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Gravity Balloons
#21
This is so cool! Amazing illustration.

You went a bit of a different route than I had in mind. I think it's worth looking at, where you start with a liner, inflate it, and then add rocks around it while you add air.

Initially, its pressure doesn't need to be much of anything. But once you start adding the rocks to it, the strength of the balloon will limit how large the rocks can be without causing an avalanche of rocks which will destroy the entire construction.

I could also see this method being practical for near-term space gas and propellant depots. Since these can be stored at lower pressures, you could build containers like this using asteroid rock that comes from smaller Near Earth Asteroids. Since the requirements on the balloon material are light, you could lift it from Earth in ordinary launch vehicles, but still store immense amounts of gas.
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Messages In This Thread
Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 12-08-2013, 08:36 PM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 12-15-2013, 05:49 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by ai_vin - 12-15-2013, 07:25 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by ai_vin - 12-15-2013, 07:27 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 12-15-2013, 07:54 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by AlanSE - 12-19-2013, 07:15 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 12-21-2013, 06:19 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by JohnnyYesterday - 12-21-2013, 05:53 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by Cray - 03-06-2014, 11:18 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by AlanSE - 05-24-2014, 04:14 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 03-06-2014, 05:49 PM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by Cray - 03-07-2014, 12:13 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by AlanSE - 05-24-2014, 04:30 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 03-07-2014, 02:47 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by Cray - 03-07-2014, 03:24 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 11-19-2014, 01:18 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by Drashner1 - 11-19-2014, 02:09 PM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 11-19-2014, 05:54 PM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 11-19-2014, 07:31 PM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 12-31-2014, 04:32 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by AlanSE - 03-25-2015, 04:01 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 03-25-2015, 05:42 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 03-27-2015, 07:24 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by sandcastles - 07-02-2016, 11:06 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 07-03-2016, 07:15 AM

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