News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on The US military is testing stratospheric balloons that never have to come down. Parent comment

Re:The US military is testing stratospheric balloons that ne... by 7j on Friday November 16, 2018 @09:01AM (#18468761)
So the "never have to come down" is ~100 days record which is held by project Loon?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The US military is testing stratospheric balloons that ne... by PhasmaFelis on Friday November 16, 2018 @09:14AM (#18468836)
~6 months is the current best, actually. [1] This is a development project; there's no reason to assume that the current record is a hard limit.

[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loon_(company)#Timeline

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The US military is testing stratospheric balloons that ne... by londons_explore on Saturday November 17, 2018 @03:03AM (#18474542)
Loon balloons are helium, and helium gas is famously hard to contain, so eventually leaks out and the balloon comes down.

I don't see any way to make a balloon stay up forever unless you have a particle accelerator to manufacture new helium to make up for leakage...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The US military is testing stratospheric balloons that ne... by ProblemFactory on Sunday November 18, 2018 @08:45AM (#18480336)
> Loon balloons are helium, and helium gas is famously hard to contain

It's not like there are any better options? The only two practical lifting gases are hydrogen and helium. Hydrogen leaks even more than helium and is flammable, even though it is much cheaper and abundant.

[ Parent | on HN ]