WEBVTT - From the Vault: The Null Ship 0:00:06.120 --> 0:00:08.080 Hey, you Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My 0:00:08.240 --> 0:00:12.680 name is Robert Lamb. We had a scheduling change with 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:16.279 an interview today, so we are going to run a 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:19.919 vault episode while we reschedule that. This is going to 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:24.439 be an episode that originally published eight eighteen, twenty twenty two. 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:29.400 It is on the idea of the null ship, the 0:00:29.400 --> 0:00:33.440 principles of the vacuum airship. This is a pretty fun 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:37.519 one where we talked about futuristic materials in seventeenth century 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:42.519 flight concepts. So without further ado, let's dive right into 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:46.640 the episode. 0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:58.280 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio. 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:02.040 Wecome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name is 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:02.920 Robert Lamb. 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:04.200 And I'm Joe McCormick. 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:07.080 And in today's episode, we're going to be looking at 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:12.080 a spectacular bit of hypothetical air travel that has intrigued 0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:16.600 us for centuries. The vacuum airship or null ship as 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:19.920 I've seen it referred and that's such a cool name 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:22.319 for something that I think I had a front loaded 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:24.680 on this episode, but usually it's just referred to as 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:28.120 a vacuum airship. And the basic principle, as we'll discuss 0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:32.679 is pretty simple. Hydrogen, helium or hot air filled balloons 0:01:33.000 --> 0:01:36.280 allow an airship to traverse the skies because these gases 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:39.800 are lighter than the surrounding air. An even lighter gas 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:43.360 is the absence of any gas at all, the vacuum. 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:47.040 If one could create a vacuum chamber or bladder that 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:50.560 was itself light enough, then this could be used to 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:55.040 provide lift for airships on Earth or even on other planets. 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:58.720 I mean, it's such an obvious extension of the idea 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:03.960 underlying balloon indirigibles all lighter than their flight craft. You 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:06.960 would have to assume that if you don't see things 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:09.440 like this being used all the time, there must be 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:11.600 a pretty good reason, And I guess we'll get to 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:13.880 that in a little bit. But yeah, it's like an 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:15.920 obvious place to take the idea. 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:19.880 Yeah, yeah, And so yeah, it's ultimately such a fascinating 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:22.680 topic because, yeah, there's the basic underlying science of it, 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:26.320 The principles of it are pretty sound, there are material 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:28.640 challenges in place, but then the history of the concept 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:32.440 is pretty interesting as well. Thus far, however, the main 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:36.760 place you'll see these vacuum airships deployed are going to 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:40.000 be within the pages of science fiction and fantasy. And 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:43.119 one of the main examples of this, and you'll see 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:49.240 this widely cited, is a novel that was serialized between 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:52.799 nineteen twenty nine and nineteen thirty by Edgar Reis Burroughs 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:57.359 titled Tarzan at the Earth's Core, not to be confused 0:02:57.400 --> 0:03:00.760 with At the Earth's Core, which was his ninth fourteen 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:05.880 novel that established the hollow Earth world of Pellucidar, which 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:08.480 is this like it sounds, It's like a world within 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:12.000 our world. It has a race of intelligent and I 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:16.880 think psychic Terasaar overlords called the Mahar or the Mahar, 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:22.560 and that novel prominently features a Subterarine. So we've actually 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:25.320 mentioned that book on the show before in our episode 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:32.120 about Subdarenes, which is another sort of fantastic hypothetical means 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:37.320 of traversing the natural environment. But this Tarzan at the 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:42.360 Earth's Core, is a crossover novel which features Tarzan traveling 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:46.720 to the inner world via a vacuum airship. And I 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:48.480 had to dive into this one a little bit. I 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:49.920 assume you haven't read this one either. 