January 1, 2010
At high noon on Oct. 25, 2008, the zeppelin Eureka glided over the Golden Gate Bridge, around San Francisco’s waterfront, and then south to land lightly at Moffett Field in Mountain View — the first dirigible to grace the region’s skies since the days when Silicon Valley was more famous for its peaches than for its personal computers.
Alexandra Hall, the co-founder and chief executive of Airship Ventures, had hoped to make rigid-bodied dirigibles a regular presence in the Bay Area skies once again, ferrying well-heeled tourists on $495 rides above San Francisco Bay, conducting atmospheric experiments and serving as a flying billboard.
