Futurismic

Following on from solar sails we have a discussion of that other science fictional bastion of propellantless propulsion – the space elevator – it turns out that space elevators and space tethers can be used for more than just getting into orbit:

A series of bolo tethers, each tether passing a spacecraft onto the next, could be used to achieve even larger orbit changes than a single system. For example, one tether system could catch a spacecraft from a very low orbit and swing it into a somewhat higher orbit. Another bolo picks it up from there and puts the satellite into a geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO). A third tether catches the load again and imparts sufficient velocity to it so that it reaches escape velocity. A satellite initially orbiting just above the atmosphere could thus be slung all the way into an interplanetary orbit around the Sun, and all this without using any rocket propulsion and propellant…

This is in the context of a review by Centauri Dreams of Space Tethers and Space Elevators by Michel van Pelt, which explores tethers and space elevator concepts in some detail.

[from Centauri Dreams][image from Wikimedia and NASA]

The old chestnut of fully automatic cars trundled a little bit closer with the development of EM2P by the European research group EMMA:

“We sought to hide the underlying complexity of in-car embedded sensors so that developers could quickly design new applications with existing electronics,” explains Antonio Marqués Moreno, coordinator of the EMMA project. “EMMA will foster cost-efficient ambient intelligence systems with optimal performance, high reliability, reduced time-to-market and faster deployment.”

The project hopes that, by hiding the complexity of the underlying infrastructure, its work will open up new prospects in the field of embedded, cooperating wireless objects.

The key of the idea is to make a middleware application between the embedded sensors in cars and designers who want to develop interesting and useful applications.

it could also work between cars – opening the prospect of cooperating cars – and, of course, it can work with traffic infrastructure like lights, warning signs, and other signalling information. All of this via the same middleware platform.

Also a possible route of entry for a hypothetical Internet of Things.

[from ICT results, via Physorg][image from Nrbelex on flickr]

Concept cars are rather like science fiction – in that they never quite come true, and they say more about the time in which they’re designed that the time in which they would supposedly exist.

But that’s half the fun of designing them, I guess, and it looks like there’s still plenty of folk in the auto industry’s blue sky labs who know how to dream big… or who play a lot of computer games. Pink Tentacle has a bunch of concept vehicle drawings (or rather renderings) from Mazda, Toyota, Nissan and Honda that look like a mash-up of Akira, Wip3out and Stephan Martiniere; if this is what the freeways of 2050 will look like, crossing the street is going to be a crazy experience.

That’s the Mazda Motonari RX; to quote Pink Tentacle:

The vehicle drives sort of like a street luge. Acceleration and direction is determined by two armrest mounted control points, and the vehicle’s exoskeletal frame shape-shifts in accordance with the position of the driver’s arms and legs when enveloped in the seat. Four omnidirectional wheels allow 360 degrees of movement, and the tread expands or contracts to suit the driving conditions. A “haptic skin” suit consisting of millions of microscopic actuators enables the driver to experience the road psycho-somatically while receiving electrical muscle stimulation from the onboard AI guidance system (or other remotely located drivers).

No mention of how much a tank of gas will cost… though Toyota’s design apparently sidesteps the issue by being “powered by pollution”.

There’s a certain irony implicit in the automobile industry being one of the last bastions of sleek’n’shiny futurism in these times of bright green thinking; I’d love to see streets full of things like this, but I’m not going to hold my breath.

Apparently the media and navigation systems of a high-end Mercedes now require more lines of code than a 787 Dreamliner:

Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner, scheduled to be delivered to customers in 2010, requires about 6.5 million lines of software code to operate its avionics and onboard support systems.

…

Alfred Katzenbach, the director of information technology management at Daimler, has reportedly said that the radio and navigation system in the current S-class Mercedes-Benz requires over 20 million lines of code alone and that the car contains nearly as many ECUs as the new Airbus A380 (excluding the plane’s in-flight entertainment system).

There is a considerably more awesome car than an S-class described in Heavy Weather by Bruce Sterling, but I can’t find my copy to tell you how many lines of code that needed (I remember it was specified somewhere).

[via Charles Stross][image Aitor Escauriaza from on flickr]

It’s become a cliche to ask why we don’t have flying cars yet, since they’ve been a dream of science fiction writers and gadgeteers for decades. It’s not easy to build a flying car, that’s why–but Moller International has been working on it for years and has announced that it is in the process of completing its fourth “Jetson”–well, they don’t call it a flying car, they call it a “volantor airframe,” but still–and expects to complete forty of them by 2009. And Moller, as a glance at its website will reveal, has much bigger plans down the road for their flagship design, the M400 Skycar. (Via Gizmodo.)

The two-passenger, saucer-shaped M200G Jetson is designed for operation at up to 10 feet above the ground (so its operators don’t need pilot’s licenses), uses fly-by-wire technology (meaning a computer takes care of all the tricky control stuff and you just have to point it where you want to go) and:

can take-off and land vertically, is the size of a small automobile, operates vibration-free with little noise and is also qualified to travel short distances on the ground as an automobile as well. The prototype M200X has completed over two hundred flights with and without a pilot on board and can be seen flying here. In addition to the M200G, the Company plans to offer the M200E, a kit-built version of its Jetson aircraft with sales beginning in 2010. The M200E will not have the same software enabled altitude constraints as the M200G and the Company expects the M200E to be operable as an Experimental class aircraft.

The eight rotary engines give the Jetson a cruising speed of 75 miles per hour, a maximum speed of 100, a range of 100 miles, and a cargo capacity of up to 250 pounds. The engines operate on unleaded gasoline and can also be configured to run on other fuels.

If you want one, you have to identify yourself as a �candidate qualified to bid� in the planned international auction by establishing your ability to meet the $150,000 reserve.

On the plus side, you don’t have to pay anything until you actually win the bidding.

I wrote a column about aircars back in 2003. In it I mentioned a company called Roadable, which has since been purchased by the Mundus Group, which is still pursuing the technology, and Urbanearo, which is also still in the game. Gizmodo, which provided the article quoted above, has also profiled the Cell Craft concept of Italian designer Gino d’Ignazio Gizio.

Of course, Moller has been pursuing flying cars for something like 40 years now. Has the time finally come for this concept to, pardon the expression, take off…or is it doomed to remain nothing but pie in the sky?

(Image: Moller International.)

[tags]flying cars, transportation, automobiles, aircraft[/tags]