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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."
Surprised that's not on the list anywhere ...
It was a pretty good article, but very weak on the Hindenburg details, many people 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.
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
Interesting that all of these failed technologies are transportation based. Good thing we invented the SUV instead of personal jetpacks, or some nonsense.
...the prediction of hundreds of cable channels did come true and yet there is still nothing on.
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!
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
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.
Only on
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 (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.
A legparnasom tele van angolnaval.
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.