The big gasbag has had a more successful test flight: World’s largest aircraft takes first flight since crash-landing last year | Ars Technica It will, perhaps, revolutionize transportation. Or maybe it just says "We laugh at your global helium shortage".
Plenty of ammonia. http://www.me.umn.edu/~hork0004/AIAA-2005-7393-913.pdf Not as ideal as helium, but much cheaper, and it might be possible to refrigerate onboard, converting lift to ballast.
Helium on Earth is finite. I can't see the attraction to using that much of it for such a craft. There is no future in that big blimpy thing. Now, maybe hydrogen? We all know that is the future of transportation . Especially for cars .
Airlander is 100 meters long. Sergey Brin is funding development of a 200 m helium airship. In the media; presumably not difficult to find if you are interested. For some reason I am tiring of linking to websites that are other than mainly scientific. There have long been concerns that helium on earth is in very short supply. After having been produced (here) by Uranium and Thorium decay, it just leaks away unless trapped by appropriate geology, which also traps hydrocarbons. If more helium is found trapped elsewhere, and extractable, we might avoid 'peak helium' and parties can continue to have balloons. And high-field magnets with serious medical applications. All I've seen on that are conference proceedings so far. Presumably a journal article will float up to the surface eventually.
I'm just going to assume there are serious issues in speeding up the process of getting helium from uranium and thorium.
