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The Media Hardware Science

Technological Flights Of Fancy That Fizzled 404

Posted by simoniker from the duck-dodgers-style dept.
prostoalex writes "MSNBC's Alan Boyle takes a look at seven futuristic dreams for the past that never managed to materialize into anything substantial in this 21st century. At the top of the list are flying cars, with personal jetpacks, passenger airships, supersonic commercial flights, space travel and colonies, with propulsion breakthroughs completing the list."
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Technological Flights Of Fancy That Fizzled More

Technological Flights Of Fancy That Fizzled

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  • Bug free Operating Systems? (Score:5, Funny)

    by PierceLabs ( 549351 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:18PM (#7496831)
    Surprised that's not on the list anywhere ...

  • Where are those skateboards from Back To The.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by ryan76 ( 666210 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:18PM (#7496833)
    Where are the flying skateboards from Back to the Future?

  • Passenger airships (Score:5, Informative)

    by ericspinder ( 146776 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:19PM (#7496849) Journal
    It was a pretty good article, but very weak on the Hindenburg details, many people [ucla.edu] seem to aggree these days that it was not the hydrogen that exploded, but the fabric.

    Of course the Hindenburg is a fine example of how important a picture could be. Only thirty seven people died (97 lived), yet the burning fireball caught on film managed to kill decent method of long range travel. Of course there are a couple of other problems with airships, like they don't do too well in strong winds, and they take a lot of "man handling" at the field, but in some applications they might make good sense.
    • isn't speed the problem with using airships for long range travel? Is anyone really going to take a two day flight across the Atlantic?

      Incidentally, does anyone know how the economics compare with conventional aircraft?

      • Re:Passenger airships (Score:5, Interesting)

        by mabhatter654 ( 561290 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:54PM (#7497213)
        Sure speed is a problem, but why do people take 7 day crusies around a few caribbean islands? Airship travel is definately a cool way to go! Especially in our uber-busy society. I could see airship travel being a great passtime in the US if it got cheap enough. You'd never be far from telcom or internet connections as well as satallite TV. And because they are reletively slow moving, there wouldn't be the need for many of the FAA electronic regulations anyway. Again, You could tour the internals of the US..the great places like the dakotas or Montana...just drifting along. There is minimal landing requirments...anyplace you could land a single engine would do! That would allow you to stop in many remote, isolated places without disturbing the surounding area with busy roads!

        Also, Airships can have awosome lifting capacity! Many airships on the drawing table right now are for large scale construction projects...we can see in Iraq just how fickle heilos are...even when professionally piloted. We have massive reserves of liquid hydrogen and helium from the cold war days anyway...the stuff is cheaper that a gallon of milk! Once you build it and fill it up, it doesn't really require power to stay up! That makes it far more effient than an airplane. Most of the new designs still use prop engines...that's how little power they require to move! But they do cost a FORTUNE TO BUILD! Many estimates of new airships for large scale construction or crusing are in the 100's of millions of $$$$.

    • That fireball did wonders for the Concorde too... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Shivetya ( 243324 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:45PM (#7497136) Homepage Journal
      Its a good bet that the spectacular filmed crash of the Concorde greatly accelerated the demise of that program.

      Compare that to how many jumbo jets have gone down and it points out something, if its flashy, and it goes wrong, then its doomed. If its nearly a commodity people just shrug their shoulders and move on.

      • Re:That fireball did wonders for the Concorde too. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by jani ( 4530 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @06:01PM (#7497260) Homepage
        Compare that to how many jumbo jets have gone down and it points out something, if its flashy, and it goes wrong, then its doomed. If its nearly a commodity people just shrug their shoulders and move on.

        Do you recall an airline company called "Pan Am", the biggest one of their time?

        They were the victim of this little incident above and in Lockerbie. You may want to check out the results for Pan Am shortly afterwards, to see how well this turned out.

        A couple of key considerations:

        1. Pan Am does not exist anymore
        2. Airbus has been winning an awful lot of contracts the past 10 years

        • Come on, everybody knows that like several other companies, PanAM fell to the BladeRunner curse:

          Someone once noticed that a number of the companies whose logos appeared in BR had financial difficulties after the film was released. Atari had 70% of the home console market in 1982, but faced losses of over $2 million in the first quarter of 1991. Bell lost it's monopoly in 1982. Pan-Am filed for bankruptcy protection in 1991. Soon after Blade Runner was released, Coca-Cola released their "new formula", res

        • Re:That fireball did wonders for the Concorde too. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by skwang ( 174902 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @10:10PM (#7499078)

          Do you recall an airline company called "Pan Am", the biggest one of their time?

          They were the victim of this little incident above and in Lockerbie. You may want to check out the results for Pan Am shortly afterwards, to see how well this turned out.

          We're getting off topic here, but PanAm filed for bankruptcy because of airline deregulation.

          In the 1980s the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) was shut down. It was the federal regulatory body that regulated airlines. The CAB was not the modern FAA, but instead regulated such aspects of the airline industries as prices, routes, and destinations. PanAm was the greatest beneficiary of the CAB, considering it was the largest US airline during the 50s through the 70s. PanAm basically didn't have to compete with rivals because the CAB's regulations basically guaranteed it profits.

