SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Solar Impulse 2, a solar-powered plane co-founded by Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg, took off on June 28 on a potentially record-breaking flight across the Pacific Ocean. The BBC reports that the single-seater left Japan's Nagoya Airfield at 18:03 GMT (a little after noon CT) and hopes to reach Hawaii in roughly five days. In total, the flight would traverse 8,200km or approximately 5,095 miles. If successful, the BBC notes the Solar Impulse team will break records for both the longest-duration solo flight and the farthest distance flown by an entirely solar-powered aircraft.
Borschberg and partner Bertrand Piccard hope that the third time is the charm for this endeavor. The plane's first attempt in May was cut short by the forecast causing an unscheduled landing, and the second attempt (occurring last Tuesday, June 23) was postponed for similar reasons. According to the BBC report, the team hasn't aggressively publicized its take off today just in case weather conditions again cause an unexpected landing. At the time of this article, Solar Impulse's official site and Twitter account remained mum on its current progress. The BBC reported the point of no return is set at about eight hours, so Solar Impulse should know within the next two hours.
Solar Impulse 2 has a bigger wingspan than a jumbo jet, but it's light (roughly the weight of a car) and powered solely by 17,000 solar cells. "During the day, the solar cells recharge lithium batteries weighing 633 Kg (2,077 lbs) which allow the aircraft to fly at night and therefore to have virtually unlimited autonomy," the team states on its About page. Of course beyond technical challenges, the human element of this record attempt also present a significant hurdle. Borschberg's space is roughly the size of a phone booth, according to the BBC, and the pilot will only be able to take 20-minute naps throughout this initial leg. If a water landing must happen, the plane contains supplies for its pilot to survive for an entire week during recovery.
What does it take to risk your life like this for a record, or for science?
Follow its flight here
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Friday July 03 2015, @12:03AM
it wont be easy (change rarely is) but in addition to changing to electric ground vehicles, we need to switch to electric planes too. the future of humanity depends on it.
(Score: 1) by deadstick on Friday July 03 2015, @12:26AM
Changing the ground vehicles would be quite sufficient. Ground transportation uses more than 10 times as much energy as aviation.
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Friday July 03 2015, @05:53AM
Changing the ground vehicles would be quite sufficient.
bullet trains are the only ground vehicles that can even compare to the speed of modern airplanes. there is also the small issue of oceans getting in the way and the much greater risk of fatal injury by driving (we are in dire need of self driving cars).
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Friday July 03 2015, @12:58PM
Gravis wrote :- bullet trains are the only ground vehicles that can even compare to the speed of modern airplanes
Planes traditionally travel at high speed because they have to (to stay airborne). However, a lot of the advantage is wiped out by the time spent getting to and from the airport, and the procedures at the airport. London's airports for example are quite a trek from anywhere else you would want to be, while its railway terminals are right there in the centre of London and its transport hub.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday July 03 2015, @01:05PM
Having travelled on the Shinkansen in Japan and TGV in France, I can attest to how superior bullet trains are to 747s. You can get up and walk around. The ride is glass smooth--you can put a full wine glass on the table in front of you and it won't slop over the rim. In Japan you can even rent time in offices in the office car. It's fantastic.
Crossing oceans is tough for trains. Tunnels can help in a few places like the Bering Strait, but it's wildly expensive. Hydrofoils can help in other places, like the Beetle does between Pusan, South Korea, and Shimonoseki, Japan, but it's highly dependent on wave size. Perhaps airships can replace 747s for people who don't mind boarding in New York after dinner and waking up in Beijing before breakfast, given seats that lay flat.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Friday July 03 2015, @12:45AM
Sounds to me like solar powered aircraft would really make a nice worldwide logistical solution.
One loads the aircraft with a cargo, gives it an initial charge, and sends it on its way. Its already programmed with where it is supposed to go, but if it runs into trouble along the way ( bad winds, weather, mechanical problems, whatever ), it can drop down at an intermediate site for relaunch when things are more favorable.
