Zeppelins Over California

It seems that Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow may not have been completely off the mark. According to Venture Beat, Airship Ventures has raised capital sufficient to build their first Zeppelin NT (Microsoft Windows reference purely coincidental). The airship will offer rides for up to 12 passengers out of the old Navy Blimp hangars at Moffett Field in Silicon Valley. Airship Ventures notes that airships are already flying safely in Japan and Germany, so now the US will have its chance. Rides will cost from $250 to $500 per person. Esther Dyson is one of the investors.

Comments

Re:More Annoying Money Wasters for Rich People

[neumayr]

Where's the waste?
They take rich people's money, which would otherwise be locked down in someone's personal possession, i.e. not in the economy. That's what I'd call wasted.

Re:More Annoying Money Wasters for Rich People

[JaredOfEuropa]

They take rich people's money, which would otherwise be locked down in someone's personal possession, i.e. not in the economy.

Not really, the savings you and your fellow rich men have in the bank are being put to good use, e.g the money is on loan at interest to others, or reinvested. Or perhaps the money appears to be locked down in equity, in which case it has already left the owner's hands in exchange for that equity. If you'd keep your savings in an old sock, then it would truly be locked down.

But I agree, I don't object to money sinks for rich folks. People will be putting food on the table by providing this money waster, perhaps science or engineering will be advanced a little bit, and most importantly it's the rich people's own damn money. I prefer rich people spending cash on useless frippery, to taxing those people to death and spending the taxes on, say, putting little rainbow-colored stickers on every lamppost along a (shortish) stretch of highway to "give it an identity", for a cost of $200.000 (I kid you not).

Re:There was a Hardy Boys about this

[fnj]

There were 3 major air crashes last year !

Three major air crashes is probably about a thousand deaths.

I don't know what your definition of "major" air crash is, but there were 24 accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft worldwide in 2007. Three of these resulting in the loss of 100 or more lives, and one more nearly so. The total loss in the three accidents was 403 out of 403 on board(1).

Taking all 24 accidents and incidents, 697 of 1955 aboard were killed - no more than 36% of those aboard on average.

If we can cure the pedestrian-death problem - cars would be close to equaling planes right now.

That's just crazy. Statistically, if you drove 100 million miles during the period 1989-2004, you would have an 83% chance of dying. For the same period, if you flew 100 million miles, you would have a 2 percent chance of dying. Furthermore, from 1989 to 2004, the death expectancy for driving dropped about one third, but that for flying dropped to only about 2%. Flying is much safer now, and is getting even safer at a much faster rate than driving is getting safer.(2)

References:
(1) List of commercial aviation accidents and incidents by year

(2) Comparative death rate by year for driving vs flying