DailyDirt: Kinda Crazy Options For Personal Transportation

Innovation

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The future once promised us flying cars and space hotels, but those ultra-modern conveniences haven’t quite panned out (yet). Still, engineers are working on some pretty wacky transportation concepts, and personal flying devices aren’t quite so impractical anymore. There are a lot of bugs to work out (and maybe some FAA regulations to comply with), but flying without a plane could be a novelty that almost anyone could try someday soon. Here are just a few examples of personal transportation that might be an exciting experience.

• Personal jetpacks have been around for a while — remember the James Bond movie Thunderball from 1965? An improved vest jetpack project has started building a prototype that can fly for about 4 minutes (8 times longer than the Thunderball jetpack, untethered) with cheaper and safer fuel. Unfortunately, it didn’t meet its Kickstarter goal. [url]
• A 530-lb Exosuit is a personal submarine that lets you dive to depths of about 1,000 feet for 50 hours. Exactly one suit exists right now, and it cost around $600,000 to make. [url]
• How would you like to dangle from a couple of remote-controlled (toy?) helicopters in order to fly from point A to point B? The flight can only last about 30 seconds or so, and if you weigh more than a hundred pounds or so, you might want to try adding another helicopter (or combine a handful of quadcopters)…. [url]

If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: exosuit, flight, helicopter, james bond, jetpack, quadcopter, remote control, submarine, thunderball, transportation
Companies: kickstarter