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:51.960 No, I haven't read it. I do remember it was 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:54.160 mentioned in that earlier episode but also it just got 0:03:54.160 --> 0:03:56.600 me thinking about, like, wait, where do all of these 0:03:57.440 --> 0:04:00.560 science fiction books about a hollow earth with like a 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:05.480 different biosphere or some kind of archaic state. Where does 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:07.600 all that come from? Because this isn't the first one. 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:10.000 This is in what nineteen twenty nine thirty, But like 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:12.760 as far back as the eighteen sixties you had Jules 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:14.520 Vern with Journey to the Center of the Earth, which 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:16.719 is very similar concept. I don't think it has like 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:20.599 psychic pterosaurs, but it does have a hollow earth with 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:25.160 like essentially a mirror biosphere on the inside that has 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:27.440 dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures. 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:29.120 Well, it makes me think we should come back and 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:31.719 do a proper episode on the concept of the hollow earth. 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:36.720 You know why it wouldn't work a quiet individuals thought 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:40.280 that it could have worked, and why it has you 0:04:40.279 --> 0:04:43.640 know why it has captivated people's imagination for so long. 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:46.400 Yeah, I don't know of anything older than Jules Vern, 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:47.400 but there may be. 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:49.880 So I had not read this book either. I think 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:53.000 the only Edgar Reis Burrough's novel that I have read 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:57.719 is one called The Monster Men, which Memory serves is largely. 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:00.600 It seems very inspired by the Eye in an island 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:03.359 of Doctor Moreau, but it was pretty fun, as I 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:06.360 remember it, and so I went ahead and dove into 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:08.719 this one, and I was reading through it trying to 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:12.520 find some good examples of them talking about vacuum airships. 0:05:12.720 --> 0:05:15.919 And I think I wasted a good like twenty twenty 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:18.520 five minutes just scanning through the book trying to do 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:21.000 some searches. And then I realized that I was looking 0:05:21.040 --> 0:05:22.440 at the wrong one. I was looking at the Earth's 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:24.680 Core instead of Tarzan at the Earth's Core. But I 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:27.080 switched to the correct book, and they talk about the 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:29.880 vacuum airship a lot in that one. So I can't 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:33.560 just find like the one spot where they're talking about it. 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:36.480 It's a frequent topic of conversation. But I do want 0:05:36.520 --> 0:05:38.760 to read just a fragment here from it where they 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:42.799 touch on it. So this is Edgar Reisburrough's from Tarzan 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:45.800 at the Earth's Core again from nineteen twenty nine and 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:49.039 nineteen thirty. The greatest risk that we would have to 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:52.120 face would be a possible inability to return to the 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:55.479 outer crust owing to the depletion of our helium gas 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:58.280 that might be made necessary by the maneuvering of the ship. 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:01.720 But that is only the same chance of life or 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:05.320 death that every explorer and scientific investigator must be willing 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:08.960 to assume in the prosecution of his labors. If it 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:12.159 were but possible to build a whole sufficiently light and 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:16.599 at the same time sufficiently strong to withstand atmospheric pressure, 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:20.160 we could dispense with both the dangerous hydrogen gas and 0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:23.760 the rare and expensive helium gas, and have the assurance 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:27.320 of the utmost safety and maximum of buoyancy in a 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:32.200 ship supported entirely by vacuum tanks. Perhaps even that is possible, 0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:36.760 said Tarzan, who was now evincing increasing interest in Gridley's proposition. 