The Lighter-Than-Air Society

Source: AINonline

By Chris Pocock – November 12, 2011

Unglamorous though they are, aerostats are carving a substantial niche in the airborne surveillance business. Continue reading →

Source: Congressional Budget Office Website

During the past decade’s operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. military has come to rely heavily on the continuous or nearly continuous presence overhead of both manned and unmanned aircraft to support ground troops. Unmanned aircraft that remain aloft in particular locations (or “orbits”) have been primarily used to provide timely information about activities on the ground and to attack ground targets on short notice. Continue reading →

Source: TheAge.com.au

By: Darren Gray – November 7, 2011

At 2246 hectares, it is bigger than most farms in Victoria. It could, in fact, be divided into many farms, for it has a piggery, dairy, 5000 sheep, 600 hectares of broadacre crops, winery and vineyard, and an orchard of apple, apricot and peach trees. Just inside the front gate is a small olive grove more than 110 years old. Continue reading →

Source: thestar.com

By: Tyler Hamilton

Mining companies operating in the most remote areas of Canada may want to take notice. Ditto for humanitarian groups looking for better ways to get life-saving medical supplies to hard-to-reach, disaster-stricken regions. Continue reading →

Source: Cosmiclog on msnbc.com

By Alan Boyle

NASA is working with a little-known Oregon company on a variety of trial balloons, ranging from suborbital near-spacecraft to a probe that would float through the smoggy atmosphere of a Saturnian moon. The launching point for these trial balloons couldn’t be more bucolic. Near Space Corp. is based in a World War II-era blimp hangar, out in the countryside south of Tillamook, Ore., a locale that is better-known for cheese and ice cream than for space exploration. Continue reading →