Google Co-Founder Sergey Brin Secretly Building a Massive Airship Inside a NASA Hangar

USS Macon inside Hanger One at the Ames Research Center (NASA/Ames Research Center)

The secret is out: Sergey Brin, a co-founder of Google, has been covertly working on an airship inside a NASA hangar in California—but the purpose of the zeppelin-like aircraft has yet to be revealed.

The clandestine endeavor is underway in Hangar 2 at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Bloomberg reports. The airship has been in development since 2015. Only the skeleton’s been built so far, but it nearly fills the entire hangar.

Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google Inc., stands for a photograph while wearing Project Glass internet glasses at the Diane Von Furstenberg fashion show in New York, U.S., on Sunday, Sept. 9, 2012. ( Peter Foley/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Bloomberg via Getty Images

Brin purchased the airfield three years ago after becoming fascinating with the USS Macon, a U.S. Navy airship built at the hangar in the 1930’s. The NASA complex is located next door to the headquarters of Google’s parent company Alphabet in Mountain View, California.

Leading the secret project is Alan Weston, NASA’s former director of programs and Air Force engineer that worked on the Strategic Defensive Initiative, or “Star Wars” as the Cold War missile defense became known.

Main One at NASA Ames Research Center (FlyingToaster via Wikimedia Commons)

West discussed his vision for something similar to what he’s currently working in a 2013 interview. “New airship technologies have the promise to reduce the cost of moving things per ton-mile by up to an order of magnitude,” he said.

Brin’s fellow co-founder Larry Page unveiled a flying car prototype, a separate venture, earlier this week.

—RealClearLife