This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

They are hulking but graceful. Human-made whales that float in the air.

For over 100 years lighter than air aircraft have fascinated us,

and they have this recurring, storing role in our dreams of an alternate reality,

of a future that might have been where cargo and passengers traverse the globe

in a civilized fashion. And dock elegantly on the moring towers on top of art that go skyscrapers.

If you've seen one in real life, it was likely a blimp emblazoned with the good year logo.

A blimp is a non-rigid airship, meaning there's no structure inside the blimp. It's just a balloon.

The shape is maintained by the pressure of the lifting gas inside.

Then you add a little cockpit and engines and rudders on the outside of that big balloon to make it fly.

Today's blimp are basically cute PR novelties, but for around 100 years lighter than air aircraft were

seriously proposed as the perfect design solution for all kinds of problems. Even though none of these

proposals actually happened, people just couldn't give up on the promise of airships.

In the 90s there was a company called Sky Station. They raised some 4.2 billion or at least

solicited it to put 250 antenna equipped airships to deliver internet service.

This is Bill Hammack. He's the engineer guy on YouTube in an airship enthusiast.

In the 80s there was the British Antarctic Survey. They revealed a hole in the ozone layer over

the South Pole. And so pretty soon a professor suggested sending blimp that dangled electrical wires

to zap ozone eating chemicals. Then in the 70s they were supposed to help developing nations.

Using a hybrid blimp to usher those nations into the 20th century. No need for roads, no need for

railroads and tunnels and bridges, but just to lift stuff in. In the 1950s and 60s,

nuclear powered airships with unlimited energy and an unlimited capacity for work were proposed.

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