          In the past the only way an airline differentiated itself was with service. Only a few people could actually afford to fly, and as a result airlines were sort of a "luxury" form of travel with full service (throughout the cabin) and amenities.

          The the CAB was dissolved airlines realized that they didn't have to compete with service, but could do so with prices. For a while, it seemed like airlines were popping out like wildflowers (remember TrumpAir?). Again, as a consequence of deregulation consumers had more choice in their airlines, more choice in routes, and more choice in prices.

          When the things change, usually the largest and most entrenched entities are slowest to react. PanAm basically didn't know how to compete in this new environment. Airlines lowered prices to the point where anyone could fly. Today flying is not reserved for the privileged few but to most everyone in the US. In the early 90s, PanAm basically found itself barraged with "new" lower cost airlines and went out of business.

          Some big airlines managed to survive thanks to smart management. American Airlines today is the one of the world's largest carrier. Some other big airlines wound up dying but not dead. TWA is a shell of its former self. The big winner in the industry is Southwest, whose low cost model is replicated with other airlines such as JetBlue.

          Many of the airlines that sprung up thanks to deregulation no longer exist. Trump's airline is one example. When all the cards fell into place only about ten major airline remained in the 90s. But even so air travel demand kept going up, and prices still went down. Every major airline today has filled for bankruptcy in some for or another (United, American, Continental, US Air, Delta) or bought out by another airline (US Air, TWA). Ironically Southwest, although a "discount" airline is 1) the most successful 2) posts profits even post Sept. 11th.

          Many people have complained that airline deregulation ruined air-travel. I don't believe this is true. Complaints are usually about travel delays, long lines at terminals, passengers being treated like cattle, and that was before Sept. 11th! [With airport security a big buzzword today it's probably even worse.] But keep in mind what has happened thanks to deregulation. Airlines are flying to more destinations, especially those with large markets. Airline prices have dropped to almost nothing compared to the past. Passenger ridership has increased significantly in the last twenty years. I would contend that most of the problems seen today with air-travel (not a result of security measures) are a result of the "old" regulated mentality that some management still have.

    • > Of course there are a couple of other problems with airships, [...]

      AFAIK, Zeppelins still had a better safety record than trains at that time. But as you said, a film of people dieing in a fireball has more impact that statistics.

    • Re:Passenger airships (Score:5, Informative)

      by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:50PM (#7497178)
      Of course there are a couple of other problems with airships, like they don't do too well in strong winds, and they take a lot of "man handling" at the field

      That's an understatement. When you need a vehicle almost as large as the Titanic to move a few dozen passengers at 80 mph max, you know you've going to have a hard time maintaining profit margins.

      What's worse is the tendency for these things to get literally ripped apart any time they wander too near a wind storm. This happened to a couple of U.S. Navy helium-filled airships, as well as quite a few others from other countries.

      I don't have the exact stats, but my understanding is that there were more crashes and disintegrations of dirigibles than fireballs. It also seems like more of them ended up crashing than retiring gracefully.

    • The new ships don't need a large ground crew. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Moderation abuser ( 184013 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:59PM (#7497253)
      A 1/3 chance of surviving a jet crash? Nope.

      The new airships like the Zeppelin NT and the ATG machines can use vectored thrust to reduce the number of ground crew required, the power/size ratio and construction methodology is also enough to allow flight in much stronger winds than the first generation machines at the start of the 20th century. They can operate within similar weather conditions to other aircraft like helicopters and light aeroplanes.

      http://www.zeppelin-nt.com/pages/D/bilder_u_thum .h tm

      The airship wasn't killed from long range travel just by the film of the Hindenberg disaster, though it certainly didn't help. The much higher speed and lower cost of the aeroplanes did more damage and I don't see that changing for A->B travel in the near future.

      I think however there's a niche similar to the one cruise liners operate within which I believe airships could fill. A world cruise on something like the Hindenberg would be absolutely fantastic. Then there's the obvious military/police patrol and observation platforms.

  • Popular Mechanics (Score:4, Interesting)

    by millette ( 56354 ) <robin@ m i llette.info> on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:19PM (#7496853) Homepage Journal

    What a great choice for a picture :)

    I remember seeing ads for flying cars (well, was it really a car) in that magasine over 15 years ago.

    • I remember plans for your own jetpack in Popular Mechanics in the 70's. Easy to build, but I never could get enough Hydrogen Peroxide for liftoff.

    • The flying cars in Blade Runner had a dreamy impact on me as a youth. I think are more nifty then the cars designed for Minority Report that spent too much time on the ground. Unfortunately, people are such bad drivers as it is that making it more difficult to operate a car just wouldn't "fly". Imagine someone being drunk and flying. Or loading their car up with explosives and...

      • Re:Popular Mechanics (Score:3, Interesting)

        by lowmagnet ( 646428 )
        This is precisely why they need better fly-by-wire systems with good auto-pilot capability. Until then, the FAA would require a pilot's license to operate a flying car.

  • Transportation (Score:5, Funny)

    by apoplectic ( 711437 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:19PM (#7496856)
    Interesting that all of these failed technologies are transportation based. Good thing we invented the SUV instead of personal jetpacks, or some nonsense.
    • Actually that was the whole premise of the article - to look at futuristic transportation that didn't take hold. The poster just didn't bother to make that clear.
    • Good thing we invented the SUV instead of personal jetpacks, or some nonsense.

