1. Private Space Flight
Don’t expect to go on the moon in the next several years unless you’re already working for NASA. But in modest but steady steps, private businesses like Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic are starting to grab the reins of space travel from government sponsored giants the world over. Cost, of course, is and always has been the key concern. But only by persistently swinging away at those obstacles will they ever be lowered. Right now, the cost of getting goods into space is plunging. Again, it won’t be at levels where we can expect to travel to the star port for a Thursday afternoon business meeting on a space station for quite some time. But it’s on precisely the trajectory we want it to be on.
Other breakthroughs have been made towards reusable rockets (as opposed to long-existing and current types where we have to dump the expended boosters into the ocean), and in low cost replenishment flights to maintain in-orbit ships well equipped for the long haul. Investor seeding and government co vention are presently the only option to keep the private space-minded enterprises financed. But possibly sooner than we imagine, affluent donors will be the first private travellers outside the planets atmosphere. Their money will make additional advances simpler to accomplish, which will in turn bring down prices even further.
2. Revolutionized Interiors
Not all airline-changing innovations have to do with aerodynamics, fuel economy or propulsion systems. One area that’s been in severe need of repair for decades is the cramped, groan-inducing cabins of practically every commercial passenger aeroplane. There’s som diversity in accommodations, but not much. Most are spins on the same one or two lane design that stuffs weary commuters shoulder to shoulder with about a half-inch of legroom and a bag of dry peanuts.
Luckily, Hamburg Aviation’s Crystal Cabin Awards want to prize anybody – please, anyone – who can develop the next generation of flying passenger comfort. The source above offers no lack of eye catching ideas. There’s Airbus’s winning proposal, including roomy seating and an app that allows passengers purchase meals, chat with the crew and regulate lighting and temperature for their seats. AerQ also had a game altering concept, to do away with the class walls that divide first and economy class seats and only help to worsen the claustrophobic circumstances of spending many hours in a large metal tube. Aident went in another approach totally and straight up built a bed to the cheap part. The ideas are out there, airlines. Assuming any of you escape the Covid-19 crisis, consider about adopting one or two of these. For the sake of our knees and sanity.
3. Supersonic Travel
Speed. It’s the one, apparently fundamental domain of commercial aviation that’s gone backwards in recent decades, rather than ahead. The hook-nosed Concorde aircraft allowed for supersonic passenger jet travel as far back as the 1970s (its inaugural flight was 1969), after all. But growing prices, numerous breakdowns and the unacceptability of sonic booms over urban areas led airlines to mothball this and comparable boats forever. But not everyone gave up the dream.
Recognizing that expenses are as much to blame for the absence of Jetsons-level civilization as deficient technology, Silicon Valley firm Boom Supersonic has been working relentlessly to restore faster-than-sound commercial air travel at cheaper rates. Other projects with comparable aims are springing up, too, such as the still under construction Aerion AS2. But even those very literally deafeningly fast jets would be munching on the dust of DLR’s suborbital hypersonic SpaceLiner, which could whisk you (at speeds in excess of Mach 25) from London to Sydney in an hour and a half. The availability of such quick travel would alter the earth in ways that are impossible to comprehend.
4. Tailless “Flying Wings”
This basic design is hardly new (think the SR-71 Blackbird), but it never got off the ground as far as commercial useable when it was first introduced, largely because it featured amphitheater-style seating in which passengers would sit in long rows rather than columns which allowed for easier movement. Imagine trying to use the restroom when you’ve had 25 people on each side of you… “Excuse me. Pardon me. I’m terribly sorry. Don’t go back to sleep, I’ll be back in a minute. Pardon me, sorry.” But that’s fixable if you set your mind to it.
Now picture the great majority of airline passengers having no windows in such a design. Now that may be a concern, since the absence of visual cues would result in dizziness and illness. As if most commercial aircraft aren’t awful enough. But with modern electric engineering, the possibilities to replace the drab cabin of an aeroplane with smart displays are unlimited. You could project just about anything onto them. The simplest way would be to just let everyone see what’s right outside. Imagine being enveloped by clouds throughout a flight, rather of having to see them through a small window. That would sound needless and pointlessly costly, but tailless aircraft would remove the requirement for presently needed elevators, rudders and, well, tails, all of which constrict maneuverability and contribute enormous, fuel-burning drag.
5. Automation
Here’s another trend we’re witnessing everywhere: the replacement of people by technology. The military understood a long ago that sending robots to the battlefield is vastly better than deploying troops on the ground, and today we have missile-launching, remote controlled drones performing the job of jet fighter pilots. Commercial airline pilots aren’t exactly in much danger, but then again, neither are cashiers, lawyers, truck drivers, delivery men, shelf stockers or even hospital orderlies, all of whom are in danger of losing their jobs to an algorithm that doesn’t even know it exists but can still perform better, cheaper and longer than even the best human for the same job.
There’s no reason to suppose that if autonomous automobiles are swiftly arriving, we won’t see comparable when it comes to air travel. As travel expands, so too will the need for pilots (the present worldwide 200,000 is about around a third of what experts say we’ll need in the next two decades). Facing such potential staff shortages, a new method that needs no training, sick days or payments appears enticing indeed.
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