this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2025
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We do have the technology for this... right?
Absolutely, but the scale of the balloons is a bit off. Nobody would be walking shoulder to shoulder like this. For a normal-ish 170lb/77kg individual your personal balloon would have to be a little under 6.5 meters across assuming it were filled with helium.
Yes, I did the math.
You did the basic math, with your spherical balloon. What about giant cylinders? Then you could really pack it in.
Sure. You could do a cylinder of three quarters of a meter across which seems like a reasonable footprint for someone to stand in. That'd only have to be, uh, 325.5 meters tall to have the same volume.
I fail to see the problem.
Your asshole "buddy" constantly throwing sharp objects at your balloon causing you to be wet all the time and laughing as you ask your mom if she can mend your massive cylinder for the 13th time this month
"Bro your mom mends my massive cylinder every day."
I feel like this whole thread was a setup for this. Bravo!
I'll just compress more helium and make the balloon metal so its stronger and holds more in a smaller space
I think holding more helium in a smaller space is the opposite of what you want. The lifting force is equal to the weight of the air being displaced, so you want as little stuff as possible in as big a volume as possible.
Maybe if you went the other way round and compressed the atmosphere?
Your buddy has figured out that all they need to do is snip the ropes on your cylinder which will make it fly away and now you gotta ask your mom to buy you a new cylinder until your whole family is broke and homeless
I will simply trap him in the Time Cube.
You could use spherical balloons with really long, but different length, strings for each person. Of course you'd have to avoid tangling your balloons together while walking around like that and given wind can vary with elevation....
You could use hydrogen, which is less dense than helium. Then if it catches on fire like the Hindenburg you’d already be in the water.
It wouldn't help. The thing that gives you lift is the mass of displaced air. Difference from the (lack of) mass of the lifting gas is minimal.
It would, but less than the density difference, since you’ve removed weight from the balloon thus gravity has less of a pull on the balloon. My wife (a PE in thermodynamics) was the one that verified that comment before I posted it, hence why I didn’t say it would increase lift by the difference in density.
Note that you wouldn't need 77 kg worth of bouyancy from the balloon. The shoes would provide some lift, more if you made them out of some type of foam.
What if the balloons were long and vertical like the ones in Dune? That could allow them to walk closer to one another.
I addressed that in another comment here. The long and short of it (very long, as it happens) is that the volume you'd need is still the same. So your elongated balloon would have to be well beyond what most people would consider to be ridiculously tall. 325.5 meters tall, in fact, given the 0.75 meter diameter I assumed to start with. I figure most people could probably stand in a 0.75m circle provided they didn't wave their arms around a bunch.
What if the balloon was rigid and filled with vacuum?
This I am fairly certain we do not have the technology to achieve. Anything vacuum filled that large would need to have walls so thick so as to completely negate any buoyancy effect. I don't know of any modern material that would simultaneously be rigid, strong, and light enough.
Cool sci-fi concept tho
What other sorts of random issues would be solved by this super material :opens notepad: I mean, everything, right? It would have to be so strong, so light and so economical. You could make actual BattleMechs from it that wouldn't just sink into every surface they walk on. Shit, Dyson Spheres I guess.
..so why would we use weird balloon floaties? Isn't it fun how technology answers it's own questions?
We thank you balloon master!
Ok but hear me out
One really BIG balloon with rope systems you could hook on to so multiple people could walk around under the same balloon area.
If everyone is connected to the same balloon anyway, you could even do without the balloon and build a structure over the water to hang your ropes from.
Revolutionary. I hear hot air is really good for inflating things. I wonder if you could use some sort of flame thrower to keep the balloon afloat.
Zeppelin skating. In the air. We should start this business.
Are we…
Are we doing this right now, BootyBuccaneer?
Fuck it I'm in. What could I possibly lose besides a couple limbs and my life savings.
Hope that lake doesn't have any breezes or gusts.
... Also, assuming you just did the calc for neutralizing the weight of said person...
Even if there was no wind... they could not walk.
Walking requires weight to work.
A surface you can push off of.
It seems like the picture shows one guy with walking sticks, which I guess might kinda work if the lake is less than about 2 or 3 feet, or under a meter deep... not too many lakes like that.
Maybe something like stilts... or ... huge snowshoe/flipper type things... might work?
Hot air balloon pilot here: We do, indeed.
This is a "Cloudhopper". It's a hot air balloon with no basket: The pilot straps a propane tank to his back and wears a climbing harness. As you can see, the pilot is, effectively, walking on water with the assistance of the balloon.
Cloudhoppers are about 20,000 to 35,000 cubic feet, 40-50 feet in diameter. They are about 1/3 to 1/2 the size of most of the balloons you might see at a fair or festival.
This is the coolest shit I’ve seen all month. Just when you think the world is running out of interesting ideas, you come across something like this and realize you will never see it all.
Already nightmare fuel even with just the basket. But THAT is just foolishness. Pardon my language.
And if you're willing to do that you're sent to nearest psychiatrist, right?
You can't get a balloon pilot's license without a formal diagnosis. :)
There's an episode of Nathan For You where he uses giant balloons to help someone who weighed too much to ride a horse normally. Great show
Windsurfing? 🏄♀️
Or kitesurfing