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:39.800 The American shook his head. It may be possible someday, 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:42.120 he said, but not at present with any known material. 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:46.040 Any receptacle having sufficient strength to withstand the atmospheric pressure 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:48.479 upon a vacuum would have a weight far too great 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:50.119 for the vacuum to lift. 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:53.520 Okay, so, first of all, I am definitely picturing this 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:57.960 as the Christoff Lambert Tarzan from Graystoke. This has got 0:06:57.960 --> 0:06:58.760 to be it, right. 0:06:58.960 --> 0:07:05.280 Yes, yes, the gentleman Tarzan here mild spoiler for the book. 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:08.839 Obviously they figure it out. I believe some sort of 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:12.360 rare element or metal is introduced that it makes the 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:15.040 impossible possible, because otherwise, how are you going to get 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:19.960 Tarzan to the Inner Earth to battle psychic terosaurs. 0:07:20.280 --> 0:07:23.440 I mean, it's funny how this Psychic Terosaur book does 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:29.520 correctly diagnose some of the problems with existing lighter than 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:33.440 air craft. So one problem is needing to have continued 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:37.520 access to your lighter than air gas so that you 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:41.680 can refill the balloon or the tank do because there's 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:44.440 always going to be some kind of leakage or potentially 0:07:44.480 --> 0:07:47.200 even damage that would allow the gas to escape. You'd 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:49.480 have to have a way to get more helium in there. 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:51.760 If it's helium. Of course, if it's hydrogen, you run 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:54.960 into a whole raft of other problems, as one can 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:57.120 see with the history of the hinden Burgens of forth, 0:07:57.480 --> 0:08:02.280 hydrogen very flammable and having the same fixed access problems 0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:05.640 as helium. But yeah, with a vacuum like you don't 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:08.160 need to carry vacuum around with you. All you would 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:10.239 need to do is find a way to pump out 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:11.679 to the chamber. 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:14.200 Yeah, so you can see why it's such an attractive option, 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:17.520 and this passage kind of encapsulates all that I was 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:20.480 looking around. Two, I noticed that it's been noted that 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:23.280 at least two other authors that we've mentioned on the 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:27.160 show before have also employed vacuum airship principles. Peter Watts 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:29.440 makes use of them in his Rifters books as a 0:08:29.480 --> 0:08:32.680 means of enabling flying machines. I'd totally forgotten about this, 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:35.400 and then Ian M. Banks invoked them in at least 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:39.000 three different novels, including at least one that I definitely read. 0:08:39.679 --> 0:08:42.000 But I also don't remember mention of them. I guess 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:43.920 I just wasn't My mind wasn't as open to the 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:46.720 idea of vacuum airships when I was reading these books. 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:49.040 And I've also read that they factor into Neil Stevens 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:51.520 since The Diamond Age, which I have not read, but 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:52.560 I've heard good things about. 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:55.960 So wait a minute, I actually know almost nothing about Tarzan. 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:58.520 Where all does Tarzan go? Is he like the Leprechaun 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:02.160 or like he goes to space? He goes to the ocean, 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:04.320 he goes to the Hollow Earth? Does does he go 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:07.520 to Las Vegas at some point? What are all his adventures? 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:11.000 Well, Joe, there are twenty four Tarzan novels by by 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:13.920 Edgar W Reis Burroughs, so you know he ultimately gets around. 