      Imagine if computers went down the same development route that led to SUVs...

      They'd use three times the electricity to get the same amount of work done, they'd take up all of your desk, they'd be more likely to crash, and when they did so, all your data would be safe, but anyone nearby not using one of these machines would have all of their data erased.

      Sounds like advancement to me...
    • What about tubes? Arent we all supposed to be shot around in tubes by now?

    • Re:Transportation (Score:5, Insightful)

      by srmalloy ( 263556 ) on Tuesday November 18, 2003 @12:40AM (#7499970) Homepage
      If you look at the patterns of technological predictions that have failed, they tend to cluster into several groups, such as:

      1) Lack of advances with energy storage. For all the technological advances elsewhere, a tank full of gasoline or jet fuel is still one of the densest energy storage media known.

      2) Lack of advances with energy production. Going along with the previous limitation, many of the glowing predictions for the future involved each individual's having access to -- either directly or indirectly for manufacturing purposes -- many times more energy than they do now, for much less money. Nuclear power was supposed to be the genie of infinite energy -- but that hope died with Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. How many people remember the NS Savannah?

      3) Cultural shifts. Look at the images of the Family of Tomorrow, living in the City of Tomorrow. Aside from clothing, they were identical to the popular image of the ideal family, living in the idealized Suburbia. You got in your aircar and flew to work, your wife zapped dinner from frozen to steaming in seconds, their home would be made entirely of synthetic materials -- but society still had all the same values. Ignoring for the moment that this was the white, middle-class future (turning a blind eye to the race-based inequities of current society), the society that made these predictions was, on the whole, considerably more responsible than today's society. The predictions expected that, with the advances in technology, mankind would become rational, well-educated, and responsible, able to face the challenge of a sky filled with aircars and devise a solution that everyone would agree on. Now contrast this with the people you see around you on the roads, and imagine what things would be like if they had three dimensions to be stupid with.

      4) Modern business management. How long do you keep throwing money into a project before you expect to get a return? For many years, this was the single biggest advantage Japanese business had over American business -- they were willing to engage in R&D programs that wouldn't even begin to pay off for a decade or more, while in the US, an R&D program that wouldn't pay for itself in two years already had two-and-a-half strikes against it with management. Business practices have improved, but research programs that don't have a hope in hell of paying off in less than twenty years, or which, despite producing results quickly, will be hugely expensive without producing anything marketable, fall by the wayside in the eternal chase for the almighty Bottom Line. And even governments, with the ever-increasing amount of panis et circenses, err, entitlement programs, are finding it harder and harder to commit the money that such research requires, particularly when failure -- or repeated failure that is inevitable in research -- constitutes grounds for yanking your funding.

      5) Paradigm shifts. People make predictions by extending what they already know; they can't predict changes that alter the underlying premises upon which those predictions are made. Technological advances can go off into directions that render a prediction useless. For example, Robert Heinlein, one of the world's most renowned science-fiction writers, described fusion-driven starships -- torchships -- that were navigated by teams of astrogators taking star sights by hand, manually converting the sight data into binary using large reference books, entering this binary data into a huge computer (again, manually) that crunched the sight data, returned a solution that had to be (manually) converted back from binary, and then applied to the engines. That was Heinlein's experience with computers; that was how he predicted their future. The invention of integrated circuits and the microcomputer rendered that prediction ludicrously anachronistic, as if you went into an FAA control tower and found the air-traffic controllers guiding planes by pushing little model planes around on a map, a la RAF Fighter Command in WWII.

  • Unfortunately... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:19PM (#7496857)
    ...the prediction of hundreds of cable channels did come true and yet there is still nothing on.

  • But ... Uhh ... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by obsidianpreacher ( 316585 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:21PM (#7496872)
    Haven't you seen the commercial [iamwill.com]? We don't NEED flying cars!

    Jeez ... is television truly that dead already that mainstream MSNBC doesn't realize the existence of informative and somewhat-funny commercial advertisements that portray the Internet and IBM as the solutions to every problem we have with data storage and transportation? What do we need flying cars for?
    • Even if we had flying cars, think about the how much in society would have to change to accomodate such a technological breakthrough. You need to reshape so many laws to allow for their use. And in a post September 11th world, think of the security issues associated with such a device. No cops going to be able to stop a Ferrari.
    • I'll see your commercial and raise you a Leno bit [viewaskew.com].

      To quote:
      Randal: It's times like this it occurs to me that we were lied to by "The Jetsons".
      ...
      Dante: Yeah, well most of us rational thinkers weren't banking on a cartoon to offer us a viable glimpse into the future of technological development.

  • How about (Score:3, Funny)

    by Quixadhal ( 45024 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:21PM (#7496879) Homepage Journal
    Fast low-latency connectivity to every home, via a low-cost fiber-optic cable?

    I remember Ye Olde Phone Company, back in 1995, was telling me (on a tour of the "copper racks" no less) that they planned to start installing residential fiber right into people's houses next year, and that the whole city would be wired up within 5 years...

    Obviously, 5 years of Corporate Time!

