Posted on 10/28/2015 4:03:10 AM PDT by mabarker1
The technology could have communications and military advantages for China.
China just flew a 250-foot airship to near the top of the Earth's atmosphere. The solar-powered behemoth can stay airborne for half a year and requires no fuel to get it more than 12 miles into the air—just fill it with helium and let it go; the sun powers it once it reaches its cruising altitude.
Airships predate airplanes, but have been largely supplanted by them. However, they remain superior for pretty much anything that doesn’t require the speed of a jet engine. They can hang around for months, they can carry large payloads, and they can fly way higher than most planes, because an airplane’s wing runs out of air to support it at such high altitudes.
This last property might be the reason China is testing the Yuanmeng airship. During its estimated two-day trial, the airship launched from Xilinhot, Inner Mongolia, bristling with communications gear—"data relays, high-definition observation and spatial imaging" equipment—says the Chinese People’s Daily. The sedentary nature of the airship allows it to sit up at the edge of space and watch. It can surveil the ground, and it can also act as a base station to command fleets of military planes. In a pinch, the Yuanmeng airship could act as a stand-in for communications satellites.
Popular Science speculates on China's plans for the technology:
Operating higher in near space means that the Yuanmeng would have constant line of sight over a hundred thousand square miles—an important requirement for radar and imaging. Increased sensor coverage means increased warning time against stealthy threats such as cruise missiles, giving Chinese forces a greater opportunity to detect and shoot down such threats. It would also be harder for fighters and surface-to-air missiles to attack near space objects.
They’re not perfect though. The People’s Daily spoke to Yu Quan of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, who told them that "The biggest challenge for the near-space airship is the big temperature difference in the day and night." Because the airship is so close to space, it experiences space-like extremes of weather as it is baked by the sun and then frozen by the night.
Airships can solve many problems. In much the same way that regular oceangoing ships carry huge loads of goods from continent to continent, airships are also good for transporting goods. Even smaller airships can carry loads of 50 tons. And perhaps they could even replace passenger airplanes as providers of low-cost air travel. They might not be as fast, but they could be a lot more comfortable.
Wonder what kind of Troop payload it could carry. Could be one heck of a Paratrooper drop...
Ping!
Place your Dinner order now and get No Delivery Charge on your first order of Authentic Chinese Food right from behind the Wall.
It’s Zepplin Tung!
Love, Ian Dunross
pfl
I wonder how they accounted for the expansion of helium with altitude (a helium balloon eventually bursts because the pressure inside the balloon increases vis-a-vis the decreasing air pressure outside).
12 miles up is not the edge of space, which is about 60 miles up.
The only problem with this kind of reporting is ...
It was not preluded with ....
US sources have been tracking, since _______________ what seems to be a dirigible of some sort, launched from mainland China
Letting us know that .... we knew about it all along
If they ever learn to cloak it ... we can expect our assholes to be stretched
The very point I was wondering, too.
Also, is their operating altitude affected by Jet Stream winds that would make navigation difficult?
Do we have a surface-to-air missile that goes that high?
This story might be nothing but Chinese propaganda.
we should not make light of this achievement
They could build a giant airship, load 10,000 paratroopers on it along with 12 children. It could spend a month crossing the Pacific while live streaming the antics of the children to keep us from shooting it down and the drop the paratroopers on Kansas City.
And we would lack the moral courage to stop it.
From the campaign trail, 2008...
Obama Pledges Cuts in Missile Defense, Space, and Nuclear Weapons Programs
February 29, 2008 :: News
MissileThreat.com
A video has surfaced of Presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama talking on his plans for strategic issues such as nuclear weapons and missile defense.
The full text from the video, as released, reads as follows:
Thanks so much for the Caucus4Priorities, for the great work you've been doing. As president, I will end misguided defense policies and stand with Caucus4Priorities in fighting special interests in Washington.
First, I'll stop spending $9 billion a month in Iraq. I'm the only major candidate who opposed this war from the beginning. And as president I will end it.[i.e. not win it]
Second, I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending.
I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems.
I will not weaponize space.
I will slow our development of future combat systems.
And I will institute an independent "Defense Priorities Board" to ensure that the Quadrennial Defense Review is not used to justify unnecessary spending.
Third, I will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons. To seek that goal, I will not develop new nuclear weapons; I will seek a global ban on the production of fissile material; and I will negotiate with Russia to take our ICBMs off hair-trigger alert, and to achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenals.
You know where I stand. I've fought for open, ethical and accountable government my entire public life. I don't switch positions or make promises that can't be kept. I don't posture on defense policy and I don't take money from federal lobbyists for powerful defense contractors. As president, my sole priority for defense spending will be protecting the American people. Thanks so much.
Article: Obama Pledges Cuts in Missile Defense, Space, and Nuclear Weapons Programs:
http://web.archive.org/web/20090412030633/http://missilethreat.com/archives/id.7086/detail.asp
"MissileThreat.com is a project of The Claremont Institute devoted to understanding and promoting the requirements for the strategic defense of the United States."
___________________________________________________
I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems.
I will not weaponize space.
___________________________________________________
Also from 2008...
2008 Pentagon Report (March 2008):
China's Growing Military Space Power
By Leonard David
Special Correspondent, SPACE.com
March 6, 2008
GOLDEN, Colorado — A just-released Pentagon report spotlights a growing U.S. military concern that China is developing a multi- dimensional program to limit or prevent the use of space-based assets by its potential adversaries during times of crisis or conflict.
Furthermore, last year's successful test by China of a direct-ascent, anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon to destroy its own defunct weather satellite, the report adds, underscores that country's expansion from the land, air, and sea dimensions of the traditional battlefield into the space and cyber-space domains.
Although China's commercial space program has utility for non- military research, that capability demonstrates space launch and control know-how that have direct military application. Even the Chang'e 1 — the Chinese lunar probe now circling the Moon — is flagged in the report as showcasing China's ability "to conduct complicated space maneuvers — a capability which has broad implications for military counterspace operations."
To read the entire publication [29.67MB/pdf], see U.S. Dept of Defense:
The US Air Force has the ASM-135 ASAT anti-satellite missile. Shot from an F-15:
The RIM-161 Standard Missile 3 (SM-3). Used by the US Navy:
12 miles up is 63,360. According to aerospaceweb.org the F15 has a service ceiling of 65,000’ and an absolute ceiling of 100,000’. We can still brast their brimp from the skry.
But just think of the heyday the gun owners in Kansas City would have as Chinese paratroopers “fell” from the sky. Talk about shooting fish in a barrel.
ooo look... a shiny thing!
&s there negative absolute pressure?
China will not invade the US.
Not gonna happen. At least in our lifetime. And I have a lot of lifetime left.
This article is riddled with unsupported assertions.
Lighter-than-air gets kicked around every few years, but the truth is that there are many, many inherent weaknesses with the concepts.
America is the worlds only supplier of Helium. Did the Clinton foundation team arrange a sale to the Chicoms?
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