Google Co-founder Sergey Brin And His Secretive Airship Company

If Sergey Brin has anything to do with it, the future of humanitarian aid could come in the form of giant airships roaming the skies. 

Brin, the Google cofounder worth over $99 billion, has been working on a secretive airship company for over four years. Known as LTA Research and Exploration — “LTA” being short for “lighter than air” — the company got its start inside NASA’s Ames Research Center in 2017. Over the past four years, LTA Research has worked to bring its vision of zero-emission aircraft to life. 

Here’s where Brin’s interest in airships began and everything we know so far about his venture.

Brin has long had an affinity for all types of aircraft

Back in 2005, Brin and his Google cofounder, Larry Page, made an unusual purchase: a Boeing 767-200, a wide-body jet capable of carrying 180 passengers. The pair refurbished the plane to accommodate 50 passengers and serve as their executive jet, a far cry from the standard, and significantly smaller, Gulfstream jet typically favored by executives.

According to court documents that were later published by The Wall Street Journal, Page and Brin ended up arguing over what type of beds to put in the so-called “party plane,” and they also wanted to install features like hammocks and a cocktail lounge. 

Brin’s interest in aircraft extended beyond a company jet: In 2012, during the launch of Google Glass, Brin had a team of skydivers leaps from a Zeppelin hovering over San Francisco. The skydivers captured footage on the headset and Brin aired it live onstage. 

Brin also oversaw the development of various types of aircraft during his time at X, Google’s moonshot lab. Projects under the X umbrella included Loon, a way to deliver internet connectivity via balloons; Makani, which planned to provide electricity using kites; and Wing, a drone delivery project. Loon and Makani have since been shut down.

Brin started working on LTA while he was still president of Alphabet, Google’s parent company

According to a 2017 Bloomberg story by Ashlee Vance, Brin decided to build his own airship in 2014 after visiting the Ames Research Center, which is located near Google’s Mountain View, California, headquarters.

Ames was previously home to the USS Macon, a massive airship built by the US Navy in the 1930s — it was that airship that inspired Brin’s project, according to Bloomberg. The USS Macon, called “Queen of the Skies,” later crashed into the Pacific Ocean 45 miles off the coast of San Francisco, essentially ending the Navy’s airship program.

In 2017, Insider revealed that LTA had paid $131,000 to lease hangar space from Alphabet. The hangar was located at Moffett Field, a NASA airfield adjacent to Ames that’s currently operated by Google. 

In December 2019, Brin and Page stepped away from their duties at Alphabet.

LTA plans to build a massive, expensive airship

According to a 2017 report from The Guardian’s Mark Harris, the airship is expected to be nearly 200 meters long, equivalent to about 656 feet or nearly two football fields in length. By comparison, the infamous Hindenburg Zeppelin was 245 meters long, which is longer than three Boeing 747s. 

Sources told The Guardian that at the time, LTA was being funded by Brin himself, to the tune of over $100 million. It’s not clear, four years later, how much Brin has spent on the airships.