To Space (Okay, Near-Space) in a Balloon

Posted on April 25, 2014 by LighterThanAirSociety

01 JP Aerospace’s “high rack”Source: Air & Space Magazine – airspacemag.com

By Mark Karpel

A little company dreams of replacing rocket power with buoyancy.

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Jersey Roots: An Airship Disaster Worse Than the Hindenburg

Posted on April 4, 2014 by LighterThanAirSociety

bilde 1Source: Asbury Park Press – app.com 

By: Erik Larsen

The Navy airship Akron did not meet its end in some great inferno, neither was its fate photographed by newsreel cameras, nor were the details of its demise described live over the air by a horrified radio announcer watching the human tragedy unfold in real time. Continue reading →

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Wind Industry’s New Technologies Are Helping It Compete on Price

Posted on March 26, 2014 by LighterThanAirSociety

01 Altaeros BAT V4Source: The New York Times – nytimes.com

By Diane Cardwell

The wind industry has gone to great lengths over the years to snap up the best properties for its farms, often looking to remote swaths of prairie or distant mountain ridges to maximize energy production and minimize community opposition.

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StratoBus – Halfway Between a Drone and a Satellite

Posted on March 21, 2014 by LighterThanAirSociety

Stratobus in the stratosphereSource: Thales – thalesgroup.com

The StratoBus project may immediately call to mind Google’s Project Loon. But the advantage of StratoBus is that it offers long endurance and complete autonomy from a fixed position, while the high-altitude balloons in Loon move around the Earth and will offer only limited autonomy. Continue reading →

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March 1936: First flight of the Hindenburg

Posted on March 21, 2014 by LighterThanAirSociety

Hindenburg in flightSource: The Engineer – theengineer.co.uk

By Stuart Nathan

The maiden test flights of the Zeppelin Hindenburg gave no hint of the disaster to come

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