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But when do you really need a structure that has this exceptional strength on the happy path, but would still be good enough in terms of safety when pressure is lost?

Unmanned aviation comes to mind, but the ratio between structural mass and battery+payload is already so low, even a zero-mass structure would not make a meaningful performance difference. It's all about the battery tech.

Scaling up foil boating perhaps? Carbon fiber construction would certainly appear like a good candidate for taking advantage of being pressurized, and I perhaps naively take it as a given that materials is the major limiting factor in scaling up.




> still be good enough in terms of safety when pressure is lost?

You might not design for that case. A suspension bridge can't survive a tower falling over, or a cable snapping.

The pressurized structures wouldn't be able to survive leaks over X size, and for leaks under X size, compressors would be used to maintain pressure.


Rockets are the obvious use. The structure of a rocket is far heavier than the payload, and every kilo of weight you can shave off the rocket, you can add to the payload.




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