Waste of the Day: Throwback Thursday: Pentagon Cancels $150 Million Blimp Program
Topline: In 2008, Congress went against the Pentagon’s wishes and forced it to buy a surveillance blimp the military didn’t even want.
The project ended up costing at least $151.7 million, or $221.4 million in 2024 dollars, and was canceled in 2011 because the blimp couldn’t even fly.
That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. For years, these reports shined a white-hot spotlight on federal frauds and taxpayer abuses.
Coburn, the legendary U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, earned the nickname "Dr. No" by stopping thousands of pork-barrel projects using the Senate rules. Projects that he couldn't stop, Coburn included in his oversight reports.
Coburn's Wastebook 2008 included 65 examples of outrageous spending worth more than $1.3 billion, including the money for the Pentagon’s blimp.
Key facts: The High Altitude Airship was designed to be 25 times larger than the Goodyear blimp and fly 12 miles above the ground on spy missions. The Missile Defense Agency gave Lockeed Martin $149.2 million in 2006 to build 10 airships.
Attitudes quickly changed once officials realized the blimps would take too long to build and have limited functionality, and the Pentagon tried to scrap the project even though the money had been spent.
Lockeed Martin still wanted more cash. The company turned to Sen. Sherrod Brown and Rep. Tim Ryan, two Democrats representing Ohio at the time, and convinced them to earmark $2.5 million for a blimp facility in their state.
The blimp was on its way to being built over the Pentagon’s objections – if it could actually fly. The project was defunded when a test flight failed in 2009 and folded into the similar HALE-D program, which failed its own test flight in 2011.
Background: The High Altitude Airship is not a unique example of forced spending. Every year, Congress requires the Pentagon to sustain projects not in its budget request, taking funding from things the military actually needs.
In 2023, Congress removed $17.2 billion from the DOD’s budget request and replaced it with an estimated $61 billion of lawmakers’ own pet projects, according to budget documents reviewed by OpenTheBooks.
Lockeed Martin surely has no complaints about U.S. defense spending. OpenTheBooks found that the company received over $257 billion between 2019 and 2023 – 7% of the Pentagon’s entire budget.
Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com.
Summary: $150 million gone. No blimps, nor any desire to even use the blimps. That’s as bad as it gets.
The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com
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