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:16.880 I have not read any of them, but you can 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:20.559 just when you start scanning the titles, you realize that 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:23.280 he maybe starts running out of jungle and he has 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:26.000 to has to go to lost Empires in the Earth's 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:30.440 core and a city of gold Forbidden City. Looks like 0:09:30.480 --> 0:09:33.760 he may join the Foreign Legion at one point, so 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:36.360 you know, he's got to get out there and travel 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:40.400 around and explore the outer world. But I think generally speaking, 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:43.040 he's always going to battle or befriends some sort of 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:43.840 a large animal. 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:46.640 Thank you for correcting my tarzan ignorance. Now I know, 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:49.080 all right, But I guess before we go any further 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:54.280 exploring the history of proposals for vacuum airships, it would 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:58.400 be worth briefly explaining the underlying reasoning, and that is 0:09:58.400 --> 0:10:01.600 that whether you're talking about a lighter than air gas 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:05.199 inside a balloon or a rigid chamber containing a vacuum, 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:10.760 the physics phenomenon that would cause this balloon or chamber 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:14.839 to fly is what's known as Archimedes principle, named after 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:18.760 the ancient Greek inventor and mathematician, And I think the 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:21.440 core idea you really need to understand in order to 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:25.160 grasp archimedes principle at a gut level is the idea 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:31.480 of fluid displacement. Fluid displacement so a few extreme experimental 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:35.280 conditions aside. Basically, if you are on Earth, you are 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:38.840 submerged within a fluid. So if you're a barracuda or 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:41.839 a jellyfish, that fluid is going to be water. If 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:44.160 you are a human standing in line at burger king, 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:48.200 that fluid is the atmosphere. Both gases and liquids are 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:52.840 fluids because they both flow to fill containing environments. And 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:56.160 when you occupy space within a mass of either kind 0:10:56.200 --> 0:10:59.480 of fluid, whether it's liquid or gas, you are taking 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:03.199 up space that this fluid would otherwise fill, would otherwise 0:11:03.480 --> 0:11:06.200 rush in to fill, So in other words, you are 0:11:06.360 --> 0:11:11.319 displacing gas or liquid. The inside about physics that Archimedes 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:16.400 had is that objects submerged within a fluid are pushed upward, 0:11:16.640 --> 0:11:20.240 meaning in the opposite direction of gravity, by a force 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:24.120 that is equal to the weight of the fluid displaced 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:27.600 by that object. And this is why boats float. I mean, 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:30.040 humans have been making boats for a long time, but 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:32.640 it took us a while to figure out what is 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:36.560 the exact physics principle governing the floatation of boats. So 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:39.960 a boat, for example, may have a steel hull, and 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:42.199 steel is very dense, so you would think that a 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:45.520 steel boat should sink, right, I remember wondering about this 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:47.920 when I was a little kid. How does metal sink? 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:51.160 So how does a metal boat float? A metal boat 0:11:51.200 --> 0:11:54.680 floats because the hull of the boat displaces a lot 0:11:54.800 --> 0:11:58.080 of water, an amount of water that is as heavy 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:01.600 as the boat itself. So when a boat gets launched 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:05.040 out into the ocean, it sinks down in the water 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:08.560 until the amount of water it displaces is the same 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:11.400 as the weight of the boat overall. And then after 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:14.680 it reaches this equilibrium, it's held up on the surface 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:18.280 of the water by that buoyancy, that force pushing upward 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:21.280 on the boat equivalent to the weight of the water 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:24.000 it displaces. And this, of course is also why a 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:27.120 ship sinks when water leaks into its hull. It's water 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:29.640 that is denser than air filling that void that was 0:12:29.640 --> 0:12:32.720 otherwise filled with air. So a kind of weird, but 0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:34.960 I think accurate way to think of a ship on 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:39.120 the ocean is a rigid balloon filled with air. Now, 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:41.920 the same principles that apply in water also hold true 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:44.520 in the fluid of the atmosphere. There is a force 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:47.959 pushing up on an object that is equivalent to the 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:52.280 weight of the air that that object displaces. Now, for 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:57.680 most objects around us, the atmospheric buoyancy is negligible because 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:01.840 objects are way more dense than the atmosphere that they're displacing. 