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Transportation Retro-Futuristics
jpatokal writes "Flashback to the future with UC Berkeley's Transportation Futuristics! An excellent exhibition of amazing diagrams on how transportation was expected to evolve, featuring flying saucer buses, airplane escape pods and, yes, monorails. But where are the Segways and SUVs?"
At least we know for sure we'll have hovercars by 2015...
Well, sir, there's nothing on earth like a genuine, bona fide, electrified, six-car MONORAIL!
What'd I say? Monorail!
What's it called? Monorail!
That's right! Monorail!
ah that loveable Lyle Lanley...
I suppose this was before the age of Star Trek. Much better than an underground subway between New York and Los Angeles would be a simple door you could walk through that instantly teleported you to the destination.
Alphanos
Beg, borrow, or make a copy of MST3K episode 524, "12 to the Moon," which leads with the short subject, "Design for Dreaming," a corporate promotion film by General Motors. Produced in the 1960's, it depicts THE FUTURE! as General Motors will bring it to you. Astounding labor-saving kitchen devices! Amazing new cars! ("For the electronic highway of the future, the new Firebird-II!")
Corn-ball as it is these days, part of me still wishes the future were like this.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Retro-future isn't what it used to be.
When I was a high school student in Tulsa in the 1980's, a monorail system around town was being kicked around. I thought it was pretty cool, although it didn't actually *go* anywhere in particular. It went by my school, and that was good enough.
I don't know what it is about monorail that gets the imagination so fired up... as the site notes, the engineering required for something as simple as switching tracks is daunting. But what's the runaway #1 selection in an online poll of Tulsa students? 80% say... Monorail, baby! (Note, this is before Slashdotters hit the poll and skew the results...)
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Damn 503 errors, I've been waiting to post for nearly a half hour, so no link, but did you see those seats for the proposed short-haul plane? I guess they expect their passengers to either be very skinny- or to just kind of lean against the seat standing up.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Far in the future, with nanotechnology, transporters could be something that is actually possible. But I think it would only work for inanimate objects and not living creatures. With inanimate objects, you just break down the object into its individual molecules, recording the data of each one so that you can send the data to the other end of the transporter and build an exact copy of the original object. But with living creatures, this process would effectively kill the original. So you walk in a transporter, and you die, while a copy comes out the other end. The only way to remedy this would be to send the actual molecules down the transporter "line" rather than the data, but this would be much, much more complicated (and not even possible unless there is an incredibly efficient physical link between the two transporter locations).
...where's my flying car!?
but I seriously wouldn't mind piloting this thing http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/news_events/exhibits/f uturistics/auto/3.html
Neil is that you? Yeah yeah, it's me... Neil...
Looking at the image they have for the "flying-saucer bus", one would think that a slight part of that dream is alive in the form of "park-n-ride" bus services that many suburbs offer for their work commuters looking to get into the city without the wear on their cars and frustration of rush-hour traffic.
Sure, the buses don't fly, but the end result is somewhat similar in a "it's 2004, but no weekend trips to the moon" kind of way.
Hmmmm. I don't think you should eat magic mushrooms and read slashdot at the same time. It wouldn't be good to have your kernel killed by a hallucinogenically distorted page fault.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
80% say... Monorail, baby! (Note, this is before Slashdotters hit the poll and skew the results...)
/.'d and then by tonight the leading poll result (in a landslide), despite it not even being a choice right now, will be: CowboyNeal.
Haha, I can see it now. The poll gets
but how are they going to power all these wonderful things ? if you are thinking oil then think again, we will be lucky to see oil in 2025 never mind in the distant "future", how are those fusion generators coming along ?
still you can always apologise to your grandchildren now because they will be the ones to suffer
I was born in 1952, and I remember many of these images when they were new.
:(
A couple of weeks ago I waited for a late plane, then got jammed into one of those just-too-small Airbus middle seats for six hours. I couldn't help thinking that what I really wanted, right then, was one of the self-piloting flying cars we were all going to have by the year 2000.
Computers and the Internet are okay, but not much of the really good stuff futurists promised we'd have by the beginning of the next century is in common use yet.
I guess I might as well give up on that Moon vacation. Not going to happen in my lifetime at this rate.
