Super Light Graphite

Sounds promising.

According to this, it's the air that gives it most of it's weight.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-08-09/a-lighter-than-air-building-material

I got to hold a 1" cube of aero-gel back in the 1980's.

It messed with your senses because it had no discernible mass, but it had shape.

cool stuff!, thanks for brining it up, sounds like a trick insulation too.

Showing off his new aerographite outfit....

Good point.
Now if you were to fill a balloon with it and evacuate the air it might work!!
If it is strong enough not to collapse.
Del

Yes. I remember some school history (now that's a long time ago!) of early flight attempts, and several tried to use evacuated metal spheres. Probably found they were too heavy by the time they were strong enough not to collapse!

Wait - what? Air + six times lighter than air = heavier that air?

Sometimes I wish some journalists weren't so dense...No wait, I mean heavy... no I mean thick!!

Their wonderful way of describing density as weight is always confusing.

Simple description of what the reality is:

1. Take a balance (it better be darned accurate!!) & zero it.
2. Note that the balance actually has approximately 14.7 pounds of atmosphere pressing down on each square inch of the pan (yah, I know it depends where you are!!), but this is exerted as a pressure that is counteracted by an equivalent force on the bottom of the pan. This is really irrelevant to the experiment, but the point is that there IS a certain mass of air present that is not being massed by the balance.
3. Take a cube of this stuff & carefully measure the dimensions.
4. Weigh it.
5. Calculate the density from 3 & 4.
6. Realize that it is lighter than air but doesn't float away...
7. Scratch your head....
8. Put it in a hydraulic press & compress it into a solid pellet (about the size of an average anonymous posters' IQ) that excludes air.
9. Drop it on the floor. Before it gets there, it will disappear into one of the black holes referenced elsewhere in CR4 recently.
10. Repeat steps 3, 4 &v 8 with a much larger piece, carefully avoiding step 9.....
11. Measure the size of the resulting pellet. Realize 1) that it is actually more dense than air, and 2) so are many people who write articles about these things.

Non-leaking??? I would think this thing would require its own full-time vacuum pump to maintain lighter - than - air status. If the material has enough structure to hold its shape against an atmosphere (more or less) of external pressure, perhaps design of the vacuum cells could be possible, if not, then the vessel containing the material would outweigh air volume displaced, and the whole concept never gets off the ground.

Question: What happens if you fill this graphene material with pure oxygen? Will it combust?

To float it must have more pressure under it than on top just like a hot air balloon. A flat profile will have equal pressure now if you had some air movement upward it may rise similar to a leaf being blown. Make it into a balloon shape and remove the air or reduce the air density as in heating then it will float. No different than a hot air balloon.

To float it must have more pressure under it than on top

That's not quite correct- it is for an airplane wing or helicopter rotor, but not for a balloon. They are simply a displacement function as a result of gravity having a stronger pull on the mass of the surrounding air, relating to the density. An easy description is to take two helium balloons of equal weight & volume, one a regular shape & the other a sausage shape. You'll find that they have equivalent lifting force ( & also the sausage shape will be the same regardless of being vertical or horizontal) which would not be true if it was dependent on pressure gradients.

I agree with you but it must be lighter than air there fore the air pressure under has to be higher even if infinitesimal measurement assuming the air is not moving. Airplane wing works on different principal and requires air flow and both work well of which I am aware. Air is denser at lower locations than higher elevations no matter how much only question is how much? If pressure were equal in all directions then we would have equilibrium and no movement.

I truly believe if we could simply weave it into a rug that could support weight. It would be like reinventing the wheel. Oh those ole schoolhouse days.

Flying carpet?

you might want to do a Google search on specific weight to better understand it, but I do get your point

You mean like this? This is a scale model of the one being planned. I am not sure what the bouyancy agent is in this craft, however the article (found in the new story notification below) mentions internal bouyancy control. I can't wait to get the chance to fly on one of these.

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/excerpts/~3/UoOqU6y07c0/the-titanic-aeroscraft-is-finished++and-its-awesome