    So, I have my cable modem, which is nice for downloads... but still sucks for latency.

  • Jet Packs (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Infonaut ( 96956 ) <infonaut@gmail.com> on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:22PM (#7496892) Homepage Journal
    Talk about heartbreak! I saw that ubiquitous footage of the US Navy jetpack test when I was a kid, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. There have been many inventions that have changed my life since I saw that footage, but that's "The One That Got Away" for me.

    It's funny how when you think about the past, you seldom think about your expectations at the time for the future. This article really made me think about how no invention becomes reality simply by virtue of some sort of inevitability. Money, the market, luck, and the tides of history all play a part in determining what will make it and what won't.

    Somehow I don't think I'll ever get to use a Transporter either. Dammit!

  • Hm (Score:2, Funny)

    by precogpunk ( 448371 )
    Why didn't "Windows Security" make it on the list? Oh wait, this is MSNBC...
    • If your conspiracy theory assumption was true, then "Linux Device Drivers" would have been at the top of the list.

    • Re:Hm (Score:3, Insightful)

      by freeweed ( 309734 )
      Because no one's ever actually thought that possible.

      Flying cars at least there's evidence of. /me ducks

  • quantum teleportation != Propulsion breakthroughs

    Seriously, it has nothing to do with propulsion, Mr. Boyle. <grin>We'll have to wait another lightyear at least to see better propulsion.</grin>

  • Old magazines are a great source for this (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Jason1729 ( 561790 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:23PM (#7496906)
    I bought a stack of Popular Electronics magazines from the 70's on ebay a few months ago. There's some great "upcoming technologies" articles.

    In the days before the magnetic strip, they predicted credit cards would have a holographic image that optically stores the credit card number. The card projects the hologram onto a sensor which reads the number into the computer for processing.

    In the letters to the editor section, someone was wondering if it was worth taking a course in TV repair because with the release of the Phillips Modular design it will be easy for anyone to fix their own TV so the repair industry would become obsolete.

    Jason
    ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]
    • In the letters to the editor section, someone was wondering if it was worth taking a course in TV repair because with the release of the Phillips Modular design it will be easy for anyone to fix their own TV so the repair industry would become obsolete.

      My dad was a computer technician, in the days when computers (and computer terminals in stores etc.) would actually get fixed, like in hardware. They'd get refurbished, bad solders would get fixed, radio tubes would get switched, replace a bad transistor, t

  • Alternative personal transport vs. regulations (Score:5, Insightful)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:24PM (#7496919)
    Given the uproar created by the Segway, its not surprising that flying cars and jetpacks never "took off." This is not an issue of what engineers can do technologically, but an issue of what society says they can do in public.
    • Actually it has a lot to do with what engineers can and can't do technologically. Flying cars of any practical everyday use would be very difficult to build, wouldn't be very economical, would be extremely noisy etc... The reason we dont see flying cars or jet packs is because they aren't economically feasible.

  • Fortunately... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:25PM (#7496929)


    ...we have all the penis enlargers, cheap toner cartridges, and some other Chinese-looking stuff that I can't read, that money can buy!

    Who would have dreamed that thirty years ago!

  • Star [Wars/Trek?] (Score:5, Funny)

    by freeweed ( 309734 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:27PM (#7496951)
    But how about totally revolutionary physics -- the kind of thing we see in "Star Wars" or "Star Trek"?

    You mean the kind of revolutionary physics that allows multi-ton objects to turn on a dime at insanely high velocities (with nothing to "push" against) without tearing themselves apart, and also without expending the energy of a small nuclear blast in order to do it? :)
    • Whats to say that the ships in Star Wars/Trek dont expend the energy of a small nuclear blast? Its not that inconcievable if theyre powered by fusion reactors. I mean have you seen the horsepower those warp cores can pull with a performance air filter and a bit of nitrous? You wouldnt belive how many if i told you.
      • According to my handy-dandy references, 17,230,000 horsepower is developed by the warp core. No word on what effect re-polarizing the plasma flux capacitors would have. Oh god, I need a woman.

  • Supersonic Travel - Tragic Loss (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Pavan_Gupta ( 624567 ) <`pg8p' `at' `virginia.edu'> on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:27PM (#7496959)
    Truthfully, this is the biggest dissapointment out of all of the things that were listed as failed. Though, I'd like to rejoice at the idea that the military's still pushing supersonic travel, it doesn't make me all that comfortable (for more reasons than a simple sonic boom). Seeing the Concorde go, seemed like seeing a portion of the future dissapear in front of us, and all because of a couple accidents. Of course, coincidences are hardly excuses, but still, I'd like to have seen these machines continue for a while.

    I can just imagine that one day I'll have the ability to be connected with family across the globe in real life, like I'm connected to them virtually. I can just hope that what the military researches, at whatever cost it may be, will eventually reach the mainstream consumer.
    • Concorde died because it was not economical enough. Even at upteen thousand a round-trip ticket, the fuel costs were too high. Add in increasing maintenance of aging airframes and a depressed travel market, and you have death for that design.

      But aerospace engineering has advanced since Concorde first took to the skies. Better, lighter materials, and computer-aided design mean a better, most efficient airframe. Supersonic cruise engines (derived from military jet fighters) would improve fuel efficie
    • Concorde was a huge financial failure.

