Airship Challenge

From NASA's Earth Observatory:

NASA is considering issuing a challenge for developing stratospheric airships that can break records in terms of duration of flight at high altitudes. "We are seeking to take astronomy and Earth science to new heights by enabling a long-duration, suborbital platform for these kinds of research," said Jason Rhodes, an astrophysicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who is leading the effort on the possible challenge. The idea behind the 20-20-20 Airship Challenge would be to achieve unprecedented airship milestones. The first "tier" of competition would be to get an airship with a 44-pound (20 kilogram) payload to stay at an altitude of 65,000 feet (20 kilometers) for 20 hours. More ambitious ship-builders can aim for the second tier, with the same height but carrying a 440-pound (200-kilogram) payload for 200 hours.