You could maybe make a commercial service "fly" for small-scale local sightseeing (assuming you could somehow get people past "but the only one we've ever heard of is the Hindenburg, which burned in horrible infamy"), along the lines of "let's look down on the New York skyline from above for an hour", but for distance travel, it's a non-starter.

The reason commercial jet aircraft have become so popular for travel is because they're fast. It isn't necessarily entirely rational in all cases, but people are always in a hurry, and that's what sells plane tickets. I don't think very many people would spend that kind of money to fly, at least, not on a regular basis, if it weren't significantly faster than other modes of travel (most notably driving).

The SkyKitten is pretty cool, and exists.
The SkyCat, (if they build it to even half capacity) should be amazing

http://www.worldskycat.com/index.html

"...carrying payloads ranging from 20 to 1,000 tons, the SkyCat hybrid air vehicles..."

Marketing BS? Maybe, but I hope not....

Of course it could be 10 years or 100 years before it runs out, but chances are that people who are young now will live to see it.

Also, I too have seen many of the various experiments with doping and hydrogen fires... and in all of them you got a faster burn with both elements together than with either alone.

The Hindenburg was doomed from the start of the fire - doping or no doping but the speed at which it was completely consumed was product of both elements together. Anybody who doesn't think that the intervening 72 years between the Hindenburg disaster and today would make a huge difference in the engineering and safety has paid absolutely no attention to materials science for the last 72 years.

Can a dirigible be made absolutely safe and fire proof? No. Not even if it's using Helium - it still carries fuel after all and incendiary rounds into a fuel tank will do bad things just as they would in a hydrogen cell. Of course, the odds of this kind of attack occurring outside of an active war are, historically speaking, zero. Comparing the takeoff of an airship to a 747 is ridiculous by the way - the aircraft has a long run out to speed, and a relatively slow and shallow climb once out of the airport bounds where it is well within the engagement envelope for any number of weapons. An airship on the other had can simply rise vertically - never having to hit the edges of the usually quite large and reasonably secured airport it would operate from - putting it out of effective range for most portable weapons short of shoulder fire surface to air missiles. It can also, with modern technologies, climb quite quickly - azopod style engines would allow for vertical thrust potentially giving the air airship a prodigious climb rate at sea level.

Unfortunately nobody is likely to build large scale airships again anytime soon. Aircraft meet our needs, they are well understood, and the infrastructure is in place. It's the same reason we won't have any significant alternative fuel cars for many years to come. Simply put, it is inertia. Without some earth shattering improvement that everyone instantly sees the value of (and the opportunity for massive profit) neither traditional fossil fueled cars nor the air transport industry are likely to change in any significant way any time soon.

Sad isn't it?

Aerogel is supposed to be fairly strong, although it shatters once its strength is exceeded. Being shrinkwrapped may give it extra strength though. Can you stick it in a vacuum and sucessfully get rid of the air inside? Yes, you can make evacuated aerogels, and it's even possible to make them (ever so slightly) lighter than air! but you lose quite a lot of the strength, and it's also pretty expensive. That said, they could probably be pretty useful in some airship-related applications. Maybe not for the structural parts, but how about an aerogel sandwich material for the walls of the gondola? (As a very lightweight insulation.)

I found this interesting. Assuming anyone here hasn't already read it.
http://news-info.wustl.edu/tips/page/normal/10754.html

At the same time, advances in superconductors mean that it ought to be possible to use liquid nitrogen instead of hydrogen which should free up a significant portion of the worlds supply of He.

Still, He will almost certainly remain significantly more expensive than hydrogen, and given that it only offers abut 10% more lift I'm sure that it would make more sense to develop some kind of efficient fire retardants.

Make aerogel with helium?

Lighter than air, or at least neutral bouyancy (make it at low pressure?) and extremely resistant to attack, wrap a light frame around it to hold it together...

Anyone find any mention of attempts to use aerogel that way?

http://news-info.wustl.edu/tips/page/normal/10754.html