0:13:02.720 --> 0:13:05.200 Though technically it is true that your body has a 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:08.880 measurable buoyancy within the air, it's not enough to make 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:12.520 you float up off the ground because human bodies are 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:16.080 pretty massive. But based on some rough calculations I looked up, 0:13:16.080 --> 0:13:19.360 it seems like it's probably a fraction of a pound 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:22.600 at sea level for the typical range of human body weights. 0:13:22.640 --> 0:13:25.840 One estimate I saw was that it's like zero point 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:30.439 two pounds for one hundred and seventy pound adult. So, 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:32.720 how can you change an object in order to take 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:35.640 advantage of that atmospheric buoyancy and make it float up 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:38.680 in the atmosphere like a boat floats on the water. Well, 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:41.800 as demonstrated by balloons and dirigibles, what you can do 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:45.280 is make that object take up a lot of space, 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:49.720 mostly with material that is lighter than the atmosphere itself, 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:52.240 which is usually going to be a lighter than air 0:13:52.360 --> 0:13:55.440 gas like hydrogen or helium. But of course it could 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:57.679 also be a chamber that has no gas in it 0:13:57.760 --> 0:13:59.839 at all, nothing in it at all, which would be 0:13:59.880 --> 0:14:03.120 the lightest possible way of taking up space. Now here's 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:06.680 a weird fact. I was just wondering about which of 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:11.440 the fundamental forces actually causes the force of buoyancy. Where 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:14.760 is that force pushing up on a boat or pushing 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:20.200 up on a balloon coming from? Counterintuitively, that force originates 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:23.760 with gravity, which is kind of strange because the force 0:14:23.800 --> 0:14:27.840 of buoyancy is going in the opposite direction of gravity, Right, 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:30.720 Why would gravity cause something to rise up from the 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:33.440 ground instead of sinking down. But you have to think 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:36.360 about a sort of chain of causes here. So whether 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:39.760 you're talking about the atmosphere or the ocean, gravity is 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:43.360 pulling all that fluid toward the Earth's center of mass. 0:14:43.360 --> 0:14:47.160 It's pulling all the water or the gas down. So 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:50.960 gravity is the cause of air pressure and water pressure, 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:55.360 and it is the downward pressure of the surrounding fluid 0:14:55.720 --> 0:15:00.240 that causes buoyant objects within that fluid to rise. To 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:03.880 use some kind of approximate and anthropomorphic terms, when a 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:07.960 balloon floats, it's because the heavier gas of the atmosphere 0:15:08.000 --> 0:15:11.400 around it is all rushing down to get to the surface, 0:15:11.720 --> 0:15:13.800 and it has to push the balloon out of the 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:16.480 way to get there, and it can push the balloon 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:18.960 out of the way because the balloon is less dense 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:19.720 than it is. 0:15:20.360 --> 0:15:24.080 It's kind of like if asking, well, hey, why if 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:27.080 everybody's trying to get to the TV section of the 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:30.400 big box store on Black Friday. If everybody's trying to 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:32.240 get there, then why is the four Why am I 0:15:32.280 --> 0:15:34.600 being pushed out of the store? Yeah? 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:37.000 Because everybody else is pushing harder than you are. 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:42.960 Yeah. 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:48.080 But to come to real world proposals for vacuum airships, 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:51.720 one thing I was shocked about was how far back 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:54.400 this idea goes. I would have imagined it was something 0:15:54.480 --> 0:15:56.160 dreamed up in the nineteenth century. 