transportation
wonderful dream, max, but could you smole a pipe on a zeppelin; would they be hydrogen or helium? how would you avoid another hindenberg? jlm Luxury Zeppelins. I think it's high time we had nice luxury zeppelin travel. Floating 5-star bars in the sky with ample leg room and good views. No airports, no TSA, no rush, under the radar for the most part... just debarking from private fields and decorated mooring towers, hopefully near nice city entertainment districts or near good mass transit to such... Who wouldn't enjoy the retro-futuristic cruise ships of the sky? There's no reason we couldn't bring back a sense of luxury to mass transit. There's no reason we couldn't bring back a sense of personal ownership and investment to mass transit. (You can't run a passenger Zeppelin without a personal name like The Heart of Helium and a well uniformed Captain that would die before another man piloted her...) We might not ever see luxury rail travel again in this country, but if someone is willing to give me a few million dollars I'd be happy to start building a fleet of my airships... Pipe Dream? Perhaps. But I'd rather take a leisurely zeppelin ride with a micro-brew or a bourbon on a rocks and chatting with some classy noir dame than ride the modern sardine can that is an airplane... Sometimes the future isn't as good as it used to be. __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
transportation
So what about all of the packages and people that (in the words of the commercial) absolutely, positively, have to be there by 9 AM? -- Ronn! :) for the present, those people have to be satisfied, but some day, in the not too distant furure, it will no longer be realistic to ship freight all over the world to meet deadlines, -- jlm __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: transportation
On 0, jon louis mann [EMAIL PROTECTED] scribbled: wonderful dream, max, but could you smole a pipe on a zeppelin; would they be hydrogen or helium? how would you avoid another hindenberg? jlm As I recall, wasn't the Hindenburg disaster due to the flammable paint and a known design flaw which allowed the buildup of static electricity? I have little doubt we could do better today. -- Gwern Inquiring minds want to know. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: transportation
Gwern Branwen wrote: As I recall, wasn't the Hindenburg disaster due to the flammable paint and a known design flaw which allowed the buildup of static electricity? I have little doubt we could do better today. Helium could be used instead of Hydrogen. If cost is the problem, then use Methane. Alberto Monteiro, who can't count ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Transportation
Helium could be used instead of Hydrogen. If cost is the problem, then use Methane. Alberto Monteiro, who can't count. lots of methane in new zealand - 70m sheep, each emitting a barrel a day here is another source: http://www.ciesin.org/TG/AG/ricecult.html jlm Now that's room service! Choose from over 150,000 hotels in 45,000 destinations on Yahoo! Travel to find your fit. http://farechase.yahoo.com/promo-generic-14795097 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: transportation
On 5/9/07, Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Gwern Branwen wrote: As I recall, wasn't the Hindenburg disaster due to the flammable paint and a known design flaw which allowed the buildup of static electricity? I have little doubt we could do better today. Helium could be used instead of Hydrogen. If cost is the problem, then use Methane. The only reason the Hindenburg itself didn't use Helium was that the biggest source of Helium was the United States (and there was that embargo between the US and Germany). I'm guessing Helium shouldn't be that tough to get a hold of nowadays. Think about all the Helium we use just for children's parties in this country... Plus, I remember someone telling me that some sort of Helium-Hydrogen cocktail (I don't remember any details and I'm not a chemist) would be a good compromise between the inert Helium and the cheap Hydrogen. -- --Max Battcher-- http://www.worldmaker.net/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: transportation
On 5/9/07, jon louis mann [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So what about all of the packages — and people — that (in the words of the commercial) absolutely, positively, have to be there by 9 AM? -- Ronn! :) for the present, those people have to be satisfied, but some day, in the not too distant furure, it will no longer be realistic to ship freight all over the world to meet deadlines, -- jlm I think there's a place for high deadline freight/passenger travel... but I think that so often in our culture we are forgetting that there is just as much a place as leisurely travel, and that if there is no reason for it to be there next day, why pay for next day air. Our culture is quagmired in this do it yesterday hustle and bustle and sometimes we forget to take our time to even enjoy our meals... When I was working in food service (at an amusement park) I was amazed at what I call the eating pressure wave. Generally people would start to hurry up eating as the people around them started to leave and would leave themselves soon afterward, particularly if they felt the other people around them had been there before they sat down. What this amounted to was very noticeable waves of people leaving at around the same time regardless of when they arrived. It never ceased to amaze and inform me. At a supposedly leisure establishment (an amusement park) people never seemed to actually take the time to sit and enjoy the food they bought and were often pressured by invisible peer pressure to eat faster than strictly necessary... I've come to the point where I'm starting to appreciate that sometimes people need to just slow down. -- --Max Battcher-- http://www.worldmaker.net/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: transportation
Max Battcher wrote: On 5/9/07, jon louis mann [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So what about all of the packages — and people — that (in the words of the commercial) absolutely, positively, have to be there by 9 AM? -- Ronn! :) for the present, those people have to be satisfied, but some day, in the not too distant furure, it will no longer be realistic to ship freight all over the world to meet deadlines, -- jlm I think there's a place for high deadline freight/passenger travel... but I think that so often in our culture we are forgetting that there is just as much a place as leisurely travel, and that if there is no reason for it to be there next day, why pay for next day air. Our culture is quagmired in this do it yesterday hustle and bustle and sometimes we forget to take our time to even enjoy our meals... 1) I plan ahead. If I know it has to be there by Friday, I do something about sending it no later than Tuesday. If it's big, I try to get it sent off at least a week in advance. It gets there when it needs to. 2) Leisurely travel is nice. 3) Leisurely meals with good company are *very* nice. I'm the sort that will be the last one kicked out of the restaurant if I'm in a situation where I can get away with it, and at least one other person is willing to stay until a minute before I get kicked out. :) Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
The economics of interface transportation
I know that Gautam, at least, enjoyed my article The economics of space transportation and thought that some of you might be interested in the second part of my series on the economics of space. This one is called The economics of interface transportation and covers the launch vehicle market: http://www.theculture.org/rich/sharpblue/archives/66.html Rich ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
