An aphorism is a brief, memorable phrase which provides wisdom and guidance, such as "Early to Bed, Early to Rise, Makes a Man Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise". Even the people who coin these phrases often don't live by them; we understand that Ben Franklin, who first offered that advice, was a bit of a late night skirt chaser. Still, it's often good advice for those of us venturing into unfamiliar fields.
Here's an example by Voltaire, a famous French writer, of value to those in technological fields : "The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good" . It may well summarize the difficulties that airship professionals are having getting the field moving, getting it accepted, transforming theory into practice.
Airship producers need to do a real job of marketing, not just design and manufacture .
We can imagine the underlying frustration when, after Dr. Barry Prentice produced several successful Conferences , everyone looked at each other and agreed, "Yes, yes, that's what needs to be done" ... but we still don't see a sky swarming with airships.
Worse, we still have people writing comments to Internet blogs that say "If blimps were any good, someone would have built them by now"... OR "What about the Hindenburg disaster?"... OR "Yeah ! Huge moving targets that can be shot down by a blind man with a BB gun" ---- actual quotes within the last year or so in Forum Comments.
Although conventional aircraft, after 100 years of development, are understood to still be vulnerable to accidents, any one of which leave more people dead than the 35 people who perished in the Hindenburg, there is still the general understanding that "I'm not going up in one of those things; you burn to death, don't ya know"... or the distinction between hydrogen and helium is totally ignored, or the assurances of a highly qualified German engineer that "During the (World Wars), there were more hydrogen-filled airships built than helium. During the war more helium airships were lost to fire than hydrogen airships !"
Apparently the standard for these new-fangled (still, after 150 years of development) contraptions is much higher than for most other forms of transportation. The public's co-efficient of patience is much lower for airships.
Hearing about dozens of examples of high technology examples operating faultlessly in combat zones; in military operations against submarines off our coasts all through World War II; providing security for recent Olympic Games; being deployed in law enforcement uses by many countries world-wide; NONE of that registers (good descriptive word, that) with the General Public.
Another aphorism "Cui bono?", who benefits. We can truly say here, "No one benefits". Then why is this still such a mystery to the public; why is this not accepted yet? Why is some still-wet-behind-the-ears, shaggy-haired youngster accepted overnight as the New Singing Super Star, BUT people still don't accept blimps as anything more than an advertisement for automobile tires... and often still get the name of the company wrong ?
It would probably take a more perceptive group of psychologists and marketers than are currently operative to answer those questions. It is frustrating. However, I have some suggestions, if you will hear me out:
1. We tend to look to the past --- There are many more historic maritime museums than those given to public understanding of maritime transportation. Nostalgia "sells". Almost all airship museums and organizations relive the past Glory Days of the Great Zeppelins.
2. The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good --- we tend to want instant perfection of any new invention, not realizing how long the process of correcting all the small imperfections in anything we use every day has taken.
3. Military services are practical. Lives are at stake, and they work with the most advanced technologies possible, without regard for nostalgia. They leave that to the veterans' organizations. That's why they are providing the leadership --- along with DARPA --- in adopting these new technologies. But funding --- determined by our legislators --- fails to follow suit.
4. You'll notice that newsstands in airports don't carry magazines that feature articles with titles like "Great Airplane Disasters of the Past Twenty Years". I frankly don't know whether they pull all newspapers with headlines like that immediately after a crash, but we wouldn't be surprised.
5. These same newspapers don't carry articles on "Significant Advances in Dirigible Technology" . That doesn't blend easily with the advertising they're trying to sell. They would much rather expend valuable column space on Lindsay Lohan's latest escapade or the Octomom.
6. Our education system --- such as it is, such as it tries to be --- rarely puts history into perspective. This may be a function of the education (training?) that teachers get.
Well, you get the idea. I say, "Respect the past, but look to the future". Maybe we need to design the computer games that captivate young kids to portray airships as exciting vehicles of the future, with all the pertinent explosions, gore, and muscular heroes attending, and we may be on to something.
"Airship excitement; your trip to the future at your local airport" ---- now there's an aphorism worth repeating.
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