Mention the word airships to just about anyone with an interest in aviation and their first thought will be of the 1937 disaster that saw the hydrogen-filled airship, the Hindenburg explode into flames killing 35 people.

While the concept of airships like the Hindenburg was destroyed following that accident there has been a dedicated group of people over the years who have tried to overcome the hurdles that were inherent with the Hindenburg; and it would seem that the modern version of the airship may just see a rebirth.

A company in England by the name of Hybrid Air Vehicles, which was founded in 2007, have announced that they have won two critical commercial victories. The first is a $517 million contract, along with Northrop Grumman to supply a Long-Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) for the US Army to be deployed in Afghanistan starting in 2012.

The second, and maybe more important, deal is the one where Discovery Air Innovations of Canada will be buying a number the bigger brother to the LEMV that are capable of lifting 50 tons and making way at 100 knots (115 mph). All this and at greatly reduced cost which will be the selling point for Discovery Air Innovations as they plan to provide economical cargo service to the far north of Canada, areas where standard transportation is impossible or costs are extremely high.

While we might consider these as being airships they are in fact more of a hybrid:

These are not the cigar-shaped gas-filled ‘balloons’ of yesteryear but hi-tech semi-rigid lifting bodies that rely on vectored thrust from onboard engines and the aero-lift from the body shape for up to 40 percent of their lifting capacity with helium providing the rest. In addition, the use of pontoons on the underside of the hull that feature hovercraft-like skirts and driven fans means that that the aircraft can land on earth, concrete or water without ground crew.

via GizMag

If this works out I think all those crazy ice road truckers will be looking for other ways to kill themselves.

From the shadow of the Hindenburg modern airships are making their way from drawing board to reality is a post from: The Inquisitr

It might only be wave packets of light but scientists at the University of Tokyo have completed the first ever teleportation of a complex set of quantum information from one point to another.

Where this gets exciting, and makes Schrodinger’s cat feel a little safer, it that it will make possible high-speed, high-fidelity transmissions of volumes of information via communication networks.

Professor Elanor Huntington, of the School of Engineering and Information Technology at UNSW’s Canberra campus, explains that teleportation – the transfer of quantum information from one location to another using normal, “classical” communications – is a fundamental quantum communication technique.

“It relies on having two things,” she said.

“One is the normal fibre-optic internet or even copper cables, and the other is a shared resource between the sender and the receiver, that could have been shared at any time in the past: we call that entanglement.”

Professor Huntington says the idea of quantum teleportation has been around for about 10 years, but has been difficult to put into practice.

“There used to be two ways of doing teleportation and both had their limitations,” she said.

“One was quite fast, but had a limited probability of succeeding. The other way of doing it was quite slow, but had a very good probability of working.

“What we’ve done is managed to get it both fast and good quality.”

via ABC Australia

Now if we could just get that as the next generation replacement for broadband we’d be talking some serious high-speed Internet.

[Damn Cool Dept.] Teleportation around the corner – maybe is a post from: The Inquisitr

Around 5,000 people, according to Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, die every years due to using cell phones while driving. He feels it is so bad that the government may have to step in and required the installation of devices to disable cell phones while the car is in motion.

In an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe show LaHood had this to say

“I think it will be done,” said LaHood. “I think the technology is there and I think you’re going to see the technology become adaptable in automobiles to disable these cell phones. We need to do a lot more if were going to save lives.”

via Daily Caller

These statements are in tandem with a new program being launched by the transportation department’s Faces of Distracted Driving which is an online campaign meant to scaring drivers away from using cell phones while driving.

Sec. of Transportation on rampage, could include disabling cell phones in vehicles is a post from: The Inquisitr

As transportation cost go up a lot of people are looking at alternatives and when it comes to living in metropolitan areas bicycles are at the top of the list. The big problem with them though is where to you park then, safely, once you get to your destination after all most bike racks out there are bent steel racks of pure ugly. That is of course there is even a bike rack to be found since most businesses aren’t overly inclined to install them around their premises.

Bike Arc is aiming to change that with some really modern looking rack systems that defy traditional concepts of bicycle racks. Using a modular system the company can install different designs depending on the needs of the business and the location. The Rac Arc is low profile, the Umbrella Arc is a space saver (see video below), while the Tube Arc and the Half Arc protect bikes from the elements.

Futuristic looking bike racks here today is a post from: The Inquisitr

Pretty well since the 1950’s the US has been considered the ‘land of the automobile’ and by extension from that the ‘land of highways’. The Interstate highway system has long been held up as a shining example of transportation done right. The only problem is that only applies if you have cheap gas and a plentiful supply of automobiles.

As our world becomes more ‘green conscious’, more by necessity than desire it should be pointed out, there is a growing shift in thought away from sprawling suburbs, three car garages and highways as far as the eye can see. While much of the US transportation department is centered around the Highway Trust Fund and the upkeep of existing highway systems there seems to be a radical shift in attitude since the election of Barak Obama.

