World's largest zeppelin dedicated at NASA facility
The zeppelin, Eureka, sits on the tarmac at Moffett Field in Mountain View, Calif. The airship was dedicated Friday at an event celebrating the 75h anniversary of Moffett Field.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)MOFFETT FIELD, Calif.--NASA celebrated the 75th anniversary of this iconic airfield and research center on Friday by dedicating a brand-new zeppelin from a private company called Airship Ventures.
The zeppelin NT ("new technology"), which is one of just three currently functioning zeppelins that exist in the world, and the biggest, at 246 feet, was named "Eureka," a name that relates to the fact that the ship is based in California, as well as the fact that it is "rooted in scientific principles," said Brian Bell, a co-founder of Airship Ventures, the ship's owner, minutes before he revealed the new name.
At an event here to celebrate the two milestones, Alexandra Bell, also a co-founder of Airship Ventures, spoke of the experience of getting the zeppelin program off the ground. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), as well as Pete Worden, director of the NASA Ames Research Center, attended the event.
Airship Ventures is the first company in the United States to offer public access to zeppelins. And the company will be carrying paying passengers around the Bay Area, as well as helping NASA carry out scientific research.
The co-founders of Airship Ventures pull back the cover on the name of their brand-new zeppelin, the largest in the world, at the event Friday. The zeppelin is called the Eureka.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)Brian Bell explained that Airship Ventures had a naming contest and received more than 1,500 submissions, five of which turned out to be "Eureka," a name that those involved in the company had already been thinking about anyway.
But Alexandra Bell said that the Eureka may not end up being Airship Ventures' only zeppelin (See video below of the first flight of the Eureka after its dedication).
"We decided we just have to get a couple more," she said, "so we can name them with some of the other wonderful names" we got.
While the Eureka is the largest currently functioning zeppelin, the airships from the golden age of zeppelins were much, much larger. The Hindenburg and the Graf Zeppelin were about 800 feet long, and the Macon, which was based at Moffat for a couple of years in the 1930s, was 785 feet long.
Daniel Terdiman is a staff writer at CNET News covering games, Net culture, and everything in between. E-mail Daniel. 
Also... "NT" gah - cue the BSOD ("Blue Sky of Dirigibles") jokes! :) .
/P
Hindenburg carried a crew of 40-61, with 50-72 passengers, so it was pretty hefty.
As a side note, the current Goodyear GZ-20 blimps are 192ft long. The "Spirit of Akron" was bigger, but I can't seem to find the dimensions at the moment...
Penguinisto, you're right -- this is by no means the largest dirigible ever built. They were building larger airships 70 years ago. This is no real technological breakthrough here, "new technology" notwithstanding.
As for the technology, I'd point you to the engines and carbon composite structure of the airship, which most certainly is 'new' and allows the NT to weigh far less than older designs based on aluminum, use less fuel, carry more payload (can carry many more people than a Goodyear airship) and use more advanced engines that can swivel and pivot for directional control.
Part of the reason a "tech site" is reporting on this is that Ames Research Center is a technology hub in the Bay Area - besides being sandwiched between Google and Yahoo, the NASA center does invaluable work in Human-Computer Interfaces, has a very much in-demand supercomputer facility, develops the thermal protection systems for the Constellation program, is home to several startups, and collaborates with more established companies to develop public-private technologies and partnerships.
As for larger airships 70 years ago, there were far larger airships - and they used hydrogen, which while it was half the weight by volume of helium, had a bad habit of being flammable in the presence of oxygen. Without hydrogen as a lift option, helium-based airships must be both smaller and lighter to achieve similar performance - and the NT does.
They are very valuable for border patrol, anti-submarine, missile defense, and other surveillance-heavy work that requires extensive presence with minimal fuel consumption. Our UAV-heavy troops in Iraq and Afghanistan would benefit from them.
>performance - and the NT does.
The Hindenburg was designed with helium in mind The U.S. (the only major supplier of helium at the time) refused to sell large quantities of helium to the Germans, so they had to settle for hydrogen.
see http://www.ciderpresspottery.com/ZLA/greatzeps/german/Hindenburg.html
The total lift of a helium balloon is only 10% less than a similar hydrogen balloon (see http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,786149-2,00.html)
- not all travel must be done quickly
- not all airfields are space-limited
- weight capacity should be appropriate to the use. Unlike the ground vehicle delusion that "bigger is better", aircraft are carefully sized to meet the need.
As an example: when moving heavy equipment or structures - a bridge for example - a fuel-efficient zeppelin offers a superb transportation option that is quieter and more fuel efficient than helicopters and most ground vehicles we use today.
The engineers thought about this long before the Zeppelin-NT 001 was built.
It ist true, what you write. It is a possibility.
The only reason not to do this, is the history.
The zeppelin was supposed to be the safest aircraft in the world.
So hydrogen was out of discussion.
- it would never fly... grounded for safty reasons
- it would be to heavy to be even moved on the ground
- it would consume 1000 gallons per second...
- it wouldŽnt look that nice - more like an overcolored rainbow
Zeppelin was the brand name of Count Zeppelin and his company. Was this airship built in Germany by descendants of that company? I think not. I understand this airship was built by Airship Ventures so it?s an Airship Venture not a Zeppelin. Might as well call a Honda car a Duisenberg!
Future of flying?
Airships may not be the majority future of air travel as mentioned in some posts here but they seem more fuel efficient as all the fuel can be used for motion as the gas holds the airship up against gravity. In a conventional aircraft much of the fuel is used just keeping its mass up in the air.
Safety
Given a reasonable degree of good design and gas choice airships are failsafe, if an airship engine dies it still floats whereas a conventional aircraft is anything but failsafe as a failure of major components may cause it to crash.
Hydrogen Fuel In Cars?
As an aside I note the comments about hydrogen and airships and wonder if the general public will be pleased to have hydrogen fuelled motor cars for just the safety reasons mentioned here? All that hydrogen leaking out of al those pipes and tanks? Being atomic weight 1 hydrogen leaks through just about anything I am told. If one does not store it as very cold liquid it will escape and one day it will ignite?
Look here : www.zeppelin-nt.de
IT is the ONLY real Zeppelin in the world.
IT was built by the rightful descendants of the Graf Zeppelin, the inventor of all Zeppelin-Airships !
IT is german high tech exspecially designed for these purposes.
No. 1 was in africa
No. 2 is in Japan
No. 3 is in Germany for the DZR (German Zeppelin shipping company) www.zeppelinflug.de
No. 4 now in your country.
No. 5 > sorry still secret<
No. 6 >sorry still secret<
...
more to come soon.. :-)
Keep an eye on them, the zeppelin-nt familiy is growing.
The Airwhales are coming back :-)