0:15:56.640 --> 0:15:58.960 Yeah, I was very much the same. But then I 0:15:58.960 --> 0:16:00.880 started looking into it, and sure enough, the roots go 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:03.960 all the way back to the seventeenth century. So our 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:06.880 story here begins with an Italian Jesuit priest by the 0:16:06.960 --> 0:16:10.880 name of Francesco Lana de Terzi, who lived sixteen thirty 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:15.760 one through sixteen eighty seven, sometimes called the father of aeronautics. 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:21.640 His groundbreaking book from sixteen seventy, titled pro Dromo de 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:25.880 l'arte mastre, was apparently the first to discuss the possibility 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:31.200 of human flight via mathematical calculations and an understanding of physics. 0:16:31.840 --> 0:16:35.040 These were no mere lost speculations either. This was a 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:38.760 work that was translated and then circulated throughout Europe, and 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:44.440 subsequent advancements in ballooning, for example, are often directly linked 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:49.360 to this work, namely thinking of the Montegaffier brothers a 0:16:49.400 --> 0:16:52.360 flight in seventeen eighty three, which was an unmanned balloon 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:55.120 flight lasting about ten minutes. Now, want to stress we're 0:16:55.200 --> 0:17:00.720 largely talking with the Western and European sphere of exploration here. 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:04.280 If you get into say Eastern accounts, there are some 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:08.920 older accounts of possible you know, unmanned hot air balloon 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:15.840 experimentation in China for example, going back to I think 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:21.360 like the third century see wow, but again unmanned. Now, 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:25.719 in this particular book, Lana covered many subjects, and I 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:28.120 was reading about this in a paper titled the Jessuwit 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:32.240 Contribution to Written Art Technological Sources in the seventeenth and 0:17:32.280 --> 0:17:38.240 eighteenth centuries by Karina Gramatki from twenty sixteen. Apparently, the 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:45.920 topics include invention itself, drawing, design, pigments, chemistry, medicine, arithmetic, 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:50.679 the production of telescopes, microscopes, and finally aeronautics. 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:52.919 Pick a lane. 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:55.520 I mean, this was an age where, yeah, if you 0:17:55.560 --> 0:18:01.040 were into stuff, you were into everything. Yeah, So of 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:04.520 particular interest to Lana here though, were recent advancements in 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:07.280 the creation of the vacuum pump. This had, of course 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:10.800 been a continuation of suction pump technology. The idea of 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:13.760 the vacuum pump. The first vacuum pump was invented in 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:17.960 sixteen fifty by the German scientist Auto von Gerriki and 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:20.920 subsequently experimented on by others. Oh. 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:24.280 Yeah, we've talked about Auto von Gerriki before in I 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:27.320 think in an episode that we did about atmospheric pressure, 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:35.560 specifically reference to his experiments with the so called Magdeburg hemispheres, 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:39.639 which was a really interesting experiment that took place in 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:44.800 the sixteen fifties, I believe, And it's been while since 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:46.520 we talked about it, so I may be forgetting some 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:49.760 of the details, but basically, from what I recall, they 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:54.639 took two brass hemispheres half spheres, and then greased the 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:57.920 edges of them with lard and then pressed them together 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:01.280 and then used the invent of the air pump to 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:06.120 remove air from inside these two hemispheres, creating a vacuum within, 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:07.879 of course, a partial vacuum. You know, they're not going 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:12.520 to get every single molecule out, but yeah, getting most 0:19:12.560 --> 0:19:15.000 of the gas out of them. And then they hooked 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:18.840 these hemispheres up to horses and had the horses pull 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:21.399 in opposite directions to try to pull them apart, and 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:24.440 they couldn't. Like that, even horses could not separate them. 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:28.480 What they were demonstrating there was how heavy the atmosphere is. 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:31.640 That when you take all of the atmosphere out of 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:35.760 the inside of these two half spheres, you create such 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:39.520 a disequilibrium that the you know, the atmosphere is essentially 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:43.360 reaching down and clutching these two things and pressing them 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:46.639 together so that even great force cannot pull them apart. 