Wired’s Gadget Lab blog has a piece on science fictional technologies or engineering projects that are within our grasp in almost every way … except financially. It’s a decent enough blend of informative and snarky that I can forgive the use of the term “sci-fi” in the title … 😉

Floating cities, Transatlantic tunnels … it’s kind of sad to think that, as the commenters there keep pointing out, most of the projected costs would vanish into the budget for the Iraq “liberation” and rattle around like a ball bearing in an oil tanker. Also pointed out is the conspicuous absence of the space elevator – I seriously want to see one of those built before I die. [Image from stock.xchng]

Additional bonus! The last two entries in the Wired piece are about rail guns and space travel; frequent Futurismic commenter Brian Wang combines the two in a post about the potential of rail guns to be used as economical launch systems to lift payloads to orbit.