Yikes. That pictures scares the hell out of me. It's a gorgeous picture,
and good Traveller fodder, but the reference to Dassault requires me to
think of it real-world, and that makes me very unhappy. The CG (center of
gravity, not contra-gravity) on that thing is way out of whack, and if it
isn't, the envelope is way too small. Zeps all carry water ballast, but
they never carry up at the very top as it would be too unstable. So to get
the CG far enough down they've got a lot more ballast at the bottom, and
that envelope can't carry enough hydrogen, let alone helium, to float it.
Unless Dassault is advertising its new CG (contra-gravity, not center of
gravity) invention, that sucker is going to roll and all that water and
all those nice tourists are going to get dumped. It's probably also pretty
cold up there to be strolling around the Promenade Deck.
I found three links below (and by the way, the first one has a much larger
version of the picture in DED's link, which I like) all in Norwegian, so
maybe Roger can tell us if it's just happy retro wool-gathering (like Doc
Savage climbing aboard his Zep attached to the Empire State Building
mooring mast--that didn't work out either) or if Dassault figures that
Richard Branson is having too much fun killing people and they want in on
the fun.
http://www.vg.no/forbruker/reise/luftfart/luftens-fremtidige-cruiseskip/a/23269543/
http://travelnews.no/2014/08/10/fly/fremtidens-cruiseskip-luften/
http://travelnews.no/tag/luftskip/
> Hi all,
>
> I stumbled across this ad for Dassault Systemes recently and my first
> thought was Traveller! The link brings you to a picture of the cruise
> ship without all the distracting text.
>
> http://static.travelnews.no/uploads/2014/08/Luftskip.jpg
>
> \_/
> DED
> TNE @ Yahoo ml Admin
>
>
>
and good Traveller fodder, but the reference to Dassault requires me to
think of it real-world, and that makes me very unhappy. The CG (center of
gravity, not contra-gravity) on that thing is way out of whack, and if it
isn't, the envelope is way too small. Zeps all carry water ballast, but
they never carry up at the very top as it would be too unstable. So to get
the CG far enough down they've got a lot more ballast at the bottom, and
that envelope can't carry enough hydrogen, let alone helium, to float it.
Unless Dassault is advertising its new CG (contra-gravity, not center of
gravity) invention, that sucker is going to roll and all that water and
all those nice tourists are going to get dumped. It's probably also pretty
cold up there to be strolling around the Promenade Deck.
I found three links below (and by the way, the first one has a much larger
version of the picture in DED's link, which I like) all in Norwegian, so
maybe Roger can tell us if it's just happy retro wool-gathering (like Doc
Savage climbing aboard his Zep attached to the Empire State Building
mooring mast--that didn't work out either) or if Dassault figures that
Richard Branson is having too much fun killing people and they want in on
the fun.
http://www.vg.no/forbruker/reise/luftfart/luftens-fremtidige-cruiseskip/a/23269543/
http://travelnews.no/2014/08/10/fly/fremtidens-cruiseskip-luften/
http://travelnews.no/tag/luftskip/
> Hi all,
>
> I stumbled across this ad for Dassault Systemes recently and my first
> thought was Traveller! The link brings you to a picture of the cruise
> ship without all the distracting text.
>
> http://static.travelnews.no/uploads/2014/08/Luftskip.jpg
>
> \_/
> DED
> TNE @ Yahoo ml Admin
>
>
>