[Roritharr]

CargoLifter for me personally marks the beginning of the German Decline in Engineering. The reasons for why it failed are the same reasons why we have such large problems with infrastructure projects and are falling behind in innovative technology.

It's a very sad read.

[CoChiefResident]

If I remember correctly, Cargolifter failed to have a straightforward loading and unloading method. The airship is designed to lift a certain amount of weight, which has to be replaced as soon as you dismount the cargo. Cargolifter used water which was transported to the destination site via trucks. I only had a quick glance at the SkyLifter website, but I did not find any solution for that problem.

[capableweb]

It seems surprising to me that there is not more information on the website regarding what gas this gas-filled lenticular-shaped aerostat thing is floating with. I understand they are aerostatic and the gas needs to be lighter than air, but that doesn't leave many options that are not helium I guess. And then in order to drop whatever they haul down, they'll need to either let it escape or contain it somewhere else, or spend energy at keeping it down somehow.

[ck45]

I have similar feelings about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transrapid. At some point the whole project became too political and nobody wanted to be responsible to either push the project or pull the plug. Instead a ton of money was basically wasted.