Your sarcasm aside, I just read a week ago about some testing with carbon ribbon for a space elevator and it seems that with 3 8' baloons they held aloft a mile of carbon and fiberglass ribbon about 6 pages of paer thick (probably close to half a mm) and that stuff isn't weight free. So, I have no problem being wrong - in fact, I welcome it in this particular case!

So, I'm sure I'd have no problem standing corrected - I just don't know if the Helium tank weight to signal proportion is a good one for backwoods carry. Maybe on a plane or liferaft it would be more reasonable?

Here's the link:
http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/dn8725

And I do actually hope to contribute to the discussion - I find it interesting in and of itself and I don't mean to be ignorant or to slam other opinions. And I'm often the first to admit being wrong. :-) Sorry if I came off badly - that wasn't my intent.

Cheers.
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Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards.