I guess I should qualify that as taxpayer funded airship insanity.
If a commercial venture wants to make a case for and take the risk of engineering and building such a craft, great but I do not think taxpayers should be asked to fund these white elephants.
No argument here. As a general rule, governments should avoid subsidizing industrial-scale commercial ventures. OTOH, I can see a place for government subsidies for pure research of the science involved, and for some basic (and non-propitiatory) development of the technology. (I.e. — just about the opposite of the way the “green-energy” industry is now supported.)