by Rick Osmon
The Sun story (I found thanks to the Drudge Report) about a 460 foot long yacht that sports its own helo pad and airship is kinda cool. I’m not sure it’s practical, but it’s kinda cool. I guess practicality may depend on your application or need for vindication.
SUN STORY
Of course, the US Navy has the most complete history of pairing airships to surface ships, but everybody from NASA to Goodyear has practical application under their respective belt. To date, most of the practical application has been for surveillance or observation.
We’ve also carried stories about heavy lift freight airships, remote access hospital modules deployed by airship, equatorial arboreal species scientists using airships to enable research, and dozens of other potential applications of airships. And yet, the only airships we see commonly are somehow tied to sports or other major event coverage…. Meaning, of course, a form of surveillance and observation.
You’ve also seen us publish many, many stories about “drones”. How they have and will continue to endanger your privacy while adding to both your potential for improving personal security and detracting from it.
So what happens when the two technologies combine? What happens when a drone can stay aloft for months at a time while supporting the types of cameras that can read a license plate from a hundred and eight miles in space? Will they be used to capture more cute kitten footage for Facebook?
