Agreed. But I was not specifying combat ships and the Hindenburge disaster had less to do with the hydrogen than the fact the skin was a magnesium alloy.
StarMaster:
Keep in mind that Steampunk is more about how things were the way we imagined them rather than the way they really were... dinosaur bones = dragons, Martian canals built by ancient Canal Martians, the planet Vulcan must be there somewhere, and lets not forget the Hollow Earth and Atlantis.
So, real world physics may not fully work they way we now know that they do (predates Einstein's General Theory of Relativity), and there could be other factors that come into play. For instance, I'd never heard that fact about need water for the sails to function properly, but if you posit liftwood or cavorite existing, then there's no reason they couldn't have that same effect.
And let's not forget turbidium, felicium, Byzantium, vibranium, suspendium, ukrainium and the old stand-by, unobtainium.
Doesn't the fuel cell combine hydrogen and oxygen to generate electricity and water? But where does the electricity come from to separate it?
True. For the sake of steampunk we could say another, lighter gas was found or a material that could make a light rigid container that we simply pump the air out of creating a vacuum displacement, much like a ship being lighter than water with air displacement.
Electricity can be derived from solar sources with a semi conductor converting solar radiation into electricity. Lots of sun above the clouds. You could also anchor to a mountainside and use a wind turbine built into the ship to run a generator. Maybe even one that propels the ship when it is turning the other direction, I'm talking about basic design there are multiple solutions to many of these smaller questions.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:32, Tue 07 June 2016.
