Technology

FYI you can get motion sick in aerial vehicles, including blimps.

Did you take a look at the cabin? Seems in line with something like a private jet.

Oh, if they actually manage to run a passenger line for a little while I'll try to go for a ride on it - you know, just to see it before they go bankrupt.

But that's the thing, it's only attractive as an "adventure" or publicity stunt (I can see a short-lived market for "influencers"), kind of like taking passenger rail in the US - it's fun to ride the train when you can afford multiple days of travel time. The difference is, freight rail is practical, useful and economically viable and pays the maintenance cost of the rail lines. This gasbag won't ever be useful in that sense, and it won't ever have value as a regular commuter vehicle.

The only practical use I can see for this is if you need to stay in the air over a particular area for an extended time - maybe an observation platform? but you could just put cameras on a smaller, cheaper balloon...

None of the proposed use cases make sense.

Another important niche could be responding to natural disasters like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and hurricanes.

This is a farcical pipe dream. How would it respond? It can't carry enough weight to be useful, and a helicopter would be faster and more flexible for delivering medical personnel or extracting victims. If there's one thing you want in emergency response, it's speed. And you certainly wouldn't take this thing anywhere near a recently erupted volcano or a hurricane because the air currents would be crazy hazardous for a lighter-than-air vehicle.

i bet they would milk the available space for every inch like they do on planes lol

Not a chance. If you're paying for air freight it's because you need something delivered now. If you don't need it fast, then train/truck shipping is more cost effective.

While Pathfinder 1 can carry about four tons of cargo in addition to its crew, water ballast and fuel, future humanitarian airships will need much larger capacities.

By comparison, the Airbus A350-900 has a payload capacity of 53 tons, and the newer A350F version can carry 111 tons.

Even if they manage to triple the payload capacity, the A350F can carry 10x the weight.

Stupid, naturally safe helium!

Right now, plenty of places with no infrastructure usually just don't get developed. So this would open the door to some places. And who do you think would want to go to such places. The very rich. So you can charge a whole lot to get them the cargo they want. That is how things with small market can make ridiculous amounts of money.

And disaster relief is for PR. But with all the connections he has, I am sure he will be able to get governments or even private backers to pony up money to send the blimp into a disaster area because it is hugely visisble and makes those people look like they are helping.

Helium isn’t exactly an abundant resource either, is it? I’m all for a future with a sky dotted with airships, but how could you possibly scale this up?

The article says it can carry about 4 tons of cargo on top of the requirements to run the thing, but that's for Pathfinder 1. I'm trying to think of an actual real world use case for these. Outside of tours that carry around 50 adult passengers with no belongings, I don't see the practicality of it.