Airships of US ARMY are already on the Moon ?

Airships, blimps, aerostats, balloons, dirigibles, zeppelins – once aloft, these very different lighter-than-air (LTA) platforms look very much alike. They also tend to get lumped together with the worst LTA disaster in history, the fiery destruction of the German zeppelin Hindenburg as it was preparing to land at Lakehurst, N.J., on May 6, 1937.

That accident – which the majority of the 97 passengers and crew aboard survived – effectively ended what had been a highly successful and comparatively safe two decades of passenger, mail, and cargo service. The airborne ships carried thousands of passengers across Europe and to the United States and South America. In its two years of operations, the Hindenburg alone made more than 40 transatlantic crossings. Overall, it was a far less disastrous record than the history of ocean-going ships.

Airships also are the oft-forgotten heroes of World War II, floating above the ocean, on the lookout for Nazi submarines and other threats to Allied convoys. According to the U.S. Navy, of some 89,000 ships escorted by military blimps during the war, not one was lost to enemy action.

The government commissioned more than 150 blimps during World War II, some of which remained in service for the first decade or so of the Cold War, helping keep track of Soviet operations as part of the U.S. anti-submarine warfare (ASW) mission.

However, their inherent vulnerabilities and improving technologies on surface ships, submarines and ASW aircraft eventually led to the end of military airships, with the last retired from service by the U.S. Navy on Aug. 31, 1962. The Navy briefly considered bringing them back in the 1980s, but Congress canceled funding for the project in 1989. Several subsequent attempts to revive them also fell to the budget axe, including the Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) High-Altitude Airship (HAA) as recently as 2007.

New technologies and materials appear to be giving LTA yet another chance to return to service as a viable platform for military and homeland security applications. Unlike many earlier versions, however, the 21st century vehicle – at least in the near term – is seen as an unmanned platform, with primary missions of persistent intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and communications relay.

And while the Navy was the primary operator of airships in the past, the Army seems to have taken the lead now, looking at a variety of concepts, from low (10,000 feet) tethered to high altitude (60,000 feet) free-flying platforms. Which is not to say the Army is alone. The Air Force, Navy, DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), Coast Guard, Border Patrol, and a wide range of companies, large and small, also have indicated interest and, in some cases, are actively pursuing research and development (R&D) programs.
When the subject of LTA arises, the general public tends to think of either the Goodyear blimp, floating a few hundred feet above an outdoor sporting event, or the Hindenburg in flames. Unlike the latter, which was filled with highly volatile hydrogen, nearly all subsequent airships instead use the inert gas helium to provide lighter-than-air buoyancy.

Ongoing U.S. R&D programs include DARPA’s Integrated Sensor IS Structure (ISIS); the Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command’s (SMDC/AFSC) HiSentinel, High Altitude/Long Endurance Demonstrator (HALE-D), Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV), and Rapid Aerostat Initial Deployment (RAID); the Army Program Executive Office Missiles & Space Cruise Missile Defense Project Office’s Joint Land-attack cruise missile defense Elevated Netted Sensor System (JLENS). Some are follow-ons to previously canceled programs, such as HAA.

“From a DoD perspective, an airship can provide continuous communications on the battlefield and stare you don’t have today,” Rick Judy, a space systems analyst at SMDC/AFSC’s High Altitude Technology Division, said. “From a homeland security perspective, it could be used when communications are lost, as happened during Katrina, or on the border, for surveillance; so anywhere, CONUS or OCONUS, where there is a need for continuous stare or communications, designed for whatever the mission requirement and operating area may be.