Keep WFMU Aloft! [SLYT / MetaFodder / Helium Huffing / Absolute Zero Freezing / Suffocation in Deep Space] [more inside]
posted by ZenMasterThis on Nov 29, 2010 - 32 comments

Tyler Cowen wonders if there will be a helium crisis. Nobel Prize Winner Robert Richardson says Yes, because in 1996 Congress passed an act requiring that this strategic reserve, which represents half the Earth's helium stocks, be sold off by 2015. As a result, helium is far too cheap and is not treated as a precious resource. The problem has been around for years. Most helium is NOT used for balloons but rather in industry, and in the US most helium comes from a few natural gas fields in the mountain states.Only 15 commercial plants worldwide have the ability to separate helium from other gases and to purify it. [Previously, see also LHC Accident]
posted by Blake on Aug 20, 2010 - 45 comments

Les grands ballons de Macy's
posted by vronsky on Nov 26, 2009 - 16 comments

SLYT: Professor Savage shows how the density of various gases will affect your voice in different ways... the fun way (by inhaling them). [more inside]
posted by chuckdarwin on Oct 15, 2008 - 51 comments

BBC: Hadron Collider forced to halt. An underground tunnel fault released one ton of liquid helium, which had been acting as coolant, into the tunnels of the Large Hadron Collider, causing 100 supercooled magnets to heat up by an extra 100°C and then fail. Vacuum was lost as well.
posted by WCityMike on Sep 19, 2008 - 50 comments

Worldwide helium shortage results in pricey Thanksgiving Day Parades. Was selling off the National Helium Reserve a mistake, or was PJ O'Rourke right in calling the reserve "Amazingly stupid, even by Government standards"?
posted by selfmedicating on Nov 21, 2007 - 45 comments

LBJ and the helium filled astronaut. In 1964, the Skylab project wanted to send a phone call to the president. They had a hard time convincing the operators to put the call through. (g2 real audio link from npr) But today, 2 college students in florida discovered that helium can be dangerous.
posted by pyramid termite on Jun 4, 2006 - 24 comments

Larry's U.S. Navy Airship Picture Book. No longer available in paper, but still with us in bits. Lawrence F. Rodrigues served in the Navy, in Airship Squadron 3, out of Lakehurst NAS, beginning in 1953. This website presents photos and memories of his service days. It's fascinating.

As a bonus, you may wish to read up on the Details of Modern Airship Construction, ca. 1927, or to return to Dannysoar's site to observe the plans for a twelve-foot model helium-lofted rubber-band powered flying stick-and-tissue dirigible (scroll down a bit).

Up Ship!

didn't someone end a post with those words this year? Google didn't raise hide nor hair of it for me...
posted by mwhybark on Jul 4, 2004 - 3 comments

August Strindberg & Helium. In 1978, the artist and writer Edward Gorey met the members of Monty Python at a fort in Tunisia. The group was in the process of filming The Life of Brian. Although Gorey contributed little to the finished product, the British troupe's impact on him was sizable. In the twenty years that followed, Gorey slowly retired from civilization. Since 1996, he has been studying Macromedia Flash. Strindberg & Helium is the result.
posted by Marquis on Sep 24, 2002 - 36 comments