      And that's when the planes were *given* to British Airways and Air France, with the governments absorbing the huge R&D spend as well as the manufacturing costs.

      It was that and the fact the supply of replacement parts was about to dry up which killed Concorde, not the accidents.

      Sadly supersonic travel will remain the province of the military and the rich unless someone can work out a way for a plane to travel supersonic economically. Query if this is possible.

    • The accident didn't kill it... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @06:14PM (#7497405) Homepage
      Seeing the Concorde go, seemed like seeing a portion of the future dissapear in front of us, and all because of a couple accidents.

      The WTC towers attack killed it. While the other airliners took a serious hit, Concorde's market were mostly people who could afford to fly it, but that didn't really have to. So while the other companies got by on people that "had" to fly, like businessmen and people going away on holidays, the typical Concorde-passenger remained in their luxurious homes, feeling safer there.

      It didn't help that their only line was a "sensitive" one, for some reason US people didn't like to travel internationally after that (well moreso than domestic), even though all the hijacked flights were domestic airlines. Most other companies had flight lines inside either Europe or USA to rely on, while Concorde had nothing. The accident was just the final blow.

      Kjella

  • I don't understand #6: Space Colonies (Score:4, Funny)

    by burgburgburg ( 574866 ) <splisken06@nospAm.email.com> on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:28PM (#7496970)
    After all, we completed work on Moonbase Alpha over 4 years ago. I've been watching the efforts of Commander Koening on my personal televiewer for quite some time now.

    Oh, wait. It's medication time. And jello with dinner!

  • Another failed prediction...

    That in 100 years, computers would be TWICE as powerful, TEN-THOUSAND times larger, and so expensive that only the five richest kings of Europe would be able to afford one.

    (Oh, and the whole computer-matching-would-be-SO-perfect theory also didn't materialize)

  • Space colonies (Score:2, Insightful)

    by herulach ( 534541 )
    In what way are space colonies a failed technology? Surely the ISS and Mir are both examples of succesful space colonies, well Mir is, ISS should be barring something major going wrong, that or someone patenting something like "a mechanism for launching humans into space using combustion" or such like. Even if you take colonies to mean Lunar/Mars bases then they really shouldnt be too long in coming. Assuming the US gov stops spending so much money on getting you lot cheaper petrol and starts funding someth
  • I mean come on, we still have 96 years to pull this stuff off.

  • Went to the moon .. and then .... ummmm....... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mikeswi ( 658619 ) * on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:31PM (#7497013) Homepage Journal
    You know what irritates me? Pres Kennedy said we're going to the moon, and 8 years later we did it. We landed Humans on the moon, we walked around, planted a flag, parked a hoopty, took some snapshots ........ and then .... We. Never. Went. Back.

    WTF? Thirty friggin years later and no one has ever gone back? Instead we're pouring money into a useless space station for political feel good points.

    There are enough metals, water, and WEALTH orbiting just past Mars to make every living Human a trillionaire, and we're still fighting wars over oil, diamonds and pieces of land measuring a few hundred square miles in size.

    All the eggs are still in the same basket. It's only a matter of time before a great big rock flies into it and breaks every damned one of them.

    • Re:Went to the moon .. and then .... ummmm....... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by kippy ( 416183 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:53PM (#7497195)
      Straight up.

      NASA has been spinning its wheels ever since the end of the Apollo program. Mars Direct [nw.net] is a proposed path to get humans on Mars in 10 years. It's technicaly feasable, not any more expensive than the current low Earth orbit (LEO) NASA budget, and it would turn mankind into an honest to goodness spacefaring species.

      Want to do something about the current lack of direction that NASA has? Check out this previous post [slashdot.org].

    • The reason we've not returned to the moon is that it is insanely expensive to go there, with no correspondingly lucrative payoff. Sure, there are lots of asteroids with valuable metals and stuff out in the asteroid belt, but getting them back here would be infeasible--and once they were retrieved, the market value of their contents would plummet. That'd be no way to run an economy, investing trillions to bring back rocks worth billions which then instantly eat up millions of dollars of value.

      Yeah, in a

      • Re:Went to the moon .. and then .... ummmm....... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by mikeswi ( 658619 ) * on Monday November 17, 2003 @06:30PM (#7497570) Homepage Journal
        > Sure, there are lots of asteroids with valuable metals and stuff out in the asteroid belt, but getting them back here would be infeasible

        Nope. The energy needed to smack a rock out of its orbit and toss it back this way is very small. The hardest part is getting off this rock in the first place.

        > -and once they were retrieved, the market value of their contents would plummet.

        I disagree with that. It still has to be mined from the asteroids, it still has to be smelted and refined, it still has to be distributed. The great, great grandchildren of those out-of-work steel workers near Pittsburgh will have jobs and there should be enough to go around for all of them. One job will create several other jobs.

        > At this point in history, space is a pipe dream--a ridiculous and silly pipe dream.

        I disagree here too. It is vital that we spread out from this one planet as soon as possible. There will eventually be another large meteor/comet strike and we can't all be here when it happens. If we have a strong presence in space we might even be able to prevent it.

