Scientist Predicts Cargo Zeppelins in the Future

[Jandau]

Zeppelins are awesome and I hope they make a comeback. I'm fairly certain that we can make them a LOT safer by this point. Also, I'm guessing that the cost of air transport and travel might go down a bit. Sure, it won't be as fast, but it might end up cheaper.

 

[Canid117]

I like the idea of cargo ships too. What my primary fear about them is:

Spoiler

And that scares the crap out of me.

Fear not because everything that caused that little incident have been discovered and rectified.

 

[LightspeedJack]

Yes now we must make a city named Lindblum and slowly turn the Earth into the world of Final Fantasy IX, then I will be happy

 

[mb16]

have something like this

have the top layered with those flexy solar panels to provide power when its sunny, and a normal power supply for when its not. AKA over england
alternatively they could look like this with just a normal power supply but more space for passenger

Spoiler

 

[bz316]

Hmm...I actually kind of like this idea. Plus, the sooner we get a jump on this, the sooner the technology will develop into making our world more like "Crimson Skies"...

 

[Cpt. Red]

Isn't this actually quite old news? I was reading about those airship designs early last year - one of them was really interesting, a kind of hybrid that had wings and a fuselage - albeit a very fat, gas-filled one - but operated like an airship.. I can't remember the advantages of optionally being able to take-off and land like a plane if it so-chose but I remember there being some.

If I remember correctly it was operated as an airplane, meaning it needed to land and take off as a plane, but being able to carry allot more then regular cargo planes.

 

[scotth266]

It's unlikely that airships will be making any significant comeback.

As if the public's (unjustified, given today's tech) fear of another Hindenburg incident weren't enough, you also have to cope with all sorts of shenanigans involving new facilities, new flight regulations, etc. Also they'd have to figure out new ways of bastardizing a system to make it all about shoving X amount of people into a space Y designed for X - 50 amount of people.

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

Sounds cool. It's more a ride, like a boat ride, than a plane. We could have the Flying Titanic! (Though the name Titanic will probably scare people)

OK, someone has to have pointed this out already, but....We kind of already had the Flying Titanic.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

Fast won't really matter once the cycle of them loading and unloading starts, you can have a chain of them with an hour between them, to load em up.

10 airships that take 10 hours to arrive pretty much the same as one plane that takes an hour.

As for cruises, thousands of people still go on luxury cruises rather than fly, making the journey more enjoyable than the destination.

As someone who's interested but a total dummy in science, I'm assuming they're a very low powered form of transport... the vertical lift is 'free', right? apart from a small amount of lost helium here and there. So you'd only be powering the forward motion, and then only if the wind was against you?

I also had the strange idea of having a home like that when I read it, just having it say 10 feet off the ground, and a winch and rope ladder, no burglars or vandals, no salespeople at your door, no jehovah's witnesses

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

Then we can totally have Air Pirates! The future RULES!

 

[geldonyetich]

We'd probably have more airships and trains right now... but petroleum interests are excellent at blocking that sort of thing.

 

[Kuilui]

What do you know Final Fantasy was right. Interesting, very interesting. I was always though how cool would it be to ride on of these things in real life..Then I laughed to myself thinking it would never happen. Hopefully it doesn't take to long! I wonder what else FF got right. Will we soon harness the power of magic as well?! Or perhaps find a new chocobo esq creature? Or make one with todays science as it is.

 

[theSovietConnection]

no jehovah's witnesses

Until the Jehovah's Witnesses get jetpacks. But when that happens, we're all fucked.

 

[Andantil]

cool as it might be, I sincerely doubt this will happen.

 

[solidstatemind]

Dude, being 6'5" and never having found a seat on an airplane outside of the first-class cabin that I can comfortably fit into, I would totally be down with airships. Some innovative company (Virgin, maybe?) should look into a one-off to see what the profit margins look like.

The thing is, I would imagine that properly charted and operated, airships wouldn't be all that much slower. They wouldn't accelerate nearly as fast, but they should be able to reach at least half of the speed or better of jetliners.

Also, think of the land-savings! Instead of miles and miles of runways, you could probably operate a fleet out of the space of maybe 3 football fields!

 

[A Raging Emo]

Sounds cool. It's more a ride, like a boat ride, than a plane. We could have the Flying Titanic! (Though the name Titanic will probably scare people)

How about the Flytanic? *Hides*

 

[wolfister]

I love this idea I truly hope zeppelins make a true come back

 

[daftalchemist]

Sign me up for a zeppelin ride. I'd gladly pay for a longer trip just to be able to take that trip in a zeppelin.

 

[DarkPanda XIII]

.....funny part is that we're still recovering from a recession, with a rumor that we might be kicked back in a little soon enough...

Seriously? Are we playing out the 20s, 30s, 40s over again?