GIANT BLIMP SET FOR TAKEOFF

“Next month, a V-​​shaped air­ship big­ger than a base­ball dia­mond is due to rise from the West Texas desert to an alti­tude of 100,000 feet, nav­i­gate by remote con­trol, linger above the clouds and drift back to earth,” Defense Tech pal (and MSNBC cor­re­spon­dent) Alan Boyle writes.
For the U.S. Air Force, the feat will demon­strate the fea­si­bil­ity of a new kind of semi-​​autonomous craft that could hover in “near space,” to do recon­nais­sance and relay bat­tle­field com­mu­ni­ca­tions.
That vision is ambi­tious enough. But for JP Aerospace, the California-​​based com­pany that built the air­ship for the mil­i­tary, the flight would rep­re­sent just one more small step toward an even big­ger con­cep­tual leap: a sys­tem of float­ing plat­forms that gos­samer space­ships could use as high-​​altitude way sta­tions.
Defense Tech took a tiny peak at JP’s blimp here. More on air­ships here, here, and here, too.

May 24th, 2004 | Planes, Copters, Blimps | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.