeoff Moller M400 Skycar, though so far only while attached to a safety tether that the company says is required by its insurance carrier. Meanwhile, Woburn, Mass.-based Terrafugia has flown a one-fifth scale model of the Transition, a small aircraft designed to fold its wings and drive off an airport runway onto the highway. Such a roadable aircraft might fit into the concept of Personal Air Vehicles envisioned by a 2003 National Aeronautics and Space Administration white paper, which suggests small self-operated planes as an alternative to driving on congested freeways for trips of 100 to 500 miles.

The potential advantages of flying cars are fairly obvious. But creating a practical flying car isn’t going to be easy. As the NASA paper notes, “the ability for these vehicles to satisfy higher speed DOT [Dept. of Transportation] highway and crash tests, high-speed gust tolerance while maintaining lane clearance, lightweight suspension and wheels, and failsafe yet simple wing and tail folding systems are significant challenges.” Beyond that, safeguards would be needed to airborne drivers from crashing into each other or buildings accidentally (or on purpose, as terrorists have been known to do). Are the risks worth it? Offer your opinion below.