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America's OTHER space program is how John Powell bills his airship to orbit program. This endeavour, wonderfully encapsulated in his book Floating to Space, describes a less than typical application of a well-known technology. Using the concept of dynamic climbing, he believes and shows that airships are the better method to putting people and material into space. Airships aren't new. The Montgolfier brothers made the first modern edition and, since then, lighter-than-air transportation has been used to make determinations of weather in high latitudes, as well as to film sports events. Effectively, by trapping a less dense gas within an envelope, the envelope and a payload ascend. John Powell is fine tuning this concept for travelling into orbit and plans to soon elevate appreciable payloads to above 400 kilometres. And, as... [read full story]
