[falcolas]

Helium is quite expensive right now. The US has stopped giving away the helium in its strategic reserves, and so the cost is now based in the reality of the cost to produce it.

The cost of helium is the reason you don't see the Goodyear blimps just floating around anymore.

As for the Hindenburg vs. Titanic: The titanic wasn't filmed going down. And the footage of a huge ball of fire with "Oh the humanity!" is a bit more dramatic than even the film representation of the Titanic sinking.

[yed]

Also ships already had a multi millennia history so one event wasn’t going to be as impactful on the industry as a whole.

[GDC7]

This right here.

Back when the first ships failed causing the death of all the occupants , human lives were just not worth much , so humans kept building ships.

And also mass media wasn't there yet, so there could be no way to massively distribute content of a ship sinking and all the bodies floating around.

Same thing with planes, had we discovered flight in the Middle Ages we would have loaded 100+ people in wooden planes as fast as humanely possible because of the enthusiasm for the new technology would have vastly surpassed the fear of being harmed by it.

[jaywalk]

> The cost of helium is the reason you don't see the Goodyear blimps just floating around anymore.

What are you talking about? The Goodyear blimps are still out and about providing video for major live TV broadcasts. It's not like they drain the helium and fill it back up each time it goes out.

[falcolas]

> It's not like they drain the helium

For what it's worth, I see six scheduled appearances in two cities, all in January and February of next year. That's not a lot, especially when I used to see them about 3-4 times a year out in Montana (AKA, the boonies).

> It's not like they drain the helium

No, but they naturally lose helium at a fairly regular rate, since there's no blimp envelope systems that can prevent all helium loss. RC blimps, as an example, lose about .5% to 1% of their helium daily. Commercial blimps appear to have a couple of months until they've lost their bouyancy.

EDIT: A single Goodyear blimp requires approximately 300 mcf (1mcf = 1,000 cubic feet) of helium, and helium prices are around $700 per mcf when sold in bulk. That puts a blimp's helium costs alone in the $200,000 range for a blimp that can carry 14 people.

Back in 2000, the price per mcf was in the $40 to $50 range.

[jaywalk]

They don't keep the schedule up to date on the website. Two of the three Goodyear blimps were up for TV broadcasts this past weekend, and every weekend since at least the beginning of September.