14 DAY TRIAL // It looks like we have a competition on our hands between the Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. After it was revealed that Larry Page has a flying-car that's a crossover between a helicopter and a Jet Sky bearing the name Kitty Hawk, it has now surfaced that Brin may very well have his own airship in a NASA hangar.
According to reports from Bloomberg, which cite four people familiar with the project, Sergey Brin is reportedly building a sort of dirigible in a hangar at the NASA Ames Research Center, right next door to Google's headquarters.
As Bloomberg notes, it's unclear at this point if Brin intends to make a business out of his aircraft, like Page does, or if it's just a pet project of his. Brin, for his part, refused to comment on the topic.
A life-long passion
It seems Brin has always been fascinated with airships, one of them being the USS Macon, a huge airship built by the US Navy. Three years ago, people familiar with the project said, Brin decided to build a similar one.
In 2015, Planetary Ventures, a Google unit, took over the hangars at Ames from NASA, turning them into laboratories. Brin's zeppelin-like aircraft is being built there, with the engineers having constructed a metal skeleton of the aircraft already.
The project is reportedly being led by Alan Weston, former director of programs at NASA Ames, a man with a background in the Air Forces. He has previously expressed an interest in building a massive airship that could be more fuel-efficient than planes, but which could carry heavy loads. Weston described a prototype of a helium-based craft he was considering, which may very well be what's hidden in those hangars.
It should be pointed out that Brin's new project is separate from Calcifer, a Google X project that was shelved years ago.