The corollary to this is that, our current interpretations of what future vehicles might look like (imagine the Audi in I, Robot or the Lexus in Minority Report), will probably look hopelessly dated when 2030 rolls around.
The problem, I suspect, lies largely in our inability to predict what styling cues future consumers will find appealing. Is it impossible for us, as non-clairvoyants, to imagine what manufactured goods might look like in the future? Can anyone cite any examples of past designers who were able to successfully envision the future of industrial design?
I was cheated. Cheated I say! At some point I fell through a rift in the spacetime continuum and ended up in this timeline where the future turns out to be as lame as can be with little sign of improvement. Where are the hovercars? Where are the big round space stations? Where are the bases on the moon? Where are the sonic showers? Where are the talking robots? Where's my shiny silver suit? Cheated! Give me back my real timeline!
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
The oil hasn't run out - yet.
But it will.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
In that family of predictions, one stalwart is the vision of "hands-off" driving. Although the schedule has always been wildly unrealistic, this particular vision keeps popping back up -- unlike a lot of the gee-whiz ideas which are rarely discussed today (such as ubiquitous personal aircraft).
Also, bullet-trains and the Chunnel might be considered to be fulfilled predictions, albeit much less spectacular than others.
"Why didn't anyone tell me my ass was so big?"
Has anyone ever heard of the plane Deadalus?
It was powered entirely by a person and flew across the English Channel. That'd be the perfect vehicle for me. Of course, to be light and strong enough, it had to be made of some lithium alloy so it was rather expensive.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
I laughed when I saw the 730-passenger Airbus concept. I laughed even harder when I saw that it was made in March of 2004.
was where they thought that it'd be good if there were loads of wide-open roads through a city that looked more like some buildings scattered throughout a park rather than the traditional street built for people. Problem is, they ended up convincing the planners to adopt aspects of that philosophy and we ended up with such monstrosities as Los Angeles.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Most of the items really could have existed by now. It would have been possible with the hard work and ingenuity of our engineers over the last 50 years. However, the visionaries did not account for one thing:
Affordable computers.
Compare the advances in vehicles and transportation infrastructure to the advances in computing technology. Virtually all of our work has been focused on rapidly advancing semiconductor technology and computer programming ability. Imagine if that energy was instead focused on mechanical innovations like flying cars and high-speed rail. We'd have them by now.
Am I suggesting this was the wrong way to do things? Absolutely not! That vast complex mechanical infrastructure would be the result of billions of man-hours in design, and would require significant human intervention to operate. What we are doing now is getting our processing and data management development out of the way first. The ability to store vast amounts of data, communicate instantly, run complex algorithms, and develop intellegent control systems will make all other technological development much more efficient.
The Silicon Revolution has been a time of building new tools. Building the machines that will help us build better machines. No longer does this mean tying a rock to a stick in order to make a better hammer; we now work with our minds and computers are the tools we use to expand the influence of our thoughts. Computers were once an end unto themselves; now they have grown to a high level of usefulness and are already being applied to further develop other fields.
This was a little sidetrack that 1950 could never have seen, but it was a highly necessary and important one.
But where are the Segways and SUVs?
Oh, you're looking for the Horror section. One aisle over from the Sci-Fi.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
View Design for Dreaming on line, from the Internet Archive.
wasn't far wrong.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
hahahahahhahaha the future WAS cool!
Considerthe Concorde? So it was envisioned in the early 1960's, however, it does look quite stunning, no?
Well it's the past of travel as well, well time is irelevant *steps into his police box*.
The calculations are pretty interesting when you look at them. No matter what mass an object is, accelerating it at constant Earth gravity will attain lightspeed in almost exactly one Earth year and require the total conversion to energy of exactly the mass of that object. Messed up, huh?
Forget flying cars and monorails. Considering the prevalence of obesity, it is about time that the beliwheel from Judge Dredd was made available.
There are loads and loads of pictures - all worth looking at, but I thought I'd give my favourites (with best at top). If you like, go from the last pic (no. 12) to the first for a buildup:
:)
1: Tomorrow's railroads in the sky -
My favourite - this one's just bizarre. A flying bullet rollercoaster. 'nuff said.
