Can I Have My Futuristic Transportation Already?
Posted by James_Knutila on Tuesday, Mar 23, 2010
Reading the latest news about transportation advances — electric cars, Segways, 787s — makes me want to hit the snooze button, and wake up when something interesting develops. What happened to all the 21st century transportation the 20th century promised us? When is reality going to catch up with science fiction, and I can get me a hoverboard or take an elevator into space?
Our friends at GOOD are similarly impatient, and decided to look into some transportation of the future, albeit the distant future. Here is summary of what they found:
Wearable Motorcycles
What: Now there’s a hybrid — the Deus Ex Machina is a fusion of a motorcycle and a jacket. The thing was designed by Jake Loniak when he was a junior at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. It’s a three-wheeled vehicle powered by batteries and steered by muscle movement.
When: It only exists on the computer, but Jake Loniak hopes to build one soon. Yamaha thought it was cool enough, and slapped their brand on it.
Personal Air Transport
What: NASA has designed something it calls the Puffin Personal Air Vehicle, and it’s rad. The Puffin is a little airplane/helicopter you can climb into, and not have to deal with the lines, gates, profiling, or crying babies that come with commercial aviation. The only problem is going to be deciding whether to buy one of these or a jetpack.
When: NASA claims something like the Puffin might be available in 20-30 years.
Tubular Rail
What: Robert Pulliam, the inventor of Tubular Rail, designed a new kind of train — one in which motorized wheels are on a track, and the rails are notches in the train. The benefit: trains that can travel up to 150 mph, without the need to lay down costly and space-consuming tracks.
When: Texas A&M has donated a piece of Texas to Pulliam’s company, so it can build a two-mile system.
Space Elevator
What: Space elevators are not as outlandish as you think. The tech is not there yet, but in the future space elevators could be powered by a laser shot at photovoltaic cells under the elevator, providing the necessary energy to get escape earth’s gravitational pull. Physicist Bradley Edwards told PBS’s NOVA scienceNOW that the the elevators, riding poles kept taut by the earth’s rotation, would be much more efficient for getting into orbit than rockets.
When: A company called the LiftPort Group claims that a space elevator will become reality by 2031.
Check out GOOD’s series The Radical Future of Transportation here.
Photos via GOOD, acceleratingfuture, NASA, Tubular RailFiled under:
