Link: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/10/trans-pacific-journey-tested-stratospheric-cell-tower-concept-in-japan/

It seems with an unmanned airship they should be using hydrogen for the ~8% increased payload capacity.

Not that this is an amazing article, but the question is, how is this different than Loon and more likely to succeed? Loon LLC CEO Alastair Westgarth said the company could not find a way "to get the costs low enough to build a long-term, sustainable business"

This was the company that not only deployed high altitude stratosphere balloons, but managed to map high altitude wind currents at the point where they could navigate balloons without propulsion systems and used LTE to successfully cover various parts of the Earth.

My guess would be a Japanese government subsidy.

Not just to boost the payload, but to reduce the wastage of literally irreplaceable helium as well. It's a completely non-renewable resource and there are other applications that there are no substitutes for (such as coolant).

They're a relic of the preAI tech boom and vestergaurd, the same guy that does lifestraw, has enough money and connections to go for a long time without any feasibility. Sunk cost.

Irreplaceable how? If I'm not mistaken helium is one of the most abundant elements right after hydrogen.

Not on earth

Cosmically abundant, but not abundant on Earth. Or any terrestrial planet, for that matter. The problem is that helium is both extremely light and chemically inert, so it quickly escapes into space from any celestial body smaller than a gas giant. Earth lost all of its helium almost immediately after it formed.

The helium that it does have is stuff that was produced deep in Earth's interior as a result of radioactive decay. When an atom releases an alpha particle as part of a radioactive decay chain, that's a helium nucleus. The helium seeps upward through the crust and gets trapped as a contaminant of certain natural gas pockets. The helium we harvest industrially is extracted from those particular natural gas wells as a byproduct of four billion years of radioactive decay. When it gets released into the atmosphere - such as when it's used in a party balloon or blimp - it disperses into the upper atmosphere and is lost to space. One use, then it's gone forever. Eventually those natural reservoirs it's being extracted from will run dry and that'll be it - no more helium available on Earth.

I really hate party balloons. What an utterly ridiculous waste.

I'd like to see someone get these working: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_airship

Helium is not extracted from the air