Blimpocracy - Is the airship the transportation system of the future? | Hacker News Reader

Blimpocracy - Is the airship the transportation system of the future?

albertaventure.com

17 pointsDuncanKinney7 comments

The return of airships would be amazing and insanely safe. To bad public opinion of airships still reflects late 1930's. With today's technology why wouldn't it be safe?

I've love to ride a blimp, but it's hard to forget the imagery of the Hindenburg. Just like Adolf isn't exactly a popular name for kids.

I'm reminded of the Archer episode "Skytanic" and the main character's failure to grasp that the blimp they're on isn't going to explode from every little spark:

---SNIP---

Sterling Archer: Jesus! You want to blow us all to shit, Sherlock?

[Archer slaps the face of a man attempting to light a cigarette]

Malory Archer: Sterling!

Capt. Lammers: For the last time, the Excelsior is filled with non-flamable helium!

---END SNIP---

While Archer is a silly comedy, in the end, that's the mentality we'd have to face to get something like this mainstream again.

Another place where airships might be useful for transportation is Africa. Lots of resources that need to be moved around, (mostly) terrible road and rail infrastructure. And there the airships wouldn't have to be very high-tech to be safer than road transport.

The cost of helium presents a problem, though. Hydrogen is cheaper and provides more lift, but is combustible. http://www.airships.net/helium-hydrogen-airships

Hydrogen may be more combustible but either way it still highly unlikely

I love the idea, but I'm afraid airships always have, and always will be, the future.

Why do you think they will not be the future? I'm not saying they will, but I'm getting very tired of people shooting ideas down without giving a reason why.

Follow the lean, rational approach that we preach for our businesses - replace your assumptions with experiments and research, and don't take anything for granted.

Not necessarily in Canada's north or in areas where it's too costly to build transportation infrastructure.

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