The Union Pacific Railroad recently placed an order for 58 new steam locomotives to meet the growing demand for freight shipments across the American continent. Western Union is opening scores of new telegraph offices; it seems that people drowning in cheap e-mail and faxes long for the drama and succinctness of the telegram. And even dirigibles are making a comeback: They may soon see service as airborne tour buses, flying cranes, and stratospheric cell phone antennas.
All those statements are surprising, but unlike the first two, the last one is actually true. Dirigibles, also known as airships, never deserved to go the way of the telegram or the steam locomotive; never deserved to be reduced to flying billboards like the Goodyear blimp. Public relations, ironically, had been part of their downfall: After 36 people died when the Hindenburg burned at Lakehurst, New Jersey, in 1937, it became hard to convince anyone that airships had a future. And in transoceanic passenger service— the business pioneered by the Hindenburg and its predecessor, the Graf Zeppelin— they surely didn't, once airplanes cut the crossing time from days to hours.
But the modern economy is creating many new niches, and in some of them being slow isn't much of a drawback— and being lighter than air is a decided plus. "Nostalgic as they are, airships could play a very interesting role in as innovative a sector as communications," says Reimund Küke, the engineer in charge of the stratospheric airship project at Astrium, a European aerospace company. "That's a charming business. And it may also be a very lucrative one, which is why so many people are giving it a try."
A century after they first took off, half a century after they became quaint, airships are coming back.
From the Archives of the Count
