12 miles up is not the edge of space, which is about 60 miles up.
This article is riddled with unsupported assertions.
Lighter-than-air gets kicked around every few years, but the truth is that there are many, many inherent weaknesses with the concepts.
From wikipedia...
“Near space is the region of Earth’s atmosphere that lies between 20 to 100 km [12 to 60 miles] above sea level, encompassing the stratosphere, mesosphere, and the lower thermosphere. It extends roughly from the Armstrong limit above which humans need a pressure suit to survive, up to the Kármán line where astrodynamics must take over from aerodynamics in order to achieve flight. Thus, near space is above where commercial airliners fly but below orbiting satellites.
The terms “near space” and “upper atmosphere” are generally considered synonymous. However, some sources distinguish between the two. Where such a distinction is made, only the layers closest to the Karman line are called near space, while only the remaining layers between the lower atmosphere and near space are called the upper atmosphere.
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Uses of Near Space:
The area is of interest for military surveillance purposes, scientific study, as well as to commercial interests for communications, and tourism. Craft that fly in near space include high altitude balloons, non-rigid airships, rockoons, sounding rockets, and the Lockheed_U-2 aircraft. The region has been of interest to space travel. Early attempts used a craft known as a rockoon to reach extreme altitudes and orbit. These are still used today for sounding rockets.
There has been a resurgence of interest in near space to launch manned spacecraft by man. Groups like ARCASPACE, as well as the da Vinci Project are planning on launching manned suborbital space vehicles from high altitude balloons.
JP Aerospace has a proposal for a spaceport in near space, as part of their Airship to Orbit program.
You and your stinkin’ facts ruin another perfectly good Chicken Little thread.