Return Of The Battle Blimps Operating at the edge of space, 21st century airships are the ultimate weapon in the war on international terrorism. BY JIM WILSON Illustration by Mark McCandlish Of the thousands of men who volunteered to fight in the Civil War, none offered their services with the panache of Thaddeus Sobieski Constantine Lowe. Suspended beneath a hydrogen-filled balloon floating 500 ft. above Washington, D.C., Lowe sent this message to President Lincoln: "Sir, I take great pleasure in sending you this first dispatch ever telegraphed from an aerial station." More than 140 years after that afternoon on June...