Picture looking up and seeing something the size of the Empire State Building gliding silently through the clouds. It’s not a jumbo jet or Starship. It’s a blimp carrying as much cargo as 200 semi-trucks.
A team of former SpaceX engineers recently founded Airship Industries to bring these gentle giants of the sky to life. Here’s what they’ll look like.
Source: Airship Industries
Airship Industries' goal is to build self-flying airships that will deliver cargo faster than boats, cheaper than planes, and with no need for airports. Its success would revolutionize world trade, like shipping containers did in the '60s.
While airplanes must constantly burn fuel to maintain flight, airships float naturally using lighter-than-air gas, like a giant balloon. Unlike planes, which get less efficient as they get larger, airships become more efficient with size. The physics work in their favor.
Think of today's shipping headaches. Ships crawl across seas for weeks, burning dirty fuel. Planes fly fast (not as fast as they could) but cost a fortune. Trucks jam our highways. Each option forces goods through a maze of warehouses, ports, and transfer points.
Airships promise the speed of air freight with dramatically lower costs and direct door-to-door delivery. Picture one hovering above a factory. It lowers a winch to collect cargo, then floats silently across the ocean to deliver goods straight to their destination. No ports, no truck transfers, no delays. No unionized longshoremen.
Airships will also be able to go anywhere. Remote mining sites that currently depend on endless truck convoys could receive a week's worth of supplies in a single airship delivery. A family moving overseas could ship their belongings in days instead of months, at a fraction of today's costs. I could’ve used this. When planning my move to Abu Dhabi, movers quoted us $2,500 and a 22-week delivery time just to ship three boxes of kids’ toys.
Airships will use 75% less fuel than cargo planes, which means cheaper shipping and cleaner air. These giant blimps should be able to carry up to 500 tons of cargo in a single trip. That’s double what today’s largest planes can haul.
The Hindenburg was the largest airship ever built, stretching longer than three Boeing 747s. But it tragically ended in flames in 1937.
Source: Wikipedia
Today's designs are radically safer, using modern materials and advanced technology.
These vessels easily pass the “eight-year-old kid awe test.” Show an eight-year-old kid a giant airship floating through the clouds and their eyes will light up with wonder.
The story behind Airship Industries shows how ideas take flight. Last year my friend and Abundance Institute Chief Economist Eli Dourado wrote an essay titled Cargo airships could be big.
James Coutre, former lead designer of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets, was inspired by the vision and decided to make it reality. He founded Airship Industries months later!
This is an important reason why we share bold ideas at the Rational Optimist Society. You never know when a genius will take your idea and use it to change the world.
Eli told me the first cargo airships could be crossing our oceans within a few years. They'll be more than just cargo carriers; they'll be floating symbols of human ingenuity. I can’t wait for the first test flight!
The doctor on your wrist will see you now
My doctor told me how I was likely to die.
Heart disease.
Nothing personal, just a numbers game. Cardio diseases like heart attacks and strokes are the No. 1 killer worldwide. They claim more lives than cancer, accidents, and respiratory diseases combined.
The cruel irony is heart disease is largely preventable. Keep your cholesterol in check. Control your blood pressure. Exercise regularly. Yet millions of us will die from heart disease because we don't catch it in time.
Now imagine a different future where catching deadly diseases is as easy as checking your phone. My friend Olivier got a glimpse of this future.
His Fitbit buzzed one morning, warning him about an irregular heartbeat. The watch caught a hidden heart problem that required minor surgery. Without that alert, a small issue could have become fatal.
The new Apple Watch is already a mini hospital on your wrist. It tracks heart rate, blood oxygen, temperature, and even takes ECGs. Recent AI breakthroughs will take this technology from “cool” to “revolutionary.”
Boston University researchers recently built an AI system which predicts if someone is at risk of developing Alzheimer’s, with 80% accuracy, by simply analyzing their speech. And it can do it up to six years before symptoms arise!
AI is like an ultra-fast computer. It “ingests” mind-bending amounts of medical data then connects the dots to offer new ideas that would take humans a lifetime to discover.
