I can’t figure it out, honestly, what’s behind this blimp fetish of mine. Maybe it’s because I dig retro visions of the techno-future — from pneumatic subways to mobile homes on the Moon; blimps somehow feed into that. Maybe it’s the idea of being lighter than air that grabs me.
Either way, I’m not alone. There are a bunch of other people in the Defense Department who share my obsession. And they are handing out hundreds of millions of dollars to develop a new fleet of military airships.
The latest, Defense Industry Daily tells us: a $149 million contract to Lockheed, to build a massive High Altitude Airship that will look out for ballistic missile launches.
The blimp will hover above the jet stream at an altitude of 65,000 feet for months at a time and will also have the ability to detect low-flying missiles that may have slipped underneath ground-based radars. Once operational, it will be an important early-detection element of the broader U.S. missile defense architecture. It may also add as a weather surveyor and telecom relay.
There are a number of challenges associated with an effort of this nature.
Solar cells and an advanced fuel cells that can deliver up to 500 kW must be developed to power the craft. An aerodynamic design and a control system must be developed to help keep the airship steady amid the high winds at that altitude, without consuming excessive power. Another important factor is determining how the airship would react to changing temperatures as the sun rises and sets every day, heating and cooling the helium. Then there’s the major challenge of finding materials for the airship’s skin that are capable of withstanding the extreme ultraviolet radiation at such high altitudes for extended periods without becoming brittle.
But this HAA is actually a little less ambitious than earlier designs. Before, the airship was supposed to be King Kong big, at 25 times the size of the Goodyear Blimp. Now, it’s merely huge, at two-and-a-half Goodyears in length. Plans to power the airship with lasers seem to have also fallen by the wayside, for now.
If everything goes well, a prototype HAA should be ready to fly in 2010. I can’t wait.
UPDATE 5:23PM: Via the Wonk, here’s a presentation on “Advanced Concepts in Missile Defense.” The HAA is in there, as well as a program for one interceptor with “multiple kill vehicles.”
{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
I was reading Ben Rich’s memoirs about his time at Skunk Works and was reminded of the blimp.
In one contract proposal for a high-altitude airplane they propose using a giant blimp to lift a ramjet aircraft to the proper height and jettison the aircraft from the blimp. Kelly Johnson runs the calculations and tells the presenter that the blimp would be too large, to the point of being infeasible. I forgot the size number given, and I’d have to check the book again at a later date.
If you have the book, it’s probably around the part where they develop the U2 or maybe the SR. The book is this one:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316743003/102-3282819-5609722?v=glance&n=283155
But yeah, Lockheed and blimps fired a neuron or two.
I’d like to point something out to the author first.
King Kong Big??? ah…….no. It was planned to still be smaller then the hindenburg.
How big is an average goodyear blimp anyway?
And when talking about these airship, for example the HAA, as you pointed out will be 25 times larger then a goodyear blimp, BUT…They came up with that fugure not by measuring feet, but volume…which is far different.
Off the top of my head i’m thinking a good year blimp is around 200 feet (that could be wrong though), and if this is 2 1/2 times longer then its 500 feet…which is the exact same number the proposed HAA is intended to be.
In other words…ITS THE SAME AIRSHIP DESIGN…they just tagged it with another and new mission for it.
Good Afternoon Folks,
This contract was let on 12/8/05 and it has a cost of $149Million est. but is open ended till 11/2010. It goals are quote, “…to develope an unmanned and untethered protype…high altitude airship…500lbs. payload and 3Kv. power.”
This seems to be rather modest for this large of funding. I think what we have going here is another project like Boeing contract in December 2003 for satellites the Air Force didn’t want, all this appears to be is corporate welfare intended to install investors confidence in order to support the price of Lockheeds stock.
The need for a high altitude airship to support missile defense is in itself humorous, are we not building a multi billion dollar installation in Alaska to detect these nonexistant missiles?
Well maybe it can be sold to the TV networks, at a huge discount and be flown over NFL games.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
Point of fact: The winds in the stratosphere are very light. I don’t remember the number but try google.
The companies that profited from Starwars, devised by the people who programmed Reagan will profit from this project fed to SonofReagan.
Lasers are perhaps the least efficient weapons in existence. Efficiency: Power into a device divided by power out. The most efficient ballons are are over the heads of cartoon characters. Such humor ballons are perhaops the most efficient way to expose the lack of efficiency in investing resources and faith in imaginary shields.
Better what has served. Being very clear about the response to such an attack: The elimination of a country that allows such to originate.
Efficiency of weapons is the new standard of deployability? Let’s go back to throwing rocks then. It’s OK if missiles launched from China (thanks, Bill) destroy us.