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:50.560 Yeah, there are a couple of papers on this topic 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:52.800 that I was reading from New Scientists actually, like I 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:55.040 was kind of getting the impression that maybe the editor 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:57.560 at New Scientists is like pounding the desk that I 0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:01.679 need more vacuum airship stories. But one of them was 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:04.720 from two thousand and nine by Paul Collins, titled The 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:07.240 Rise and Fall of the Metal Airship, which is ultimately 0:20:07.280 --> 0:20:09.960 about metal airships in general and not just the vacuum 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:14.800 airship concept. But he mentions this experiment, writing quote, Otto 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:18.080 von Gerriki had drawn together small copper hemispheres with such 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:21.000 a strong vacuum that teams of horses could not pull 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:24.280 them apart. But you mentioned some other things of note here. 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:27.840 Collins also writes that the concept of a vacuum airship 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:31.800 appears in a German interplanetary travelogue of seventeen forty four, 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:36.679 envisioning trips to Mars. So another example of something ultimately 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:39.520 far earlier than I would have had guessed it. If 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:42.080 I was to guess, well, when were people first thinking 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:45.600 about vacuum airships in the atmosphere of Mars, I would 0:20:45.680 --> 0:20:50.520 not have gone with the mid seventeen hundreds. Right now 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:53.320 is a brief detour. I want to touch on another 0:20:53.320 --> 0:20:56.080 thing that Collins mentions here to get to the title 0:20:56.119 --> 0:21:00.480 of his paper. There actually was eventually a metal non 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:04.680 vacuum airship, and this was in eighteen ninety seven. The 0:21:04.720 --> 0:21:07.520 first one was a thirty eight meter airship designed by 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:11.320 David Schwartz and helped into the sky by the Prussian 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:14.960 Airship Battalion, and it was It was blimp shaped, but 0:21:15.040 --> 0:21:18.440 its skin was riveted aluminum plates, and it traveled about 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:23.560 six kilometers total before it stopped. They put the brakes 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:25.919 on and it caused the thing to crumble due to 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:29.840 its rigid construction. But the advantage of a fully functional 0:21:29.880 --> 0:21:33.680 metal airship would be speed, though, so the idea didn't 0:21:33.720 --> 0:21:37.399 go completely away, and in nineteen twenty nine, good Year's 0:21:37.480 --> 0:21:42.320 original airship designer Ralph Ubson quote formed the Metal Clad 0:21:42.359 --> 0:21:46.879 Airship Corporation to build an aluminum clad helium airship, the 0:21:47.040 --> 0:21:51.639 ZMC two for the US Navy. Although notoriously difficult to handle, 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:54.880 the quote unquote ten Bubble as it was dubbed, could 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:57.320 reach a speed of one hundred kilometers an hour and 0:21:57.400 --> 0:22:01.119 it put in twenty two one hundred flight hours before 0:22:01.119 --> 0:22:04.800 it was decommissioned in nineteen forty one, and that was 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:08.040 it for metal airships that was the last one that 0:22:08.119 --> 0:22:10.520 took to the skies here on Earth. And yeah, that 0:22:10.640 --> 0:22:14.560 was the Detroit ZMC two Angel. I include a picture 0:22:14.600 --> 0:22:16.439 of it here for you. If one was looking at 0:22:16.520 --> 0:22:19.560 you might not guess that what you're looking at is 0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:24.320 a metal structure, aluminum clad helium airship. 0:22:24.560 --> 0:22:26.840 That I mean, if I've ever seen a tin bubble, 0:22:26.920 --> 0:22:30.560 that is the ten bubble. But to clarify again the 0:22:31.400 --> 0:22:34.200 actual examples we've just been talking about that people got 0:22:34.280 --> 0:22:36.960 up in the air flying, even if they were even 0:22:37.000 --> 0:22:40.639 if they failed early on, these were not vacuum airships. 0:22:40.720 --> 0:22:43.560 These were airships that you even though they had rigid 0:22:43.600 --> 0:22:48.200 outer hulls, they did use some form of gas inside. 0:22:48.560 --> 0:22:52.080 Yeah. Yeah, So ultimately, as we'll discuss, the vacuum airship 0:22:52.119 --> 0:22:55.720 is still a concept that individuals are still chasing today. Now, 0:22:55.720 --> 0:22:59.719 coming back to Lana's book here, another important connection here 0:22:59.720 --> 0:23:04.480 would be to Robert Boyle's work proving that air has weight. Essentially, 0:23:04.560 --> 0:23:07.479 it was proven that all of the atmosphere could be 0:23:07.560 --> 0:23:12.359 mechanically drawn out of a volume. Maybe the nature didn't 0:23:12.440 --> 0:23:16.520 abhor a vacuum quite as much as previously supposed. And 0:23:16.640 --> 0:23:19.560 Lina is taking the next step by speculating one exciting 0:23:19.600 --> 0:23:22.200