In 1911 American airship pioneer Melvin Vaniman built the Akron, a hydrogen-filled, Goodyear Blimp-size craft in which he and his crew intended to be the first to fly across the Atlantic.

FORBES: The long, loud history of hydrogen as a motor fuel.

Nowadays, behind Skunk Works' highly secure perimeter, engineers reportedly are working on the aviation wonders of tomorrow, including a lightweight cargo plane called the X-55A and a bizarre, blimp-like airship called the P-791 Hybrid Air Vehicle, which has special technology that allows it to take off and land just about anywhere.

CNN: Where planes go to die

We also watched sustainable transportation soar to new heights this week as the world's first solar-powered blimp prepares to fly across the English Channel.

ENGADGET: Inhabitat's Week in Green: a US team wins the Solar Decathlon!

Campaigners gathered at the site in Ford, near Aylesbury, to release the airship-shaped "blimp" to the turbine's 99m height.

BBC: Beds, Herts & Bucks

The blimps, which can be a quarter of the size of the 192-foot-long Goodyear blimp, have become an increasingly valuable tool for soldiers, who are able to monitor the information from the nearby bases.

WSJ: Battlefield Blimps to Patrol U.S.-Mexico Borders

Y. art collective, a remote-controlled gray blimp that hovered ominously over the ferry on the way to New Jersey and a cheeky presentation from ICQ founder Yossi Vardi on why excessive heat from laptops seriously impairs male gonads and is the root of population decline in certain nations of the developed world.

FORBES: Magazine Article

The US Army's not-so-secret Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) spy blimp is better at staying hidden than we thought... if unintentionally.

ENGADGET: US Army's LEMV spy blimp spotted hovering over New Jersey, may take up cargo duties (video)

The war years saw him work on the prosthetics used to transform Roger Livesey into a balding, pot-bellied blusterer in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.

BBC: Star Wars make-up artist Stuart Freeborn dies aged 98