2: The traffic light parade -
The funniest. A perfect candidate for the old "False or True" TV show.
3: The TransDrive system - So that's what cars were designed for... A great way to travel I'm sure you'll agree!
4: Flying saucer bus -
Great artwork and design this - look at the transparent rim! I would love to travel on this thing.
5: The Interregional Highway System -
Archaically massive, and dream-like. Think 'metal slug' (the Neo-Geo game).
6: Interior design for Lake Meritt BART -
I just like the unusual architecture of the surroundings in this one more than anything else - the way it's multi-tiered and stuff.
7: The Freedomship -
One day, we'll all live on massive ships like this!
8: A horseless sulky -
Haha. Something right out of the wacky races. I like the way it can go at 116mph
9: Here's your helicopter coupe -
There's something you don't see everyday.
10: Louis Brennan's mono-rail car -
Pure Metal Slug again. Elaborate, clunky and above all - some big machinery.
11: Here comes the flying bus -
Nice chopper.
12: Automotive engineers forsee radical changes -
Okay, this one comes straight from the wacky races. Dick Dastardly's car no less.
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
Whatever the origens of oil are, it seems that there is less of it becoming available. Check out the Association for the Study of Peak Oil.
In any case, oil will never "run out".
It will just become too expensive to scavenge what is left of it.
The "Planetron" New York to Los Angeles subway system shown on the site reminded me of an old science fiction story that featured an even more fanciful long-distance subway system. In the story the tunnels were straight lines through the Earth's molten magma layer, held open by force fields. The cars needed no power, they used gravity to accelerate downhill to the halfway point and decelerate up to the destination. I wish I could remember more about this story. Does it ring any bells?
I was extremely disappointed that there were no airship at all in this exihibition. None. And especially no ATOMIC airships. :(
-Airship
http://www.atomicairship.com
Serving your airship needs since 1995.
I think it just shows us how predictions rarely come true.
Flying buses?
Flying cars?
It's all a bunch of balloney. Yet people ask for predictions.
How about the Segway? The only big news on the Segway was the rush for local governments to restrict their use. Pedestrians don't want them on the sidewalks, and motorists don't want them on the streets.
Sure, a Segway would be cool to drive, but they're expensive. Put it this way: they're more expensive than the TOTAL cost of my first 3 automobiles, and they're not nearly as functional.
Next time you want to ask visionaries about the future, I think you should also take a 1/2 dozen science fiction writers, give them several cases of beer, lock them in a room, and ask them to predict the future! I bet the science fiction writers are more accurate than the visionaries, and I'll tell you why:
Most visionaries are ideallists and ideallists have a tough time living in the real world. They don't grasp reality, they always think in terms of what should be, and not what's practical. Sure, it'd be cool to drive a flying car, but look at the logistics. Who would control them? Where could you fly? How would you handle some moron flying drunk, and crashing into your home? Or, the moron who flies drunk, passes out, and wakes up over the Gulf of Mexico? The idea is great, but there are so many problems with it.
We'd definitely need more ambulance chasers... I mean lawyers.
-- No sig for you!
Stephen Hawking did NOT kill the idea of warp speed. afterall, Warp Speed (when you capitalize 'warp' and 'speed' you invoke Gene Roddenberry) involves subspace bubbles which, to the best of my knowledge, are make believe. what Hawking MAY have killed, however, is merely the idea of a certain type of wormhole. which was already make believe, anyway.
If it hasn't been done yet (and if it has, please, sombody give me a title), you have just described one hell of a scifi plot, as well as a great title!
Bravo.
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
The sun has run out - already.
Humans decided decades ago that scavenging the suns energy was too expensive to harness, so according to that Association's logic, the sun has already "run out".
What a bummer, cause it's still going to burn for several billion more years....
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
Perhaps you should actually read and consider the contents of the aspo site before making assumptions about their logic.
Or perhaps you have more experience in the oil and related energy industries than the members of aspo?
I was making an attempt (obviously I failed) to comment on the human laws of economics and how those can seem to influence our ability to contend with the natural laws of physics.
The point being, that although we humans are perfectly capable, technologically speaking, of using nothing but solar power and it's numerous related alternative energy sources, we don't. Why? Because of economics. However, if the oil did suddenly just stop flowing, would it become economically viable to start using alternative sources? Probably so. So when the oil dies, the sun will be un-run out.
