Why Airships Might Make A Comeback

airships seem like a bad idea exhibit a it's the greatest of Miracles that anyone came out of the disaster alive the Hindenberg was filled with over 200 million lers of hydrogen but it also had an iron oxide and aluminum powder coating on its outer shell two of the ingredients that make thermite a mixture that undergo such a strongly exothermic reaction it is used to weld train tracks together but even if airships weren't giant sacks of flammable gas encased in questionable Coatings they would still seem like a bad idea because they are big and slow but right now a handful of companies around the world are competing to build a new generation of airships so why are they doing it I came across the following argument in a blog by El Dorado and I found it compelling so I wanted to explore it think about how Goods all the different types of stuff are transported around the US a large amount of money is spent moving things around by airplane but this doesn't translate into a huge volume of goods because Air transport is really expensive it's the fastest way to get something from one place to another but you pay a premium for that speed if you want to save money you can transport your Goods on ships using the waterways in and around the country but that will be much slower still since it's significantly cheaper far more goods are transported this way and more money is spent on it overall rail provides an even better option it's faster than ships and cheaper than planes so more goods are sent by train than by air and water combined but by far the way that most goods are moved around the US is by truck what's interesting about this is that trucks are not as fast as planes they take several days to get across the country they are also not as cheap as ships but the combination of speed and price puts them in this sweet spot of cheap enough and fast enough which is why they transport the vast majority of goods they are like the baby bears porridge of transport options just right now consider how goods are transported internationally the only options are planes and ships again a lot of money is spent sending Goods by air but because it's so ...