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kleinbl00 · 3178 days ago · link · · parent · post: And in Oldey-Tymey news, Lockheed Martin has just sold a half billion dollars worth of *Airships.*
It's a serious engineering challenge to make a lightweight membrane that's impermeable to helium. It's an itty bitty molecule. On the plus side, it's chemically inert. It's actually impossible to make a membrane that's impermeable to hydrogen. It's highly reactive, for one, and reacts with most anything it touches. It also decays straight-up in to alpha radiation which is freakishly science-ey. The fact that we use helium, even though hydrogen lifts twice as much, says a lot about what sort of compromises are necessary when dealing with lighter-than-air craft.