        There is also the matter of six billion Humans on one planet. At some point, we will have consumed every natural resource that can be consumed. Unlike non-sentient beings, we change the environment to suit us, not the other way around. And in the process, we are killing this planet. We need more room, and two empty worlds (Mars and Luna) and the entire asteroid belt are right there with a great big "Vacancy" sign.
        • Nope. The energy needed to smack a rock out of its orbit and toss it back this way is very small. The hardest part is getting off this rock in the first place.

          It's also pretty damn hard to catch it once it gets here. We're in the bottom of an inconveniently deep gravity well, remember?

    • Re:Went to the moon .. and then .... ummmm....... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by RatBastard ( 949 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @06:37PM (#7497629) Homepage
      Do you even know why we went to the moon in the first place? Scientific research? Not even close. It was a penis-wagging contest with the Russians. They beat us into space. Badly.
      - First man-made object to orbit the earth: Russian
      - First live animal in space: Russian
      - First human in space: Russian, and not just into space, into orbit.

      The first American into space didn't even orbit the earth.

      Kennedy knew that we had to beat the Russians in a way that could never be topped: first to the moon. The single biggest government project this side of the Manhattan Project. Kenney told us to go, and because he died a hero, we busted our asses making sure we did it.

      Then we got there and looked around and looked at the money we spent getting there and at the sad shape of the Russian space program and we knew we won. We didn't need to go back. It was too expensive for what we could get out of it. The world had changed since 1961 and we could no longer justify such grandious actions in the continuation of the Cold War.

      As far as the IIS, that's a sad joke. But it's all we can pull off. We don't have the political need to do anything bigger. Who are in a space race with? Pakistan? India? China? Hardly. And so what? We're not in an ideological war of attrition with any of them.

      As for the Belt, we can't get there. Not safely and not profittably.

      As for the eggs, this is the only basket we know of. Period. None of the other planets in the Solar system can be terraformed into anything we can live on and we don't know of any earth-like worlds anywhere else.

      • Re:Went to the moon .. and then .... ummmm....... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Jesrad ( 716567 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @06:48PM (#7497726) Journal
        And those lands on that far far saway island called "Australia" are useless, it's not profitable to start establishing there...

        We've heard this argument, oh, continuously in history ? And it was disproved every single time.

      • We really don't know if we could terraform any of the other planets in our solar system into something human-viable in a reasonable short period of time, say just a few hundred years. We certainly won't know if we don't get more information. The best way to rapidly get more information is to send a bunch of humans to other planets and have them conduct studies. The primary target for such an endeavor because of its currently relatively earth-like conditions (compared to other planets in the solar system) is of course Mars.

        Profitability is not the only criteria which should be considered in which government projects to fund and which not. The space program has helped advance many branches of science. Unfortunately it's been doing pretty much the same thing for too long now - the farther you reach, the more lies within your grasp.

        • Do you want to know how hard it would be to terraform Mars? Here's how you can best simulate it: Move to Antarctica for a few years. Deep into Antarctica. Don't melt any snow: drink only the water you brought with you. Build a relay into all your radio equipment that delays the signal anywhere between a couple minutes and a half hour, depending on the time of the year.

          Oh yea, and don't breathe any of the outside air. Build a geodesic dome which you can never leave. Grow hydroponic plants at low temp

    • Never went back? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Keighvin ( 166133 )
      Over a 3 year span following the first moon landing the US *did* go back a few (5) times:

      Apollo Lunar Missions (w/successful landings):
      Apollo 11
      Launched 16 July 1969
      Landed on Moon 20 July 1969
      Sea of Tranquility
      Returned to Earth 24 July 1969

      Apollo 12
      Launched 14 November 1969
      Landed on Moon 19 November 1969
      Ocean of Storms
      Returned to Earth 24 November 1969

      Apollo 14
      Launched 31 January 1971
      Landed on Moon 5 February 1971
      Fra Mauro
      Returned to Earth 9 February 1971

      Apollo 15
      Launched 26 July 1971
      Landed on Moon 30 J

  • Give it Time (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ajax0187 ( 615355 )
    Although we think we're advancing so slowly in interstellar travel, just think - less than 60 years after the first airplane flew, we were walking on the moon. In the long view, much of our technological advances have occurred at lightning speed. Perhaps in a few hundred years we'll have captured the secret of intrastellar space travel and colonized the solar system. Perhaps in a few thousand years we'll have captured the secret of interstellar space travel and colonized every star in the sky. Sure, tha
  • The problem with many of those things is the same:
    It takes too much energy to move something through the sky. Jetpacks, personal aircars and supersonic travel all have the same problem - it takes so much energy to do it that it would cost too much to do it for more than a stunt.

    There's also the other problems:
    1) Jetpacks also had the added problem of carrying all that fuel around - it's not much of a "personal jet pack" if you have to carry 500 pounds of fuel along.
    2) In spite of what Moller says, you're

  • Peace (Score:2)

    by rf0 ( 159958 )
    I would just like to see some sort of piece in the world rather than war after war. Prehaps I'm just a dreamer

    Rus

  • What about the space elevator? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by kramer2718 ( 598033 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:43PM (#7497114) Homepage
    I know it was imagined a long time ago (early 20th century I think), but I guess no one expected it to become a reality until recently. In 50 years, will people be writing about a space elevator as a Technological Flights Of Fancy That Fizzled?

