Airships making a comeback as cargo haulers?

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26372277

Cardington has a long history of association with airships:

Amazing report with sound! Many thanks DD 

Interesting report, this was on my local news the other day.

I find this genuinely interesting, airships are far more environmentally friendly than cargo jet aircraft but only if they can be made commercially viable.......

I just found this which I think follows on nicely from the original post 

http://gizmodo.com/the-aluminum-airship-of-the-future-has-finally-flown-1301320903

And video on this one:

http://rt.com/news/aeroscraft-revolutionary-airship-cargo-187/

may it not go kaboom 

Um... Don? Helium doesn't "go kaboom".

Problem is, we're running out of helium. Hydrogen is much cheaper.

A small reminder as to why we stopped using Hydrogen 

Safety is better these days, what with self sealing fuel tanks better monitoring etc.

Given that we are approaching a helium shortage and hydrogen has 4 x the lifting power I feel it should be considered.

Quote from: Snowcrash on March 05, 2014, 23:00:01 PM
Problem is, we're running out of helium. Hydrogen is much cheaper.

We could fix that easily, you know. put the population of the planet underground, trigger an ELE-sized solar flare to hit the Earth head-on, then harvest all of the new, fresh Helium that gets embedded in the surface rocks. Of course, there won't be much in the way of atmosphere at that point, so we'd also have to hand out 7.2Bn environmental suits (probably less, though, since I doubt everyone could survive underground for the length of time required, but that just means more food for everyone else).

He3 (lighter than He4) can be mined from Jupiter and possibly Saturn, I do believe. Though the round trip may make it a little expensive.

On a reality check note. A modest sized air ship cost upwards of £100,000 to fill with He. Big ones would be in the millions.

Found this site as a cost/weight comparison.

QuoteUm... Don? Helium doesn't "go kaboom". Tongue

it could if it got hit by one of these  http://www.army-technology.com/projects/surface-launched/images/slamraam_5.jpg

Did Data post this in the wrong thread