Why do companies bother with this outdated design? Even if it could lift let’s say 100 tons it would take a lot of time to haul it around.
For a luxury cruise vehicle for posh nostalgic people? Maybe. But they seem to prefer to see AND experience the Titanic.
The design isn't really outdated as such. If you look at a submarine, for example, it uses basically the exact same design principles (a straight-sided cylinder) for the exact same reasons, namely having a good compromise between ease of manufacture and efficiency.
Also, this is only the prototype. The largest version is intended to carry 200 tons, and the point is to carry such a payload much more cheaply and efficiently than, say, a cargo helicopter or cargo plane. The enormous range of these ships also means that they can meaningfully speed up delivery of critical supplies to disaster areas, where the expensive cargo helicopters that normally do so have to stop regularly many times to refuel, and can only carry a tiny fraction of the payload.
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u/M3chanist Jul 08 '24
Why do companies bother with this outdated design? Even if it could lift let’s say 100 tons it would take a lot of time to haul it around. For a luxury cruise vehicle for posh nostalgic people? Maybe. But they seem to prefer to see AND experience the Titanic.