\"I can see my house from here!\"

I believe lighter than air stations are a good idea and should be used as a holding area for space station and satelite materials.

But this particular airship design used in the troposphere is like putting a whale in the ocean with nothing other than hand fans to propel itself. Guess what? It crashed. 1st day up and it\'s down.

Should have used large detachable engines to get it up above the troposhere.

Cute, but someone needs to break the news to these basement-dwelling rocket, er \"balloon\", scientists that there isn\'t going to be any helium left on the planet in a bit over two decades (there\'s also a Hindenberg Uncertainty Principle that applies if these use up the He quicker). The only inflated thing about this machine is the PR, and no doubt, the porkbarrel funds that sanctioned this pointless program.

There\'s been rumors since the late 90s that the U.S. already had (or was flying test versions of) a stealth, semi-silent heavy-lifting airship. Now there\'s this. Very interesting.

Great idea, how about a high altitude lift balloon that detaches when it reaches altitude. Good luck getting HALE back, landing would be rough, maybe a service blimp to bring in lower, catch it, do the maintenance.

What?? No more squeaky voices?

@ Jason Catterall - Actually Helium is an incredibly important gas and liquid.
It's inert AND mon-atomic - meaning that atoms fly solo and thus - they will permeate through the most incredibly small gaps, cracks, leaks etc. So when the helium goes - so do all the super critical leak testing - on all those things that are bad to have leaks and cracks in.
It's also what is used in all those "millionth of a degree" above absolute zero research temperatures....
It's inert and because it's solidification temperature is higher than almost anything, it's used in cleaning and purging all the lines, valves and containers that transport liquid oxygen - inside rockets etc.
So yeah the squeaky voice comment was funny - but when the Helium goes, so do many other things that rely upon it.....
Socially and engineering wise, it's the left leg that goes in the left shoe. No left leg = major problems.

Actually I\'m rather amazed how Lockheed Martin can manage to TRY and make a PR success out of this flight. If I understand your article correctly, it was launched successfully, reached a touch over half-way on its intended flight plan and had to abort. Whereupon landed in a heavily wooded area, described as \'pre-determined\' and now they are working out how to recover it!. Well, perhaps \'pre-determined\' in this context really means that someone had thought earlier that this was one place it might come down if they were unlucky!
I would suggest that while the aims of the program are laudable and no doubt there has been considerable success so far, it would actually be much better PR if the company did not try to put such a positive spin on a rather poor outcome. Future credibility is at stake - Lockheed Martin please take note.

solutions4circuits - Helium-3 can be manufactured but it might put a dent in the lithium supply.
Mr Stiffy - With the possible exception of a specific color of neon lighting there is nothing that helium does that can not be done with other gasses.

This piece is all out of context in that it implies that Loc-Mart is leading the way with this entire idea. I suggest that all of you, including the author, check out the following site: http://www.aerosml.com/
(Ed's note: we have been keeping an eye on Aeros - http://www.gizmag.com/tag/aeros/)