The Washington Post reports that today the House will probably vote to keep alive the Federal helium program, a strategic reserve created in the 1920s:

Today, 88 years later, the zeppelin threat is over. Private companies have learned to produce helium. But the U.S. government still has its own reserve: a giant porous rock formation under the Texas Panhandle, whose crannies hold enough helium to fill 33 billion party balloons.

The problem is that customers in business and science fear a shortage if the program is stopped:

Congress says private industry simply didn’t step up to supply more helium, in part because the federal government was selling its helium so cheaply. In industry, it’s said that there has been a spike in demand for helium, and that finding new supplies isn’t easy. That requires drilling in a certain kind of natural gas field, where helium comes up along with the gas.

Both Reagan and Clinton regarded the helium program as government waste and tried to get rid of it – with legislation to that effect passed in 1996. But it rose again, and every new attempt to kill it has… taken gas. 

Despite being characterized as a museum technology, dirigibles are still being developed by the Pentagon and NASA. In January, the Aeros Company of Southern California showed the media its high-tech helium airship, prototype for a larger model that’s designed to carry 66 tons of cargo.

Airship prototype developed by the Aeros Company.

Wear your goggles,
Throw the toggles,
It’s a Gangnam imitation.
Jules Verne and H.G. Wells are just the simplest explanation.

[Via Gerry Williams.]

Gary Oldman and Jamie Bell pose in Prada menswear.

Not long ago the Devil wore Prada – now it’s Captain Nemo’s turn. The influence of Steampunk is overwhelming in the Prada Menswear Fall 2012 Ad Campaign, where actors Gary Oldman, Willem Dafoe, Jamie Bell and Garrett Hedlund glower at the camera as they model Victorian vests and knee-length coats.  

Here are stills and a 10-minute video from the runway show (in the latter, Dafoe appears at 7:59 and Oldman at 8:26).

And Prada offers its own Behind the Scenes video of the print ad photo shoot.

The steampunk-themed adverising campaign for The Seeker Wines was pointed out by James Hay on the ConDor list.

At right is balloon pilot Captain Cornelius Weatherbee, associated with the Sauvignon Blanc:

Captain Cornelius Weatherbee was a restless reed of a man with a winning personality. With his tricorn hat and thinly-curled moustache, his appearance on the horizon cowed even the heartiest of men. Yet belying this gruff exterior, his clever machine was forever lifted by winds, no matter which direction they blew. Backed by spirits unknown, he was propelled by this wind, riding their drifts toward whatever – or whoever – needed finding. Some say Weatherbee was a mindless wanderer, a man with his head in the clouds and not a penny of sense. And to that we say, Indeed, he was. And a truly great one.

And the ads for other wines feature characters and stories of their own.