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one of the saddest examples of technology becoming obsolete is the zepplin/blimp (thelemmy.club)
submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by to c/chat@hexbear.net
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I just love them so much. Everytime I watch historical footage from the early 20th century I get very sad over the zepplins and blimps. I wish I could see them floating through my sky on a daily basis just doin stuff that isn't solely advertising. They are the closest we have to sky whales. I just love that they float around like that, very joyous and whimsical. Fucked up we don't make use of them anymore. I bet this makes them as sad as it makes me. Relatively low energy cost btw.

I've cried over this while drunk more than once. Think of me next time you call blimps useless technology

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[–] 55 points 2 months ago (6 children)

The craziest part about the Hindenberg disaster for me was that 2/3rds of the people on board survived. And I guess also that they had a smoking lounge

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  • [–] 28 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

    I guess also that they had a smoking lounge

    They did, an interesting one. Given the proximity of the hydrogen it had a double airlock and slight overpressure to avoid hydrogen getting in; and a steward at the exit making sure nobody took lit up cigarettes / pipes outside.

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    • [–] 46 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 child)

    China uses them for logistics in Tibet a lot! They're great for short repetitive trips that moves really heavy stuff in difficult terrain

    Back in the day before helicopters rich dudes put blimp mooring posts on their skyscrapers was the old timey private jet

    Afaik the empire state building still has it's planned mooring post

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    [–] 40 points 2 months ago (5 children)

    born in the wrong universe to get turned to paste alongside your comrades trying to bring down invading coalition airships with nothing but revolutionary plasm

    born in the right universe to get deep-sixed by a delivery drone for hanging solar panels from your balcony

    kitty-cri-texas

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  • [–] 23 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    Consider, delivery blimp. Hydrogen inside to save money, a little fan powered by solar panels on it and running a basic navigation software.

    It could be wonderful. The dream Amazon is hiding from you.

    Until someone shoots it and it explodes.

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  • [–] 12 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Hydrogen is only about 8% more buoyant than helium which doesn't explode. May as well use that.

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    • [–] 34 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    They could be covered in solar panels and swoosh silently through the skies.

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    • [–] 30 points 2 months ago (7 children)

    A lot of technology we consider obsolete is truly just not profitable for our overloads, look at how many people are using mp3 players again, look at how many people are listening to records again. It is important that we remember old tech so we can revive it if we want in a better world and destroy the tech we don't need like fucking crypto farms and ai data centers.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    Also blimps are genuinely useful. Like how else could you float in place in the air long term? Helicopters will run out of fuel. Planes can't be motionless like that. It's just that we are very fossil fuel coded so we use helicopters for everything and shrug at the fuel use. Is it used for mass passenger movement? No. But weather balloons are kind of the same thing for example. The tech does still get used. Just not exactly as a blimp/zeppelin. Using them as motherships for drone swarms is something that's been explored recently I think.

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    [–] 28 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    I saw the Goodyear blimp fly directly overhead once and it was cool as shit.

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    • [–] 27 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    this is what they took from you

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    • [–] 24 points 2 months ago

    Kirov reporting.

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    [–] 24 points 2 months ago* (6 children)

    I hope that blimps make a comeback. They could be used as drone carriers (like aircraft carriers), and could recharge the drones with solar power. And if they were unmanned, then hydrogen would be more more acceptable.

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  • [–] 19 points 2 months ago*

    Plus materials science has come miles since then. I'm sure you could further lower the fire risk with tougher textiles, modern ultra-light nonsparking alloys and redundant multi-chamber designs. This shit could be made to work.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 months ago* (1 child)

    So about hydrogen. I think many people forget that every machine we use has flammable shit in it. Like jet fuel explodes too. They were just bad at stopping things from exploding back in the day. We have oxygen tanks around hospitals all the time and they rarely explode. Gasoline is everywhere it rarely explodes. We'd just need to be more careful about the hydrogen and it would probably be fine.

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    • [–] 21 points 2 months ago (10 children)

    Only if you have an unlimited supply of birthday grade helium.

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  • [–] [S] 15 points 2 months ago (5 children)

    One day fusion power will be a reality

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    [+] 16 points 2 months ago (13 children)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 11 points 2 months ago (8 children)

    Hovercraft: They’re not exactly common in the U.S. but the U.K. has a bunch. You can even buy a personal one for like 30K… not exactly cheap but not unattainable.

    Flying Cars: Theoretically there’s the Molor sky car with its 9 Mazda engines… but with gas prices… and the whole lack of an untethered demo, stick with the hovercraft.

    Rocket Packs: Primary problem is they burn off your assmeats. There is actually a “Rocket Man” though. Ieves Rossi or something like that. IIRC he actually sells the suits. And there’s a few folks who still make the 70’s era peroxide jet packs, but you only get like 90 seconds.

    Mass Transit: California is building a high speed rail line 😂 The networks will probably always be imperfect at best, but the rise of small EVs (bikes, scooters, etc.) seems poised to bridge the gap.

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  • [–] 13 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    Just a heads up to any comrades looking to get into rocket packs -- the US DOJ went after John Gotti for flying around with an unlicensed rocket pack and hunting Nazis out of season

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  • [–] 9 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    California is building a high speed rail line

    lmao "building" doing a lot of heavy lifting here. That project has been in the works for like 18 years and has a "projected" completion year of 2030-2033 with many components of it like tunnels and coastal extensions to serve cities between San Francisco having no projected completion date and it is realistically decades away from completion (if ever). It's an absolute joke.

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    [–] 14 points 2 months ago* (1 child)

    Wow, i forgot blimps existed holy shit. I only saw one once in my life overseas, two decades ago and never saw it again (I live in a developing country, we don't have this stuff. It was somewhere in europe iirc?) Now that I remember it, how the hell could i forget about that? There's something so mind-boggling about it just slowly floating in the air, and a beautiful sight

    Fuck everything else we need to RETVRN to fucking rad blimps

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    • [–] 14 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

    There was a startup like 20 years ago trying to get them to be used for trucking/shipping purposes iirc. Guess it didn't work out. If used with hydrogen instead of helium, that can be more cost effective. I've only seen the Goodyear ones a few times when some kind of sportsball event is happening in the metro.

    Supposedly they are constantly getting shot at in the states. I recall seeing some docu show where one of the pilots or maintenance folks mentioned finding small holes in them quite often after flying around.

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  • [–] [S] 19 points 2 months ago

    Hopefully we see fusion power in our lifetimes and helium becomes a cheap commodity. I feel it is unlikely but every night I go to bed dreaming of this future.

    Anyway that last bit is the most american thing I have heard all day lmao

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    • [–] 13 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Google money is trying to bring it back :https://sfstandard.com/2025/11/18/san-francisco-blimp-lta-research/

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    • [+] 13 points 2 months ago* (last edited 1 week ago)
    [deleted]
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    [–] 11 points 2 months ago

    ive been inside the hanger for the goodyear blimp and its so massive it makes you feel nauseous

    v cool

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    [–] 9 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    wish I could pin this post

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