This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience while browsing it. By clicking 'Got It' you're accepting these terms.
Most recent
Trending
Top Videos
The best of EcoWatch, right in your inbox. Sign up for our email newsletter!
Swiss Firm to Embark on First Around-the-World Trip in a Solar Airplane
How far can an airplane expect to travel without fuel?
Around the world, if you're talking about the Solar Impulse 2.
Leaders of Swiss firm Solar Impulse unveiled a new solar plane Wednesday and also discussed an ambition nobody has ever accomplished—to fly around the world in a solar plane in 2015.
[slideshow_deploy id='351641']
The Solar Impulse has a 236-foot-wide wingspan, with more than 17,000 solar cells covering those wings. The cells collect solar energy and store it in lithium polymer batteries that power the plane's four engines.
Co-founders and pilots André Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard don't appear too daunted by the goal they have established, and not just because they won't need to refuel. They have already broken eight world records for solar flights. Their solar planes achieved success in recent years, including the first night flight for a solar plane in 2010; a European flight in 2011; a flight across the Mediterranean Sea to Morocco in 2012; and a U.S. tour last year, flying over San Francisco, CA, Phoenix, AZ, Dallas, TX, St. Louis, MO, Washington D.C. and New York City.
The trip around the world, or #RTW, as the company has dubbed it for the Twittersphere, is expected to take a total of 500 hours of flight time. They'll bring at least six oxygen bottles and have no pressurization system.
To the founders, that type of experience is worth potentially changing the face of flight.
"I've been educated at (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and this time spent in Boston led me to found startup companies," Borschberg said in a company video. "I know that dreams fuel innovation.
"I also know that human commitment and new technologies can really change the world."
——–
YOU ALSO MIGHT LIKE
The Solar Technology That Could Solve California’s Water Problem
Bill Gates-Funded Solar Toilet Converts Feces Into Soil Stabilizer
The Turbine That Could Transform Wind Energy by Flying the Highest
——–
EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
An area in Louisiana whose predominantly black and brown residents are hard-hit by health problems from industry overdevelopment is experiencing one of the highest death rates from coronavirus of any county in the United States.
A central player in the fight against the novel coronavirus is our immune system. It protects us against the invader and can even be helpful for its therapy. But sometimes it can turn against us.
Calling someone a delicate flower may not sting like it used to, according to new research. Scientists have found that many delicate flowers are actually remarkably hearty and able to bounce back from severe injury.
With global air travel at a near standstill, the airline industry is looking to rewrite the rules it agreed to tackle global emissions. The Guardian reports that the airline is billing it as a matter of survival, while environmental activists are accusing the industry of trying to dodge their obligations.
Trending
ByJulia Baumel
The outbreak of COVID-19 across the U.S. has touched every facet of our society, and our democracy has been no exception.