    If it does indeed become a relity, a space elevator would surely help space tourism and permanent space colonies to be realized as well.

  • 50 years from now (Score:2, Interesting)

    by tloh ( 451585 )
    Reading the article makes you wonder about non-transportation marvels that was predicted ages ago. Off the top of my head, AI (ala Lt. Comm. Data) is the most tantalyzing of these. The year 2001 has come and gone and we have yet to witness anything resembling HAL the homocidal computer. (maybe that is a good thing?) On both the hardware and software front, we are embarassingly behind where we thought we would be many years ago. Will we be reading the same article ages hence lamenting the lack of androids

  • Cost and Weight of Energy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Maniakes ( 216039 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:44PM (#7497128) Journal
    We have flying cars (1). They're called "Helicopters". They're expensive because they aren't mass produced on the scale of cars, which is because fuel costs are prohibitive for wide-scale use.

    We have personal jetpacks [cnn.com] (2). Earlier attempts ran out of gas too quickly to be useful, but this appears to be a solved problem now.

    We have supersonic planes (4), but the fuel costs are prohibitive for commercial travel.

    We have the technology to put people and equipment in space (5 and 6), but fuel costs are prohibitive for anything other than military applications and government funded scientific research.

    The aerospace breakthroughs that occured in the early 20th century were all driven by the availability of mass-produced gasoline-driven engines, which brought the cost and weight of energy down by a large margin compared to coal burning steam engines. Jet and rocket engines became practical in the 30s and 40s, producing another round of breakthroughs. Steam engines lead to a round of breakthroughs when they first became practical.

    The reason we've only been seeing incremental improvements is because we're still using the same basic technologies. As soon as a new power source which allows more power for less money and less weight, we'll have flying cars, personal jetpacks, space tourism, and space colonization.

    I don't think it'll be fuel cells, since there's no order-of-magnitude improvements in power density there. My money is on a breakthrough in Uninterruptable Power Supplies [userfriendly.org].
  • ... to me would be the technological advances that no one saw coming. I think about it when I read sci-fi from the '50s and people are cruising all over the solar system in nuclear powered space ships and using slide rules to calculate their course.

    Looking at the developments that were never on the radar but have had a huge impact always fascinates me.

  • No flying cars, thank goodness! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:46PM (#7497149)
    I for one am glad the flying car has never made it. Some people can barely keep their cars on the road. Imagine if a distracted individual talking on his/her cell phone, screaming at their kids, eating a meal, and watching a DVD movie slammed into a chemical storage tank.
    • Computers are more than capable of piloting (takeoff, cruise, and landing) and navigating (planning routes, following tower commands) planes. Have been for a long time. Bring on my flyin' car that says "Destination?", listens to me say "Work" or "Home" or "Las Vegas", goes there at 200 MPH, and wakes me when we land. Hell, for that matter, bring on my regular car that does that (albeit probably not at 200 MPH, but still).

  • Not really that suprising.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:48PM (#7497161)
    Given the vast energy required for most of these devices, their approach really isn't that practical.

    If you think that modern cars get bad milage, just imagine the fuel bill for one that takes off vertically. Likewise for the personal jetpack and for supersonic flight. Fuel cost is also a big problem in space exploration.

    I'm guessing that these technologies will find a niche if, as - and when - renewable energy costs come down a couple of orders of magnitude. Only then will these extravagant methods of transportation be practical and likely only as niche markets given that there are vastly more efficient ways of getting from A to B.

    But in many cases technology has already eliminated the need for many of these advances.

    For instance, one of the driving forces behind supersonic flight were the "high-powered" executives who found that they could attend two board meetings on opposite sides of the atlantic on the same day - and be home again in time for dinner. But with advances in broadband teleconferencing, they don't even have to leave their home.

  • Where are the breakthroughs ? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jesrad ( 716567 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:52PM (#7497187) Journal
    Tesla and many scientists who furthered his work kept announcing that the fantastic technology advances seen in their time were just the beginning. Think about it: in a few decades we got phones, radio, generalised air traffic, television, nuclear power, premices of computers, and then ... it stopped.

    What common appliance do you use everyday, that is not just an incremental improvement of the some invention, or mix of two+ inventions, discovered before the end of WW2 ? What happened to inventions since then ? There are no general public usage of supraconductors, of the technologies that put a man on the Moon... Even the Internet is just an improvement of commuted networks, though it is binary instead of analogic.

    The only major breakthrough that could plausibly make its way into our day-to-day lives is hydrogen fuel cells. Where are all the other Breakthroughs ?
    • There are no general public usage of supraconductors,

      Magnetic Resonance Imaging???

      Main reasons for no general use of superconductors are that: 1) Liquid He requires a fair amount of care to handle and a shitload of insulation to keep the boil-off rates reasonable; 2) HTc superconductors aren't ready for prime-time (typically not ductile enough).

      The only major breakthrough that could plausibly make its way into our day-to-day lives is hydrogen fuel cells.

      There have been some major changes in power e

  • It's a good article covering things that were once thought likely to become practical that have not yet done so. But there are also lots of things that were known by almost everyone to be impossible that have come to pass.