This AI system was likely trained on many hours of speech recordings from people who later developed Alzheimer's. The AI identifies subtle patterns, then uses this to analyze new voice samples and estimate the likelihood of developing the disease.
Within five years we’ll be wearing expert doctors on our wrists. Each morning, your watch will scan your eyes, record your voice, and measure dozens of vital signs. An AI doctor analyzes this data alongside your medical history and lifestyle patterns. It spots dangerous trends weeks or months before they become emergencies.
The AI flags concerning changes and tells you when to see a human doctor. No more not knowing until it's too late.
The iPhone absorbed cameras, CD players, and radios into a single device. The same transformation is coming to healthcare. That bulky hospital equipment will shrink into a powerful medical sensor on your wrist.
Source: Reddit
The technology exists today—it just needs to be refined. Within a few years, we could all have an AI early warning system monitoring our health 24/7.
Think about a world where we easily catch heart disease before it becomes deadly. A world where getting vital health information is as easy as checking the time.
The future of healthcare isn't in hospitals. It's on your wrist.
The night markets beat the corporate media
Two different screens told two very different stories on the night of the US election.
On TV, CNN pundits talked about a "tight race" that was "too close to call." Then I pulled up Polymarket, the world’s biggest prediction market, on my phone.
While the corporate media was busy with their TV pageantry... cold, hard numbers told a different story. Trump's odds of winning on Polymarket jumped to 97% by midnight.
Polymarket watchers knew the election was likely over hours before any major network even called a single swing state.
Source: @Polymarket on X
Prediction markets are like a giant collective brain where people bet real money on future events. Unlike polls where people face no consequences for being wrong, bad calls mean losing money in prediction markets.
Earlier this year I had lunch with economist Robin Hanson who built the first corporate prediction market 30+ years ago. Talk about a visionary. The 2024 US election was prediction markets’ “coming out moment.” Over $3.5 billion was wagered on Polymarket alone.
It transformed the election experience. If you wanted to know what was really happening this time around, you simply checked Polymarket. Watching cable TV felt antiquated compared to the instant clarity of market prices.
There’s a long history of smart people using alternative data to “beat the market.” Hedge funds used to analyze satellite images of Walmart parking lots to predict the company’s future earnings.
Prediction markets hand you these kinds of forecasting superpowers for everything.
Want to know if China might invade Taiwan? Check the odds. Curious who is favored to win the Super Bowl? There's a market for that. Wonder what 2024’s highest-grossing movie will be? Someone's probably betting on it right now.
There’s an old saying in finance: “Don’t tell me what you think, just tell me what’s in your portfolio.” Talk is cheap, just show me where you've put your own money.
Prediction markets help turn elusive guesses into actionable insights. When billions of dollars are at stake, it turns out the truth has a way of emerging quickly. In a world drowning in hot takes and manufactured drama, that's something worth betting on.
Opinion polls, with their sad 5% response rates, are dying. Watch as the phrase "Polymarket that" enters our vocabulary, shorthand for "let's see what the smart money thinks."
By the way… this was only possible because of a legal earthquake that shook Washington weeks before the election.
For decades, election betting lived in a strange gray zone in America. Not illegal, but not quite legal either. Bureaucrats at three-letter agencies declared "because we said so" and blocked these markets, wielding a powerful legal doctrine called the Chevron Deference.
After Chevron got repealed, prediction markets startup Kalshi marched into federal court with a simple argument: "Show us the actual law that bans election betting.”
The judge agreed and legalized election betting markets in America. In plain English he said, “Either get Congress to pass a real law, or get out of the way."
The first of many Chevron-related wins for the innovators!
Hey, you don’t have to wait until the end of the week for good news.
Follow us on X and check out our podcast for regular updates.
Writer: Stephen McBride: https://x.com/DisruptionHedge
Editor: Dan Steinhart: https://x.com/dan_steinhart
Rational Optimist Society: https://x.com/RationalOptSoc