Posted by crescit_eundo 3 days ago
I'd say... contrary, allowing smoking in a dedicated controlled place was the safer option. The real danger was not allowing smoking because if you ban smoking, people will smoke no matter if it's banned - and back then, there were a looooot more smokers, so a loooooot more opportunities for someone to behave utterly braindead.
That's also why every modern airplane to this day has ashtrays in the lavatory. There WILL be someone smoking at some point, and better provide them with a safe option to discard the butt than risk having the person throw the butt in the trash bin where it can set the waste ablaze.
https://simpleflying.com/why-airplnes-ashtrays-lavatories
https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2026/04/28/airplane-as...
“Why are you reading out numbers to me like I am an old man”
This same concept is why full prohibition never works. People who want to do something will find a way and it often comes at the cost of being more harmful to society than if they were allowed to do it in a controlled environment.
Makes sense, "problem" is a human invention and without humans on the planet, there wouldn't really be any problems anymore.
Maybe. They had diesel engines, 240 Volt and 24 Volt electric generators, 200 Watt battery powered radio transmitter, backup radio transmitter, a 5.7 million candle power searchlight, an electric oven and hob galley. It's not like there were no risk of heat or combustion anywhere else on the airship.
- being early in the days of flying. One airship disaster (the British R101) was the airship being extended, not tested carefully, and rushed into service for a political deadline. Another had the vents sealed shut so it hit its altitude ceiling. The Graf Zeppelin was one of the safest aircraft ever flown - a million miles without accident in the 1930s when aeroplanes were crashing a lot. Even the Hindenburg disaster killed 35 people, most of its passengers and crew survived.
- Using cow intestines stitched together by hand to make the Hydrogen lift cells. The stitching leaves holes which could let air mix with the lift gas.
- Many airship accidents were related to mooring, and having humans grab onto mooring lines and having humans try to pull a 7 million cubic foot balloon against the wind and that going wrong.
If we can now do high pressure Hydrogen powered cars, tanks of it in gas stations in urban areas and Hydrogen powered aircraft, and people think that can be safe, we ought to be able to achieve room temperature and pressure airship lift gas with it more safely than they could in the 1920s.
"The passenger accommodation aboard Hindenburg was contained within the hull of the airship (unlike Graf Zeppelin, whose passenger space was located in the ship’s gondola)."