    Three examples off the top of my head:

    1) Imaging a single atom
    2) Imaging the disk of a star other than the sun
    3) Detecting extra-solar planets

    There are many more examples, especially if you look at the economic predictions of biologists. For example, it was once widely believed that o
  • 1. Solotrek is no longer developing their Solotrek XFV. They auctioned off the existing prototype(s) after burning through their capital. At this point they're just a shell company making money licensing their vehicle for movie use. Mr. Boyle mentions the licensing, but not the near defunct status of SoloTrek.

    2. The Breakthrough Physics Project always had tenuous status budgetarily, and it was finally killed off. Mr. Boyle doesn't mention the defunct status of this either. It's a shame the bean cou

  • Please. No more calls for Mars, already. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by HarveyBirdman ( 627248 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @06:11PM (#7497370) Journal

    It's long past time to knuckle down and get seriously pragmatic and practical about moving into space. No more billion dollar carnival shows, please. I *know* it would cool and neat and gollygeewhiz, but we need to move past that.

    Why do some think it is so important to follow up the Apollo boondoggle with a Mars boondoggle? No thanks. These big time, one shot spectaculars just so a few folks in portable ecosystems can galavant around another world are what got us into this rut in the first place. It actually winds up making space look distant and elitist, like space is only for the chosen few astronauts. Trust me, I've had the oppurtunity to talk to the public in general about space, and that's the underlying attitude. A big Mars shot would only please a handful of fanatics. Many of you also overlook a lot of the difficulties in a Mars trip. Some of you act like it's not much more than a quick trip up to LEO.

    We need to build solid steps into space. A good orbital space station actually IS the proper step right now.

    Build a large, solid, modular, easily expandable platform in LEO. Then start placing things at MEO and move out to LaGrange points with zero-g industries- including, eventually, tourism. Leave GEO to the commsats unless someone grows the balls and obtains the funding to build a space elevator.

    Unfortunately, and I agree with the Mars crowd on this, the ISS ain't it. :-( There was a guy many years back, when the ISS was still in planning, who proposed a modular approach to space stations. The modules could be mass manufactured on the ground, and then shipped up to space with big dumb boosters and basically just bolted together. It was almost like Tinker Toys, but was a brilliant idea. We'd have an enormous platform up there now, with shuttle *bays* instead of just docking ports.

    Ah, it's depressing. :(

  • Bring back the autogyro! :-) (Score:3, Insightful)

    by HarveyBirdman ( 627248 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @06:14PM (#7497413) Journal

    There's your flying car. I think a couple of the early prototypes *were* converted cars.

    The autogyro was cool. If you've ever seen the old archival footage of them, they were almost crash proof. Your engine could drop out of the vehicle, and you could still pull off a safe landing.

  • I have #8: self driving cars (Score:3, Interesting)

    by HarveyBirdman ( 627248 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @06:21PM (#7497471) Journal
    There's actually still work being done on this to this day. CalTrans has gotten a small train of disconnected, unmanned cars to follow a leader car driven by a human (in a straight line), but the problem was the same as the others: dangerous when something goes wrong, which it will.

    There's also the liability question, of course. Might just have to take it all to "no fault" insurance.

  • 7 easily achievable technologies that don't exist (Score:3, Funny)

    by faust2097 ( 137829 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @06:23PM (#7497486)
    Forget living on the moon, there's some improvements we can make right now:
    1. A version of Internet Explorer that correctly ignores whitespace and comments [I'm giving them a pass, MS claims that fixing their CSS implementation will require an OS rewrite]
    2. A color printer with cheap consumables
    3. A television service that only gives you channels you actually want
    4. A car alarm that only goes off when your vehicle is actually being broken into or stolen
    5. An email client that ships with built-in spam filters for the words 'mortgage', 'consolidate', 'viagra', 'diploma', 'enlarge', 'degree' and 'inkjet'
    6. A free, full-featured FTP client for OS X
    7. A Slashdot story redundancy checker

  • Bah! (Score:4, Funny)

    by breon.halling ( 235909 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @06:31PM (#7497580)

    Forget flying cars and colonies on the Moon! I'm still waiting for Duke Nukem Forever!

  • Kevin Smith and the flying car! (Score:3, Funny)

    by emkman ( 467368 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @06:58PM (#7497794)
    If you haven't seen it already, watch The Flying Car [viewaskew.com] immediately. From director Kevin Smith starring everyones favorites Dante and Randal

  • Where's My Orgasmotron? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Ranger ( 1783 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @09:33PM (#7498861) Homepage
    The future ain't what it used to be. Alas we have no paper clothes, moving sidewalks, flying cars, or orgasmatrons. Yet no one could have predicted the spork. Look at how it revolutionized our fast food industry. NOT a day goes by when I think about all those sporks I got at Kentucky Fried Chicken (before they changed their name to KFC). Truly a failure of imagination on the part of our futurists [wfs.org] and science fiction writers. [sfwa.org]

    If there is one unpredicted technological gadget that we must all worship and bow before it is the beer widget [howstuffworks.com]. A miracle! Of the widgeted stouts I've had both Beamish and Guiness. And Boddington's is pretty tasty too.

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