Paul Goble
Staunton, July 9 – Faced with a shortage of railways and highways, especially in the northern and eastern regions of the Russian Federation, Moscow is now placing its hopes for a reliable means to export bulk cargo like goal on a fleet of dirigibles which it plans to have in place within a decade.
While the cost of moving a ton of coal by dirigible is estimated to be about 20 percent higher than moving it by train or truck, using dirigibles makes sense, Russian experts say, because many of the largest deposits of minerals are far from rail and highway networks and those would be prohibitively expensive to build (eastrussia.ru/material/gruzite-dirizhablyami/).
The dirigibles now on the drafting board would carry 50 percent to 200 percent more cargo than even the largest Russian aircraft, and they could land near mines far from rail or highway links. As a result, Moscow views them as important tools to overcome its problems with rail, highway, and even air links.
Backers of the project say that dirigibles will also be used to move consumer goods to people in distant locations, to establish high-speed internet connectivity in Siberia and the Far East, and to assist in mapping and other scientific pursuits, including the development of the Vostochny space launch base.
Skeptics suggest that this may prove to be a major boondoggle, yet another means of transferring government money into the hands of oligarch allies of the Kremlin and note that Moscow in the 1930s had a large dirigible fleet but gave it up because of the problems of producing enough helium.
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