More military high-tech: “Return Of The Battle Blimps!”

“Operating at the edge of space, 21st century airships are the ultimate weapon in the war on international terrorism,” says Popular Mechanics’ Jim Wilson.

Of the thousands of men who volunteered to fight in the Civil War, none offered their services with the panache of Thaddeus Sobieski Constantine Lowe. Suspended beneath a hydrogen-filled balloon floating 500 ft. above Washington, D.C., Lowe sent this message to President Lincoln: ‘Sir, I take great pleasure in sending you this first dispatch ever telegraphed from an aerial station.’

More than 140 years after that afternoon on June 17, 1861, a new generation of high-altitude, heavy-lift airships is emerging. Equipped with sophisticated ground-tracking radar, and defended with laser cannons, these 21st century battle blimps could become a crucial weapon in the war on international terrorism. Hovering high above the fray for weeks on end, they could economically monitor enemy troops and point the laser designators that guide cruise missiles and smart bombs, released from ships and conventional warplanes, toward elusive moving targets.

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