It is my firm belief that most of the global warming occurring is the direct result of world wide aircraft activity: military, commercial and personal. While it is true that the carbon uptake systems world wide have been compromised or broken by our general production of carbon, it is the relentless daily flights through the atmosphere using combustion engines that are doing the bulk of the atmospheric damage.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120921-lighter-than-air-craft-rises

HyperDrive | 24 September 2012

Lighter-than-air craft rise again

f you like the idea of cruising on a ship in laid-back luxury, but prefer the speed and convenience of air travel, there may soon be a solution. Drawing their inspiration from the airships of yesteryear, a new generation of airship-like vehicles could soon be making their way across our skies.

In a hangar outside Tustin in California, engineers are preparing one of the most radical designs for testing.  The Aeroscraft, as it is known, is the brainchild of Igor Pasternak and has been made possible by advances in materials and computer control systems.

“We are resurrecting [the airship] with new composite fabric structures, that are stronger, lighter, more versatile” says Fred Edworthy, of Aeros, the company building the lighter-than-air vehicle.

The airship in the hangar is being built to test various key components of a design that could one day contain a hotel, casino or spa. However, the company believes one of its biggest markets could be transporting freight from hard-to-reach locations or, for example, carrying wind turbine blades. Currently blades are as large as they can be to be transported on a truck.

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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