The forerunner of 21st century solar-powered "atmospheric satellites"
No author
12.01.09
NASA
Helios is a gigantic (247 foot wing span), flying, flexible wing with fourteen propellers spread across the front of it. It has no pilot, but is remotely controlled. It is mostly made of composite materials as to avoid being too heavy. It can fly up to months at a time at altitudes of up to 100,000 feet.
The thing is, this is all solar powered, with the optional edition of a fuel cell for flying at night. A fuel cell takes hydrogen and oxygen and combines them to create electricity. However, unlike a traditional gasoline engine, the stuff that comes out of the exhaust pipe is H2O. The 62,120 solar cells on the top of the wing, plus some lithium ion batteries, and plus the fuel cell are what enables this strange aircraft to fly for so darn long and none of these contribute negatively to the environment. All of these energies also allow for an aircraft to travel at 170 miles per hour at extremely high altitudes for extremely long times. The picture below illustrates this.
I think that Helios is a great idea. It seems so cool that you can fly a plane without any gasoline. It really shows that alternative energies do not mean limitations. I hope that someday we will be able to people in these things and send them across the world with no negative effect on the environment or the climate. I can also see Helios being used for a lot of scientific research. They could use it as a satellite that you don't have to send all the way into space.
Do you think that planes like Helios could be used for commercial flight?
How do you think Helios will impact future transportation?
Do you think that these technologies will catch on and someday be in public use?
This article was very interesting to read. I always enjoy learning about alternate energy sources being helpful. The helios sounds like a very promising machine. The methods that the aircraft uses to make it self fly for so long is incrediable. I completely agree with you ryan. Helios could be used to enhance our scientific world. We could learn alot from this machine. The helios also can save our environment which is even more reason to study it.
ReplyDeleteWhen i read this article i made me think of my recent vacation to florida. I got to florida by plane. As i sat on the plane waiting for lift off, i saw them fueling a plane up. I wondered how much fuel it took to fill such a big plane. With this new helios, we wont have to spend so much fuel on powering a plane.The Helios also proves that all the alternate energy sources we're learning about are could be very helpful.
I do think planes like Helios could be used for commercial flight. It could save the country alot of money by not using fuel. It also would help our environment. If we can make a few adjustments to the Helios, it could probably hold the weight of passengers. The Helios is the future plane.
I though this article was really cool. Just the though of having a plane that flies on sunlight seems great. It could help us save a lot of oil from being used and stop the pollution that happens from burning it. Along with that, it just looks really cool, the way it is flexible and it very thin. In a few decades, this is what we could be riding when we go on vacation.
ReplyDeleteThis reminded me of the solar car picture i saw in a magazine. The car had the same look as this plane and had the same features along with a chargeable battery that slowly charges when in sunlight to be able to drive at night. I think all these new energy efficient machines could really help us let go of oil and other fossil fuels
I do think that these planes will be used one day. Before that happens, there will need to be a lot of prototypes and tests with these planes to make sure they are safe. Other than that, this seems like a great idea and could help our environment greatly.
I think that article is awesome! I think it's great that scientists are trying to utilize the technology that we have already developed for alternative energy to make them work for everyday transportation. The methods they are using seem really cool, and they seem like scientists could use them for a lot of other things too. It would be awesome for them to be able to power cars and busses and trains like this without hurting the environment.
ReplyDeleteI was reminded of the solar powered station in Brooklyn, and how you see a bunch of pictures of solar cars in magazines. They all look like what everyone envisions to be "futuristic" and they look like they could wor. Someday I think we could stop using fossil fuels and start looking more towards solar energy.
I think Helios could impact future transportation because soon we could see busses and cars and legitament planes like Helios. It could turn into a huge phenominon that causes no harm to the environment! It would be great if that happened. I think Helios opened the door to a lot of new possibilities for alternative energy, and could take us a long way.
This is one of the coolest ideas I have ever seen! I know of only a few other vehicles that can travel for months at a time (ie nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers) and they all use nonrenewable uranium fuel! I think that this design, once perfected, will definitely be introduced onto the market as the prices of the various fossil fuels continue to rise. The reason that this thing will have so much appeal is that it requires no fuel refills, and more importantly, no investment (besides maintenance) after initial costs. I can't wait to fly Solar Airways sometime in the next few decades!
ReplyDeletePutting solar powered devices high in the sky reminds me of an article I read dealing with ways to solve the energy crisis. One that really caught my attention was an idea for an array of solar panels arranged high in the atmosphere (maybe even in orbit) that could be constructed in the near future. Since these panels wouldn't be hindered by clouds and air, they would be extremely efficient and able to produce energy 24/7 by using the hydrogen fuel system at night. The key difference between this and modern space stations is that the power would be piped back to Earth through giant cables or maybe even wirelessly, if we have the technology by then. Not only would this provide huge amounts of power, but it would be quite a sight from the ground and from space!