Of course the main problem is the scarcity of helium.

In the USofA you are much better off buying the Mylar balloon because the rapid decay balloons forced on us don't contain helium worth squat despite the scarcity of helium issue is vastly over-hyped.

About $40 buys you a disposable low-pressure helium tank that can fill about 30 balloons, from places like toy stores etc. I've had a few in the past - got them in Australia from "Spotlight".

If the scarcity of helium is overhyped, why are so many people who need it for such things as medical scanners so concerned about it?

The controller looks like something from the 1990's...come on guys.

I forecast that RC " airships" will become a much bigger succes than RC helos & airplanes ,due to lower cost & bigger endurance

one could always use aluminum foil , a 2 litre bottle with drain cleaner (zep crystal or red devil) for hydrogen version...HINDENBERG...

For nearly 100 years the US government kept a strategic helium reserve, both in large pressure tanks and pumped into porous underground rock formations.
Why? For all the blimps and dirigibles the military hasn't had since WW2, just in case they ever decided to use lighter than air vehicles again.
Recently, the keepers of the gas decided to get rid of it, at a really low price. A lower price than what it costs the oil companies to capture and compress the helium that comes from many oil and gas wells in the USA. That was one of our strategic advantages during the blimp and dirigible era. We had abundant helium, Germany, Italy, Japan and other countries on the other side did not.
So with the government dumping helium at below market value, that strategic reserve has become the only supply - but they aren't pumping it out fast enough to meet demand.
And that's a lesson in why government controlled markets, combined with the usual government inefficiency and bumbling, are super bad for a nation's economy.
The government controls the price AND is keeping the commodity scarce, which in a free market would drive the price up to the point where anyone with helium in their oil or gas wells would invest in capturing and compressing it.
Instead of saving it, the oil companies are just letting it gas off, much like the burning flares of low pressure gas that would take more energy to compress and transport than can be obtained by burning it.
If IR photovoltaic cells and Peltier technology improve quite a bit, that low pressure gas could be burned inside a chamber lined with both technologies to generate some electricity, at least to provide part of the refineries power needs.

A handy tool for terrorists wanting to deliver a stick of gelignite...

re; funglestrumpet
Because they fell for the hype. Helium can be extracted from the atmosphere on an industrial bases but it is not cost effective because it is cheaper to extract it from natural gas and the USofA dumping its strategic reserve is confusing the situation. Plus people like to panic.