From NASA's website:
NASA and Airship Ventures entered into an agreement to use the airship to assist with disaster response agencies, for scientific research and educational training with local science centers and museums.This whole thing STINKS. Esther Dyson is a big investor apparently. She's a fraud to my mind. I still remember being at a conference where she was on a panel and another on the panel said to her, "Esther. You're blowing smoke out your a$$ again." Wow! Did this guy hit the nail on the head!
The company that built the thing is called Airship Ventures. Now one could be forgiven for thinking that this was a craft that floats on hydrogen as did the zeppelins of the 1930s. But it's loaded with helium just as blimps are. The difference apparently is that this is a rigid airship. Wow. Big deal. But they let you know that they needed a team of 14 lawyers to get flight certification. Why this would be is unclear.
As for renting space at an airfield. Blimps frequently use the field near my house. It's a mini-bonanza for the airfield as the blimp uses an otherwise unused grassy area of the field. Almost all airports I've landed at have such grassy areas. (I'm an inactive IFR rated pilot.) The Airship Ventures folks claim somewhere that the need a much smaller ground crew than a blimp, which means mooring rental should probably be less than for a blimp. (Maybe. I'm sure this thing weighs more, so maybe whatever temporary mast they tie it to would create more ground disturbance at the field, but I doubt it.)
Anyway, my guess is that we're paying for this, or at least a lot of it.
ML/NJ