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Richard Poff
Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 11:49 am
Guest
I am reading Josh Halls interesting book on this subject. I ran across this
fact noted in Chapter 12: "A spherical balloon of diamond with two square
meters of surface area would need to be less than half a micron thick to hold
sea level pressure". I wonder if a balloon of this sort filled with nothing
(ie a vaccuum) would also be able to withstand sea level pressure without
imploding. I was also wondering how much the vacuum filled 'balloon' would
weigh, and what would happen to it if you took it outside and let it go. Would
this not be a useful method of moving things to the upper atmosphere?


Richard Poff
richardpoff@mindspring.com
Why Wait? Move to EarthLink.
Guest
Posted: Sat May 27, 2006 11:00 am
FWIW, excuse a belated response, but...

Helium isn't that much heavier than vaccuum. You gain only a small
advantage by replacing helium with hydrogen, and only another small
advantage replacing it with a vaccuum. Helium balloons are easy and
don't need particularly strong fabric to make.

That said, helium's quite expensive, so perhaps there'd be a market
for enormous diamond-balloon clusters full of nothing.

Another tangent... everyone seems to be planning on using nano-made
diamond to build bridges etc in the future. Is that the strongest
material one could make? Apparently carbon nitride is harder, tho
still in the lab as a theoretical material. Would that be stronger? I
know the carbon-carbon bond is one of the strongest, what about
anything else?

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