microrobert
08-22-2015, 04:56 PM
Here’s why we don’t have flying cars yet
Flying cars in The Jetsons and Back to the Future and Star Trek’s spaceships and teleportation may have captured the imagination decades ago, but most current methods of transport have been around a long time.
Railways were being rolled out rapidly from the 1830s, while the commercial breakthroughs in petrol and diesel engines date to 1876 and 1892 respectively. Even the jet engine that made mass aviation possible can be traced back to Frank Whittle’s first patent in 1932.
Despite decades of futuristic predictions, modern transport wouldn’t look all that different to someone from the 1950s—certainly not compared to communications or entertainment. So why has there been so little recent innovation in transport? And will the latest batch of proposed driverless cars, levitating trains and electric aircraft ]actually make a serious breakthrough?
http://qz.com/482227/heres-why-we-dont-have-flying-cars-yet/
Flying cars in The Jetsons and Back to the Future and Star Trek’s spaceships and teleportation may have captured the imagination decades ago, but most current methods of transport have been around a long time.
Railways were being rolled out rapidly from the 1830s, while the commercial breakthroughs in petrol and diesel engines date to 1876 and 1892 respectively. Even the jet engine that made mass aviation possible can be traced back to Frank Whittle’s first patent in 1932.
Despite decades of futuristic predictions, modern transport wouldn’t look all that different to someone from the 1950s—certainly not compared to communications or entertainment. So why has there been so little recent innovation in transport? And will the latest batch of proposed driverless cars, levitating trains and electric aircraft ]actually make a serious breakthrough?
http://qz.com/482227/heres-why-we-dont-have-flying-cars-yet/