Leading the change, or rather being a partner in the change, is U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood. Along with U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson we are seeing for the first time a shift away from maintenance to one of involvement. The partnership between the three agencies alone is a radical shift in thinking which the outlined both on the DOT website and before Congress

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan, and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson today announced an interagency Partnership for Sustainable Communities to help improve access to affordable housing, more transportation options, and lower transportation costs while protecting the environment in communities nationwide.

Testifying together at a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing chaired by U.S. Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Secretary LaHood, Secretary Donovan and Administrator Jackson outlined the six guiding ‘livability principles’ they will use to coordinate federal transportation, environmental protection, and housing investments at their respective agencies.

When asked by Amanda Ruggeri in a recent interview for U.S. News & World Report whether this point in time was a watershed moment for transportation LaHood replied

I think the term really is "transformational." The things we have in our part of the economic recovery are not just highways and bridges. It’s transit. It’s airports. It’s $8 billion for high-speed rail. And I also think it’s some opportunities that we have to promote livable communities.

This idea of livable communities is a constant theme of LaHood’s, both in interviews and on his own personal DOT blog. It is also one of the changes that we are seeing in the thinking of all three agencies as they begin to work together. As Kaid Benfield, Director of Smart Growth Program, pointed out in a post on the NRDC Switchboard blog – this is a big thing

I wrote about the announcement then – emphasizing the agencies’ intention to "have every major metropolitan area in the country conduct integrated housing, transportation, and land use planning and investment."  You’d be surprised how few regions do this now.  In defiance of logic, land use and transportation are considered independently, and the results of that are all too apparent on our chaotic landscape and soaring carbon emissions from driving.  This in itself was big.

This culture of driving is often seen, or considered to be as some sort of inalienable right in the US. Our vehicles are seen as status symbols, the distance we have to travel to work as some sort of badge of honor. Slowly though this attitude seems to be changing and surprisingly the government seems to be willing to take a leading role. As LaHood said in the Amanda Ruggeri interview when asked about this shift

We’ve spent three decades building an interstate system. We’ve put almost all of our resources into the interstate system. This is a transformational president, and the department is following the president’s lead. People haven’t really been thinking about these things. They have been thinking about how to build roads, how to build interstates, how to build bridges. People now are thinking differently about where they want to live, how they want to live, and how they want to be able to get around their communities.

Unfortunately, as with all things governmental it seems, this sea change of how transportation is being dealt with may be a lot slower than some would hope. As Jesse Fox on Treehugger points out more pressing issues like healthcare may stall any serious overhaul

However, for the moment anyway, it appears that such a serious legislative overhaul will have to wait. Apparently preferring to save its political leverage for the coming battles over health care and climate legislation, the Obama Administration is likely to support extending existing transportation legislation for another year and a half – effectively pushing off the new bill until then.

One can only hope that the will and backbone to make serious changes will still be there when the time comes, or will political expediency and power broking win out again?

[pictures of Sec. LaHood courtesy of his Fast Lane blog]

A state of transition for the US ‘land of highways’ is a post from: The Inquisitr

When Phoenix first started laying out plans for their modern light rail system they were only projecting some 25,000 weekly riders. It turns out that since they opened up a 20 mile line with 28 stops last December they’ve been seeing a ridership of 40,000 per week instead. this ridership is beating all the forecasts which would seem to indicate that there is more of a desire for public light rail transportation than previously thought.

The current rail line (the dark purple in the graphic – courtesy of Treehugger) actually goes through 3 cities: Phoenix, Mesa, and Tempe. The dotted purple line is the North-West extension that is scheduled to open sometime on 2012, as well one extension planned might include Glendale as well.

Here is a short video courtesy of StreetFilms highlighting the light rail system. You might also note that they have included bike racks on the cars in order to encourage multiple forms of travel as well.

Could Phoenix show a bigger desire for public rail than we think? is a post from: The Inquisitr

There is a new bus service starting up that will connect Marin County, San Francisco and San Jose but this isn’t your city transit type of service. In an effort to get people out of their high end cars for that commute back and forth to work Bauer’s Intelligent Transportation will be using the same tricked out rides normally used for corporate clients.

These are buses with padded leather seats, television screens, free Wi-Fi and power plugs for laptops, not to mention the having coffee and breakfast available for purchase and served by a ride host. As well you can get that war and fuzzy feeling about helping out the environment as the buses use biofuels and drivers are trained in green driving skills. Of course all this green goodness doesn’t come cheap but at $8.20 one way it probably works out cheaper that hauling yourself around in that Lexus or Mercedes.

Bauer is banking on the buses’ amenities and atmosphere. The kind of customer his company is targeting, he says, isn’t interested in the utilitarian buses and trains of existing mass-transit systems. In addition, Wi-Drive goes places that Caltrain and BART don’t, such as Larkspur.

Right now, those people are driving to work, Bauer said, with their cars adding a little bit every day to global warming. If he can fill each 52-seat bus with former car commuters, each bus will prevent 1,310 tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere every year, he said.

Source: SFGate.com

I wonder if they ever find gum under the seats?

Ditch the Lexus for a bus with first class goodness is a post from: The Inquisitr