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NASA Smartmorphing Materials and Structures
Bomber007 writes "As taken from here: "As part of the Morphing Project, scientists are developing smart wing materials that can bend on command, closely imitating a bird's wings during flight, and piezoelectric sensors that allow an aircraft to "feel" the motion of its wings, just like birds do, so it can adjust to different conditions.
Further research might see personal aircraft with self-healing materials, NASA says. And air cars that hover, fly backwards and upside down, just like bugs can.
NASA being NASA, many of the other potential applications are military: there's a vision for fighter bombers that could instantly morph into agile, high speed jets and also talk of fleets of attack aircraft without pilots."
More information can also be found at the NASA site here." Voltron. That's my comment.
technology is going to change so much in the next 20 years that we can't begin to imagine what we will and won't be able to do
Yeah, I mean look at the huge changes in aircraft technology between 1980 and 2000!
Back then, we all flew in things called "jet airplanes", some of which were made by outdated companies with names like "Boeing" and "McDonnell-Douglas". Way back then, models such as the exotic "747", "737" and "DC-10" were routinely used for passenger transport, although they had no idea how primitive such technology would look to their descendants.
Fortunately we can look back on their technological hubris and know that here, in the far future, we have developed much safer, cleaner, more efficient, and faster craft that put such archaeological curiosities to shame...
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Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
There's also a vision for overweight computer nerds to morph into agile, high speed marathon runners.