Sci-Fi Tech We Could Have Right Now (For a Price)

PlainBlack writes "Possibility isn't limited by technology. And it's certainly not limited by human imagination. What makes something impossible is the lack of cold, hard, cash. Wired blog takes a look at 10 science fiction technologies we could build, if they weren't so expensive. 'New York-L.A. Maglev Express - Cost: $70bn (Based on established construction costs). At $70bn, it's tantalizingly affordable by the standards of this roundup: a train that could beat airliners from one side of the country to the other. Many agree that Maglev has enormous potential. Bite-sized examples are in operation all over the world. Birmingham, England, had the first in the 1980s, though the promise of airliner-like speeds on land is still unrealized. The British system sped along at a pathetic 26MPH and was designed to get air travelers to the planes, not to outrun them.'"

Comments

Not too much research

[Telvin_3d]

Whoever wrote this obviously didn't do too much research for the article. They managed to get through an entire section on the feasibility and cost of a space hotel without stumbling across Bigelow Aerospace, who actually has a test bed in orbit right now.

Re:Wish List

[sssssss27]

Reliable Tires (or that fail gradually) - Tires are still based on air-filled balloon technology, making them problematic.

Michelin is working on that, they call it a Tweel and it should be on production vehicles by 2016.

two easy-to-verify facts

[Scrameustache]

And for the poster above who gives the usual slashdot antiwar rant... of what use is a Maglev is some asshat blows it the hell up? IRAQ HAS NEVER ATTACKED THE UNITED STATES
IRAQ HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH 9-11

Concorde

[Anonymous Cowpat]

I heard a terrific series of lectures by an ex concorde pilot this past summer. There were a few points about its demise that he made that I'd like to pass on:

• Concorde was profitable right up to the end, even including the massive overhaul costs; in its final year, 7 relatively low-capacity aircraft made £90m, whilst BA as a whole was making a loss.
• The only reason BA stopped flying them was that the French wouldn't let them - the agreement under which they were originally built stated that both countries had to to keep flying their concordes and the French didn't want to keep flying theirs because THEIRS were unprofitable (because they operated them badly)
• Also, the French hold the type certificate on the plane, so BA couldn't go even build new ones.
• The original agreement also stated that BOAC, later BA, had to operate the British concordes; so even if Beardy Branson had purchased them, they'd still have been operated by BA staff, and if BA were going to be operating them, they'd damn well still be doing it with the planes in their own colours. Except they couldn't - see above. It was a publicity stunt and Branson knew it.

So, to conclude, the reason that the only supersonic airliner is sitting rotting on the tarmac is because the French killed it, not BA. Also, the Paris crash was caused by Air France putting too much luggage on board and then overfilling the fuel tanks to give it enough to get across the Atlantic. (The tanks were supposed to be 97% full, the French filled them to 100%.)

Re:More to it that speed

[Skippy_kangaroo]

Actually - they are usually failsafe. You don't need residual power.

Think about what that means - their failure mode is safe. It is a well established design and engineering principle.

For example, the brakes are held open by compressed air. If something goes wrong the compressed air supply shuts off and the brakes stop the train.