With GPS and the like, everyone knows where the goods are. It sounds like a great to transport goods at the least cost, when its not absolutely critical arrival time is to the minute. I have seen gliders go a heckuva long distance, and a little assist from solar may give them the range to make autonomous delivery gliders feasible.
Now why is it I am conjuring up images of a logistics company nestled on the side of a mountain with a big launch railgun for sending gliders right into a known thermal, along with a landing strip for incomings.. manned by a couple of dozen people, mostly all of them interfacing to the customer about what is to be sent where. About every ten seconds or so, you hear a whoosh as yet another autonomous glider is accelerated by the launch rails into the thermal... each one equipped with Google-type technology for getting to where its told to go while avoiding collisions with anything along the way. Almost like an internet router but the payload is actual physical goods.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Friday July 03 2015, @01:41AM
Solar powered Blimps make way more sense. Greater lifting power, indefinite loiter. This thing is bigger than a 747 and can only lift one guy and a box of freeze dried food.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @03:32AM
Blimps can't lift very much either. They are almost neutrally buoyant otherwise you can't get them to "land".
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday July 03 2015, @03:43AM
Check out the newer designs that are starting to find ways around this issue:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/a9787/airship-of-dreams-lighter-than-air-travel-is-back-16292687/ [popularmechanics.com]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday July 03 2015, @12:53PM
I am definitely in your camp, and long for the return of airships. My dream is to one day travel the world in a self-sufficient sky yacht, complete with infinity room (chair surrounded by windows), swimming pool, aquaponics room for fresh veg, and a landing strip for "shore" excursions.
However I wonder if the future of production will not render international shipping logistics irrelevant, or at least radically altered and diminished in its scope. That is, if we're able to combine 3D printing, advanced recycling, and new materials like graphene then we can produce in our homes most of what we currently import and buy at Walmart. Still moving people around will remain and how great it would be to use airships where you can get up and walk around in comfort instead of flying cattle cars...
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday July 03 2015, @03:48AM
Imagine a light-weight super-tensile membrane, stretched over a rigid skeleton, filled with vacuum.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @01:32PM
The problem is that it is hard to get that high-pressure vacuum needed to keep the skeleton from collapsing under the air's pressure.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday July 04 2015, @06:03AM
I like that the solar powered blimps do not have to spend precious energy trying to balance gravity, and also have a large area ripe for covering with thin solar panel material... Problem is they are so slow an unfavorable wind will make some directions simply not do-able.
Another good thing about a solar powered blimp is that it would never really have to "land", per se, but get close enough to the ground to lower its hoist cables and anchor itself as well as exchange payloads.
I have often wondered if solar powered blimps would not make ideal cellphone/internet relay stations.
Another thing I have been curious about ( being I live in an area that is ripe with smog at times ), is could a blimp be covered in something like aluminum "steel wool", ( lots of sharp edges ) for the purpose of ionizing air so that charged particulates would head for ground, just like the wall behind my air ionizer turns black. The electrons to do this would naturally be forced up the tether cable via a high voltage supply on the ground. I get the idea 5 - 10 KV DC ( negative ) at a few hundred mA oughta do it. I do not have any empirical data to work from, but I know if I drive the voltage too high, I am just going to get ozone - I do know how a surprisingly small amount of electrical energy when used to charge particulate matter will sure drop it out of the air and make it head for ground. A dirigible-sized "Ionic Breeze" if you will. It looks to me like there are some places in China that would be ideal to test such a thing - I have seen stories emanating from China telling me some areas there have one helluva smog problem.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Friday July 03 2015, @12:31PM
Gravis wrote :- "we need to switch to electric planes too. the future of humanity depends on it"
Humanity was doing without planes in the modern sense until about 1900, and for 50 years after that they were used almost entirely by the military and a few playboys. Humanity can do without them again without much damage - except to the tourist industry of course.