While in Iraq I was part of a PAC team that looked at bringing in Blimps as part of the JLENS program. The fact that they move too slow in the fluid and rapidly changing airspace above a combat zone makes them a non-starter.
Nice Language!!! German airships were filled with explosive hydrogen, these are not. I don’t like the idea either but have some couth and find out what your talking about.
our goverment now have the ability to destroy incoming missiles, we will now have the ability to detect and destroy much earlier than before better to pay a small price fot this high tech defensive system than to pay a high cost of lives in the future.
What a plan. Spend 149 million on a blimp then TRIPLE and DOUBLE Tricare Prime fees? And how much do you think was spent to come up with these great ideas? Just another bright idea from the ranks of the “BECAUSE I AM IN CHARGE AND I DON’T CARE IF IT’S STUPID”.
JLENS….that the combat surviellance system. its just a floating security camera. one at camp liberty got its tether slice by a helo and the air force had to shoot it down. a waste of money!
funny stuff
I think the ‘eye in the sky’ concept has merit but, in absence of any data, empirical or otherwise, about the vulnerability of such a craft, it’s impossible to evaluate its potential value. Such questions as a. will it be armed and b. will it be able to protect itself against attack were the first of many to come to mind.
This has got to Win the Dumb-Award-Of the Year What I want to know is
1. Why does the person in the Defense Department that came-up with this Idea
Giant Blimps WHY does he Still have a Job working for the Defense Department??
2. Also, why is the person that spend our TAX-MONEY on this Idea of a Giant-Blimps NOT in Jail for Government Waste !
Amazing the vitriol of some of the comments. The government has bought in on some pie in the sky schemes over the years. They’ve backed some ambitions notions that didn’t pan out. Plenty did. We don’t still fight from trenches with muzzle loaders. We don’t get to the battle on foot or horseback. Give the brass some credit that this scheme may well have merit. Putting a man on the moon was absurd to some. Enough money and brainpower brought it about.
And how much money has been spent on so col at Wright Patterson dream? Maybe he will make General. One well placed SAM/SLM/SRAM/ETC, billions up in, sorry, down in somke
I actually served in a unit that had blimps from 1958-1960, The Naval Air Development Unit (NADU). While there the unit managed to deflate two blimps in accidents. One when a gust of wind caught it as it was being towed out of the hangar. It was slammed against the hangar door and deflated. The other was parked outside on the ramp so that an inspection of the troops could be made. It snowed rather heavily and before the inspection could be cancelled and the blimp moved inside, the weight of the snow cause it to deflate. These were very late model state of the art blimps at the time. About 1962 the last active blimp was folded away. These were billed as all-weather airships. Unless there are great strides made over what was used at that time, this is a waste. At that time they were being used for early warning purposes.
Slats, please contact John Yaney at JYaney@fstinc.com as soon as you can. He's working on a book about the Naval Air Development Unit and is looking for photos and personal remberances.
Rod’s comments prove that the right to bear children should be restricted.
Seems like old news as Sanswire has been in development on the Stratellite for over 2 years and the award went to Locheed. Seems like a copy infringement as it incorporates the same technology.Research Globetel symbol GTE on the American Exchange…
I’m going to lean on the side of probability with this one. How probable is it that we have balistic missiles shot at us? Not very likely. Now how high of a probability is it that our enemies have the technology to produce balistic missiles that are able to fly under our current radar systems and strike at the vitals of our country? Extremely unlikely. I’m in a Marine Corps ARFF Plt (aircraft rescue and fire fighting), and our first line of defense is our flight suits because they are fire retardant. Riddle me this: Now why is it that even though flight suits are supposed to be standard issue, we don’t have them, but the DoD is looking at spending millions on things that are not pertinent?
Let’s spend money where it counts. Maybe in a time of peace it would be different, and we can spend money on b.s. stuff that is whimsical, but we have iraq, afghanistan, and soon to be iran syria or korea.
Sanswire’s Stratellite is a high-altitude airship that when in place in the stratosphere will provide a stationary platform for transmitting various types of wireless communications services currently transmitted from cell towers and satellites. It is not a balloon or a blimp. It is a high-altitude airship.
Made of Space age Materials and powered by solar powered electrical engines, each Stratellite will reach its final altitude by utilizing proprietary lifting gas technology. Once in place at 65,000 feet (approx. 13 miles) and safely above the jet stream, each Stratellite will remain in one GPS coordinate, providing the ideal wireless transmission platform. The Stratellites are unmanned airships and will be monitored from the Company’s Operation Centers on the ground.
A Stratellite will have a payload capacity of several thousand pounds and clear line-of-sight to approximately 300,000 square miles, an area roughly the size of Texas .
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