JF Mezei wrote on Mon, 23 Apr 2018
14:20:01 -0400:

On 2018-04-22 19:37, Greg (Strider) Moore wrote:

Fair point. And I believe they already have helium tanks on board, just use
those as part of the supply.

In terms of mass, wouldn't the mass of the balloon(s) be far more
significant than that of the gas used to fill it/them?


That depends on whether it's intended to just be a big, draggy bag or
they're going to try to do something like a paraglider ballute.


How heavy would the fabric need to be to survive re-entry?


Again, it rather depends on just how they plan to do it, which we
don't know.


Or would they go with lighter "disposable" material where on balloon
does initial slowing down before re-entry interface (where it burns up)
and after it, another baloon is deployed do to the drag/lift in denser
atmosphere?


Go read the original article again. That's one thing we know they are
NOT doing from what Musk said.


--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw