Google's Brin secretly builds massive airship

Palo Alto

LARRY Page has his flying cars. Sergey Brin shall have an airship. Mr Brin, the Google co-founder, has secretly been building a massive airship inside Hangar 2 at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) Ames Research Center, according to four people with knowledge of the project. It is unclear whether the craft, which looks like a zeppelin, is a hobby or something that Mr Brin hopes to turn into a business. "Sorry, I don't have anything to say about this topic right now," he wrote in an e-mail.

The sources familiar with the project said that Mr Brin has long been fascinated by airships. His interest in the crafts started when he would visit Ames, which is located next to Google parent Alphabet Inc's headquarters in Mountain View, California. In the 1930s, Ames was home to the USS Macon, a huge airship built by the US Navy. About three years ago, he decided to build one of his own after ogling old photos of the Macon.