LogFAQs > #942352435

Playsaver posted...

I think the real question is "Could a balloon work in earth's atmosphere using only a vacuum in the balloon to cause it to rise and float." It would be working on the principle that causes stuff to float in water, which is that an object in water floats if its weight is displaced. So if you could make a balloon filled with nothing but a vacuum, it would have to displace its weight in air.

I believe you could design a balloon that could actually end up in orbit. The basic concept would be to have a release valve for pressure in the balloon that released a controlled amount of gas as the pressure increased past a certain point.

This would allow the balloon to have enough lighter gas to float up until the lack of pressure would normally cause it to pop, but instead, the valve would release gas to normalize the pressure again, in theory allowing it to continue raising until it possibly hit orbit.

Now I havn't researched this, so it could totally not work, but it's what I would try.

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