Improving Our Standard of Living (Wattpad Edition)

Chapter 46: Where's My Flying Car?

When someone says the future is going to be full of amazing technologies, a common response is, "Where's my flying car?"

The idea that the flying car would be right around the corner was popularized by Popular Science. In 1924, the magazine predicted that flying cars, capable of vertical take-off and landing, would be developed in 20 years [1].

The flying car was invented in 1939, five years before the predicted date. It was called the helicopter, which according to physicist Neil degrasse Tyson, is a flying car [2].

Many helicopter designs have wheels like a car, though few are capable of driving like one. Once vertical take-off was achieved, there was no point in giving them driving capabilities. All that would do is add to the cost without corresponding utility. Once you can fly to your destination, adding driving capabilities makes little economic sense. Cars are more economical, safer, and convenient than helicopters for most people. Most of us don't need to travel far or land on buildings. Likewise, for instances when a helicopter is pertinent, there's no point in driving. That's why helicopters don't have driving capabilities, even though adding such features is possible.

Besides helicopters, there are small airplanes that resemble cars with wings. The Colomban Cri-Cri is 12 feet, 10 inches long, has a wingspan of 16 feet, weighs 172 pounds, and can fly 137 miles per hour [3].

There's no reason driving capabilities couldn't be added to small airplanes. But it's not common for the same reason it isn't common for helicopters.

Nevertheless, enthusiasts have shown it can be done. For instance, a road vehicle with a powered parachute is, for all intents and purposes, a flying car. The I-TEC Maverick is one such machine and is street legal. It has a propeller on the back and deployable parachute. It starts driving, deploys the parachute, turns on the propeller, and lifts into the air. While in flight, its parachute is held into position with a mast. There are videos of it in operation on YouTube.

We've had the ability to make flying cars for several decades, and a few enthusiasts have. But there's no incentive to mass produce them because people don't really want them, even though they say they do. That's the real reason flying cars aren't common.

Think about it. It would be a nightmare. Millions of flying machines whizzing by tightly-packed skyscrapers and other buildings of chaotic elevations. One failed aircraft could plow into several others on the way down. People are terrified of heights and don't like loud noises. There's also the additional complexity of adding another dimension to travel. Flying would be harder than driving, especially with all the other aircraft and buildings around.

Driving is cheaper, easier, quieter, more convenient, and more time-saving than flying for most forms of short and medium-distance transportation.

The fact we don't see flying cars everywhere doesn't mean we can't produce them. It means they're not as desirable or practical as the movies make them out to be. Unless going long distances, driving is superior to flying.

Meanwhile, humanity has made technological breakthroughs that are far more magnificent than flying cars (which we can technically build already). The technology behind a smartphone, a self-driving car, or a space satellite is much greater than the technology behind a flying car. We've had all manner of flying machines for over a century because, technologically, they're easier to build. But modern computers, artificial intelligence, and spacecraft require a significantly more advanced society.

Contrary to popular belief, humanity is considerably more advanced than many science fiction movies predicted by this date. Many people just don't recognize or appreciate the technological wonders that surround them in the modern age. We grow bored of our toys quickly.

The only instance flying cars might one day be practical for the masses is if we developed the hardware and software allowing them to operate themselves. Most humans could never be trusted to pilot them.

What's funny is that the computational capacity and software to permit autonomous flight requires much more technological sophistication than the flying machine itself. That's another reason we don't see flying cars everywhere, even though we can build them. We need self-driving capabilities to make the technology safe.

Here's my point: A self-driving Google car is far more advanced than a non-autonomous flying vehicle.

There is no shortage of technological predictions that never came to fruition. But we are in many ways more advanced than the imaginings of past futurists.

For instance, people aren't using jetpacks to travel everywhere, as was once predicted by a few unqualified journalists. But a smartphone is much more advanced than a jetpack.

Like flying cars, the real reason we don't use jetpacks isn't that we can't build them. It's because people don't really want them. They're big, heavy, ugly, noisy, polluting, dangerous, impractical machines that would only work if they could pilot themselves.

But make no mistake; we can build jetpacks.

We can also construct moon and mars colonies like futurists once predicted. But the real reason we don't is that not enough people want to. And the scientific benefits of doing so may not be worth the cost at the moment. (That's debatable of course.)

We're already far beyond the technological capabilities of flying cars, jetpacks, and moon colonies. Don't mistake the difference between what humanity can do and what's most convenient and economical to do. That's my point.

The technologies that I describe throughout the rest of this book aren't at all comparable to flying cars, jetpacks, and human-staffed moon colonies. They would be genuinely useful to humanity relative to their cost, making it much more likely they will become common when they are developed.

Notes

1. Coburn, Davin. "A Short History Of The Flying Car." Popular Science. July 8, 2013. Accessed April 28, 2016. http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2013-06/no-really-where's-my-flying-car.

2. Rothkopf, Joanna. "Neil DeGrasse Tyson's Dream Shattered: Flying Cars Will Probably Never Happen." Salon. March 23, 2015. Accessed April 28, 2016. http://www.salon.com/2015/03/23/elon_musk_disappoints_neil_degrasse_tyson_flying_cars_will_probably_never_happen/.

3. "Colomban Cri-cri." Wikipedia. Accessed April 28, 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colomban_Cri-cri.