Technological Flights Of Fancy That Fizzled

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."

Comments

Jet Packs

[Infonaut]

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!

Old magazines are a great source for this

[Jason1729]

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

Supersonic Travel - Tragic Loss

[Pavan_Gupta]

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.

Re:Passenger airships

[mabhatter654]

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 $$$$.

Re:Went to the moon .. and then .... ummmm.......

[mikeswi]

> 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.