The blimp would be used for humanitarian missions.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin reportedly has plans to build a $100 million-plus blimp.
It would be the largest aircraft in the world and would be used for humanitarian missions, getting supplies, food and other necessities to hard-to-reach areas around the globe, according to the Guardian. Known to love dirigibles, Brin would use the blimp, which could cost as much as $150 million, for personal travel, too.
Google could not immediately be reached for comment.
The Brin blimp will use internal bladders to control its lightweight body, the Guardian reported, and helium — not hydrogen, which was the initial plan — will be the gas used to lift it, due to Federal Aviation Administration’s rules about flammability.
Last month, Bloomberg reported that Brin was building an airship at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., the same city, where Google’s parent company, Alphabet, is based.
In the 1930s, the Ames’s Hangar One was one home to the Navy dirigible, the USS Macon, according to its Web site.
Google’s Planetary Ventures leases 1,000-plus acres from Ames, though this blimp project is Brin’s, not the company’s, the Guardian reported,
Zeppelins were a very popular form of transportation in the 1930s, though that ended with the Hindenberg disaster in 1937.
Follow USA TODAY reporter Zlati Meyer on Twitter: @ZlatiMeyer
