Google co-founder Sergey Brin is secretly working on an airship

Google co-founder Sergey Brin is reportedly working in a NASA hangar on a large airship that would look like a classic zeppelin. It is unclear whether zeppelin enthusiast Brin sees the project as a hobby project or a promising business project.

It would be a huge airship that would be built in a hangar of the NASA Ames Research Center. Bloomberg reports this based on four anonymous sources with knowledge about the project. According to these sources, Brin has long been fascinated by airships. Brin was asked about the project by email, but said he had nothing to say at this time.

The airship would not have been completed yet, but engineers would have already built a metal frame. Google’s Planetary Ventures company gained access to the facility from NASA in 2015, but the construction of the airship would not be a regular project from Alphabet, Google’s parent company.

The sources claim Brin wanted to build his own airship after seeing footage of the USS Macon, a 1930s US Navy blimp. This old airship was also built at the Ames Research Center. Alan Weston, who was previously responsible for NASA programs, would lead Brin’s project.

Weston has previously discussed the potential of airships to be able to transport freight relatively cheaply. In a radio interview in 2013, he described the potential of an airship filled with helium. The airship would operate through a sort of “respiratory system,” where helium from the airship’s interior is stored under slightly higher pressure in pockets inside the zeppelin. During that process, air from the outside is let into ‘lungs’ that are on the outside. The lift capacity is equal to the amount of air that is displaced through the helium.

By controlling this process, the amount of buoyancy can be determined. In this way, these types of airships would be able to deliver goods exactly where they are needed. In this way, goods can be transported more energy-efficiently than via cargo planes or helicopters.

Several companies such as Lockheed Martin and Aeros are already developing modern airships for the transport of goods. For example, Lockheed Martin is already developing Sky Tug, a zeppelin that should be able to transport 20 tons of goods over a distance of 1000 km. In addition, the American aircraft manufacturer is developing a zeppelin with a presumed lift capacity of 500 tons.