I'd be down for a future of awesome looking ships and giant zeppelins gracing the sky.

I'd love to fly in a Zeppelin, too, but the problem is they are very vulnerable to the weather.

ThrustVectoring 3 hours ago | parent [-]

AIUI the problem is the economics are pretty unfavorable for smaller-scale prototypes due to square-cube issues (drag and thus fuel costs is proportional to cross-sectional area, lift and thus cargo capacity is proportional to volume). You'd need a very big airship to get a competitive economic niche between sea and traditional air freight, where you're faster and more flexible than sea transport and cheaper than traditional air freight.

	▲	Figs 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Hmm. Couldn't you put solar panels on top for power (and fly above the clouds) + use some sort of sail when wind is available? It might be really slow, but if you can get the systems to be fully autonomous (no people needed to pilot it) and need very little / no fuel... then couldn't it become a rather cheap way to ship things that aren't urgent?