# Global helium shortage **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 20, 2020, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-helium-shortage/923423 "2020-10-20T18:01:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 40
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2020, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-helium-shortage/923423/40 "2020-10-21T21:34:53Z")
> [@Bill\_Door](#): > > Sure, it sounds crazy, but if you don’t think about it too much it might work. Fun idea. And with interesting chemistry to boot. Count me in! Almost as fun as the vacuum balloons that keep being proposed that also almost work as long as we don’t think about it. > [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > Could anything be done nowadays to make hydrogen Zeppelins safer? From 2016: > [@Why no vacuum or hydrogen based airships?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-vacuum-or-hydrogen-based-airships/763811): > > I know that the Hindenburg clearly put a dent in people’s confidence in hydrogen’s usefulness in lighter than air travel, but that was a very long time ago, and there are still questions as to whether the hydrogen or the paint involved was responsible for that disaster. One would think that after th better part of a century, with new materials and technology that someone could engineer a way to use hydrogen safely in lighter than air travel. It weighs half of what helium does and is nowhere n… From 2017: > [@Have we been able to construct vacuum buoyant structures yet?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-been-able-to-construct-vacuum-buoyant-structures-yet/787114): > > If you build a structure that is simultaneously light enough and rigid enough to stand up to atmospheric pressure, you could suck out all the air and make it float. Have we developed the engineering prowess to make something like this yet? If not, how close are we and what are major engineering constraints that still limit us? --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-helium-shortage/923423)._