>>1288757>>1288766I probably have most posts in this thread. I've been an avid airship enthusiast for a few years.
In my opinion, hydrogen could/should be used for unmanned blimp drones and weather balloons. I'd go as far as saying that manned gasballoons can be filled with hydrogen.
I am of the opinion that anything manned that flies over public areas should be filled with helium. However, if some crazy rich dude wants to build his own personal blimp to fly it in the desert and fill it with hydrogen, it shouldn't be an issue.
All airship experts agreed that hydrogen should simply not be used anymore for larger, public airships. If one explodes, it greatly harms the image of the airship. Hydrogen only needs a few percentage of oxygen mixed with it, to become highly explosive. The Hindenburg bang was massive, and its fireball reached almost almost a 800 meters high.
Could a safe hydrogen airship be made- possibly. Will it happen- no. The risk of sabotage is too great and PR would never allow it. Either way, there is a plenty of helium on earth for quite a few large rigid airships if a government or a really rich person really wanted it. But the interest is too low.
However, airships won't die out, because they rely on an universal principle of buoyancy. Airships will only become more and more tempting as material science increases further.