This discussion is actually On Topic, because from the article, one of the reasons the future never turned out the way it was invisioned was because they couldn't forcast what the economics of the future would allow.
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
You mean like the Nucleon ?
http://www.google.com/search?q=Ford+Nucleon
Has anyone noticed that much of what people considered as revolutionary in "futuristic cars" almost 75-100 years ago, is still considered as revolutionary today? Especially when you consider that some of these things are still in development to this date.
Sorry Detroit, but y'all have been chasing your tail for nigh on a century, yet only delivered on 1/100th of your concepts and promises. How about researching proven technologies for just a year, instead of wasting money and passing the expense onto consumers?
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/Daedalus
I was confused with the Albatros, though, in that Daedeuls didn't fly across the English Channel. That was the record it beat.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Flying Personal Transport Device's (PTD's) makes sense to me, especially when I see all those poor souls wasting their lives sitting in gridlock. I say PTD because the car is a hopelessly outmoded design, one that needs to die soon.
The PTD would need multiple safety redundancies (backup power, turbines, parachute, whatever) but the major stumbling block for consumer acceptance would be one thing: The interface.
The PTD should basically take just a set of GPS coordinates and that's it. The vehicle should be able to fly itself using a simplistic genetic algorithm, with the entire traffic system looking like a type of swarm intelligence. This would also help on the regulatory front. How could the FAA force you to have a pilot when the only control on the device is a GPS entry console?
The PTD obviously shouldn't ever have a locus of central control. Besides traffic net system failure, it would an obvious target for terrorists. A good PTD design would probably be so light that any terrorists using them to attack targets would probably do little damage and do us a favour killing themselves. Sure they could pack the cabin full of explosives but they could already do that using an RC plane.
The rise of such vehicles would probably drive a transition to buildings made of nanocomposites so tremendously strong that a little PTD bouncing off them probably wouldn't even leave a mark. This kind of infrastructure would be built automatically. Anyone who's been to Japan and witnessed the post WWII economic miracle knows it was the Japanese automotive exports that drove that economic expansion.
I just googled the Skycar and noticed they IPO'd on 21 November 2001. Poor bastards.
well, strictly speaking **prima facie**, they subtly distinguished between a *past* "prototype" in Cardiff, and a *future* "pilot" in SWE.
Pretty much what we have with the car, but it needs to be automated, like an automated taxi cab. Trains are too large and inflexible, conventional roads too complex without sophisticate artificial intelligence.
u strans. htm
The concept is called Personal Rapid Transit.
Something like:
http://www.advancedpassengervehicles.com/a
or
http://www.atsltd.co.uk/
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Yes, I agree, which is why I said *less* spectacular.
I think that, even 50 years ago, it would have been regarded as less so and less gee-whiz-futuristic than things like *ubiquitous* personal aircraft.
After all, the Chunnel is primarily an achievement of engineering and dogged determination, in the same sense as the Egyptian pyramids.
In fact, there was a chunnel attempted in the 19th century -- by the same family (Brunel) who did the Brooklyn Bridge, I believe.
I think I am beginning to see your point, but I'm afraid it still seems somewhat unclear.
Personally, I don't entirely think that humanity's refusal to switch to "alternative sources" is entirely based on economics.
I would, however, cocede that economics is a huge factor in making that choice.
I Think that maybe that the reason that we have not switched is because of the constraints placed upon us by "common sense", where common sense is a kind of awareness in a state of inertia.
To put it more plainly -
Perhaps our intelligence tells us that an energy crises is eminant.
And yet, we find this difficult to accept, because we have been enculturated into a society that is heavily reliant on spending a geologies petrochemical legacy.
We should be preparing for the plausable worst-case scenario , but we our "inertia of awareness" factor doesn't want to accept that the lifestyle we possess can change radically and swiftly.
Thus, our collective world-view, enshrined as common-sense is at least as much of a preventitive factor as is the economical element, when it comes to our choices of energy sources.
That's not evolution, it's a step back. Kinda like a meteor falling on Earth and killing all but single cell life.
(8-DCS)