Starships Were Meant To Fly Hands Up And Touch The Sky

As we begin to imagine the global travel industry post-Covid, airships are uniquely placed to deliver on our shopping list of 21st-century demands.

- Mitchell Oakley Smith

In Philip Pullman’s trilogy of fantasy novels, His Dark Materials, and later in the 2019 television series by the same name, Zeppelins lined the sky in Lyra’s world. One of the many parallel universes in the multiverse, Zeppelins—based on the dirigible balloons we know as blimps or airships—replaced planes as the main form of air transportation, with the company National Ærobus operating across what is known as Brytain. Though while His Dark Materials does not conform to any specific period of history, airships were originally pioneered as early as the 17th century, becoming more common as a form of transport in the early 20th century, as the Brits, Germans and Americans expanded their development of rigid forms for Atlantic-crossing adventures.

Of course, the spectacular and fatal Hindenburg disaster—one of the first widely broadcast tragedies of its kind—put an abrupt end to the prospering airship era of the interwar period, having shattered public confidence in the passenger-carrying blimps. For most today, our understanding of blimps is that of advertising banners that float above major sports games—Goodyear Tires being their main client —or for more covert military and surveillance operations.