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Have we not learned our lesson?
Most major transportation systems have catastrophic failures in their history, but are still around, and improved upon today. Ships sink, planes crash, trains detail, all with horrific consequences. When you look at the early track record on submarines it's amazing to me that nation states kept throwing money at the deathtraps long enough for them to become viable. Airships had one crash almost a century ago and our society threw out the entire concept.
Modern airships have a ton of advantages over the ones from a hundred years ago, including tremendous improvements on handling, and the ability to land on the ground unassisted. Not painting the gasbags with solid rocket fuel to seal them seems like the sort of thing modern aviation engineering should be able to put in a checklist.
Safe, nonflammable helium!
We might not have enough helium for medical equipment, much less a fleet of airships. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/helium-shortage-doctors-are-worried-running-element-threaten-mris-rcna52978
Thank you, I was looking for this. Helium has important applications in science and medicine, and we cannot afford to use such large quantities for air travel. I'd much rather see development of modern sail ships, possibly in combination with fuel cells.
Although this is a non-smoking area, sir.
Plus imagine how hilarious it would be with everyone walking around with high pitched voices on the blimp. Straight up Alvin and the Chipmunks shit. That’s how it works, right?
Yes, they definitely fill the cabin with helium too because the entire ship has to be lighter than air.