Is it again time for airships? #flight
This bit of new/old technology caught my eye. A sort of blimp that may be perfect for transporting cargo (I guess like a slow train in the sky) including to areas where disasters destroy infrastructure… and maybe carrying passengers too.
LTA Research is about to test the largest aircraft to fly since the gargantuan Hindenburg airship of the 1930s. If you find that reference cringe-worthy, fear-not. This airship is buoyed with helium.
In 2021,
Reader’s Digest
said that “consensus is that there are about 25 blimps still in existence and only about half of them are still in use for advertising purposes”Helium is plentiful in space, but how about on Earth? Haven’t I read about shortages? Russia was a major source, and we won’t buy from them until they withdraw into their own borders. This current airship, Pathfinder 1, needs one million cubic feet, and larger ships are planned. We’re talking way-larger than the Goodyear Blimp.
Most helium on Earth is a result of radioactive decay. Helium is found in large amounts in minerals of uranium and thorium… because they emit alpha particles (helium nuclei, He2+) to which electrons immediately combine as soon as the particle is stopped by the rock. In this way an estimated 3000 metric tons of helium are generated per year… helium is extracted by fractional distillation from natural gas, which can contain as much as 7% helium. Wikipedia
So, helium supplies are related to fossil fuel extraction, which we’re trying to get away from (though natural gas may be a bridge away from oil.) I found a price of $210 per thousand cubic feet of helium from 2022, so over $200,000 to fill ‘er up.
I assume helium must be released for the ship to descend, and that amount would be lost, but if it can really carry 4 tons of cargo as LTA Research says, they won’t have to empty the ship to land. Plenty of articles say the price of helium is increasing and supplies dwindling. Still, for responding to a humanitarian crisis, the cost may be reasonable, and for transporting heavy cargo, perhaps it can compete with airplanes. (Or trains? That I can’t say – any railroad buffs want to comment?)
But who wants to be a wet blanket when the largest flying machine in almost a century is about to make its first test flights? Read the article at TechCrunch.
