by Steve Dutch » Mon Feb 16, 2015 4:35 am
This is a VERY late post. Like a number of people, I doubted that a lighter than air craft could work on Mars, except for one thing. Mars' atmosphere is carbon dioxide, molecular weight 44. That makes it much denser than nitrogen, molecular weight 29. So you could fill the blimp with nitrogen, with enough extra pressure to maintain its shape, and it would still float. I suspect it would be really flabby, but it would still float. In fact, you don't even need to ship air from Earth. Strip off oxygen from the CO2 to make CO, molecular weight 28. You get a buoyant gas (at least on Mars) and oxygen, too. A CO2 atmosphere makes lighter than "air" travel a lot simpler. This sort of thing has also been proposed on Venus, where it would be incredibly effective.
The settlements perched on a long ridge are likely on Iapetus. The yin-yang symbol at bottom center at 1:53 is a clue, and of course Saturn in the far distance.
This is a VERY late post. Like a number of people, I doubted that a lighter than air craft could work on Mars, except for one thing. Mars' atmosphere is carbon dioxide, molecular weight 44. That makes it much denser than nitrogen, molecular weight 29. So you could fill the blimp with nitrogen, with enough extra pressure to maintain its shape, and it would still float. I suspect it would be really flabby, but it would still float. In fact, you don't even need to ship air from Earth. Strip off oxygen from the CO2 to make CO, molecular weight 28. You get a buoyant gas (at least on Mars) and oxygen, too. A CO2 atmosphere makes lighter than "air" travel a lot simpler. This sort of thing has also been proposed on Venus, where it would be incredibly effective.
The settlements perched on a long ridge are likely on Iapetus. The yin-yang symbol at bottom center at 1:53 is a clue, and of course Saturn in the far distance.