this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2024
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Solarpunk technology
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Airships and hydroponic farms...
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...no. Airships are *extremely" sensitive to wind. They could never promise delivery times that short when a bit of a gust on the atlantic could throw them absolutely completely off course. Airships can't start with "bad" weather. That is: slight winds. They cant land when there is wind. And many airships have been destroyed because of winds. Thats a fundamental problem that the hyperloop guys are going to fix just as much as they did fix the fundamental problems with the hyperloop.
These "fundamental problems" are not really problems for airships that only rarely touch down and can be loaded and unloaded with electric quadcopters which recently became available in suffient sizes.
Rigid hull airships regularly made transatlantic journeys with tight schedules, so your "gust of wind" problem is evidently wrong, and larger storms also effect airplanes starting and landing resulting in similar delays.
I think it makes way more sense for airships to be anchored down while loading and unloading, so the buoyancy doesnt need to be constantly balanced.
On the face of it, your point is valid, just like on the face of it landing rockets is too complicated. Both are likely solved the same way - active management by responsive computers to negate environmental effects to behave in a stable manner in an unstable environment. This idea certainly wouldn't have worked 100 or even 50 years ago, but may be quite possible now.