How much longer ya'll think till were fly around like the Jetsons in flying cars?

Question

Again I wanna know what everyone elses opinion about how long till were flying around in our own personal flying cars? How long till we replace todays telephone with the visiphone (being able to see who your talking to on a phone)? How long till we have fancy smancy holograms? And how long till were going to the moon, mars and all the other planets jus like we go to the front or backyard of our house?

Answer 1

We won't have flying cars until they are fully automated. It's not the control that's the hard part of flying, it's navigation from the air and handling emergencies. Most people that drive will never have the skills to do that in the air.

We have videophones but no-one really likes them. What does a videophone add to the conversation anyway? No-one wants to have to get dressed and check their hair just to answer the phone. Nowadays people are even eschewing voice and just using text messaging.

We have holograms.

It'll never be as easy to go to the moon as it is to go to your backyard.

Answer 2

So:

Flying cars, in another century. We're on the verge of running out of fuel this century, and it takes a lot more energy to push something around while keeping in the air, than to push something around while it sits on the ground.
After we run out of fuel, and find a renewable alternative for it, we'll probably be ready to tackle the demands of flying cars that population growth will necessitate.

"Visiphone"s are already in use today. There are some 56k modem based ones (which suck, and basically look like a slideshow). People use webcams and microphones to chat on broadband all the time.
The thing that's holding this 'technology' back is that the communications infrastructure isn't there. Phone companies are (for now) required to lend others the use of their phone lines, and so nobody wants to build technology for telephony, when the internet can render it useless.

Holograms. The problem with holograms is that it's best created with a laser, but that the laser needs a medium to light up. That's why you see the more "realistic" sci fi movies with holograms projected on a layer of foggy air. It's not exactly hi-fi. And for current communication purposes, it's good enough that we can see a picture of a person, without having the ability to speak to the back of their head or see their baldspot.

Moon, we don't want to goto, it's boring. Mars, the travel time limitation (of half a decade) is due to conventional propulsion. There's an ion engine that just came out, but it'll only reduce flight time by about 1/4, or maybe a year. Still not a trip to the back yard. And even then, the power for these fuels is still mostly derived eventually from fossil fuels (either in production of the engine, or of the liquid hydrogen/oxygen mix, or for the energy stored in the ion engine). And we're about to run out of that soon.

Basically, don't hold your breath for anything neat, but I would cross your fingers that we don't all turn waterworld style after the oil runs out.

Answer 3

I don't think there will every be flying cars. The have cars that hover over the street but not flying in the air like the Jet sons. visiphones are already here! It doesn't help if the person your calling doesn't have one. I wouldn't want one though have you ever called into work saying the you were sick and you weren't? or secretly use the restroom while you were on the phone? I wouldn't want anyone to see that lol. Holograms? Like the one the murdered doctor on I-Robot left for Will Smith? I think that would be cool. A personal yet in-personal way to communicate to others sweet! About going to the moon and mars. I believe that it's way too soon for anything of that nature. Doesn't it take like forever to get there? I get restless just driving out to Blythe to visit my sister.

Answer 4

The visiphone idea will probably catch on within the next 10 years. The holograms probably within the next 30years, and The others such as the personal flying car, the trips to the moon and mars, are a lot further down the line, probably by the end of the century maybe slightly longer.

Answer 5

Well, flying cars ARE available. For a couple of million dollars you can get a trip into space. The newest type is space-walking (i.e. floating around outside the shuttle). Vodafone (European phone network) already have 3G, a videophone service. Holograms? Give it 5 years. Common space travel is about 50 years away I'd say...ut it'd be really pricey

Answer 6

I don't think that'll ever happen. For one, with terrorism, one can only imagine the complications of governing and law enforcement on any vehicle that flies that the general public could control. Secondly, we are trying to get away from fossil fuels, that would just increase consumption, people bit*h about $3.00 unleaded regular, imagine the cost of aviation grade fuel if everyone was buying it. I suppose if they could find an alternative to liquid fuel jet propulsion that was practical. But then again, we can't even seem to work out a vehicle on wheels that doesn't use fossil fuel and is still practical, so the chances are bleak on a vehicle that flies for the masses.

Answer 7

Of course, the jump jet of the 1970s proved we have the technology to have flying cars. Unfortunately, we do not have the technology to control people driving them safely. With the way people drive 2D, it boggles the mind to imagine them in 3D.

I have to tell you younger guys that in the middle of last century, books and mags pictured 2000 cities with flying cars buzzing all around the skyscrapers. Of course, they also had us on the moon and Mars. All airliners would be supersonic, in contrast to the only supersonic, Concorde, now scrapped.

On the other hand nobody predicted you and I would be chatting across the world, and certainly nobody envisaged every kid on the street having a tiny phone that takes instant colour pictures, that in turn can be instantly send all over the world.

Instead of expensive supersonic airliners, they came up with massive planes that can fly halfway round the world non-stop, and at a price any working family can afford.

Space travel economy has seen that its prudent to send robots, so you don't have to spend billions of dollars protecting bits of watery flesh that have no place in the alienness of space.

Answer 8

I hope we never have flying cars. People are scairy enough driving in 2-d let alone 3-d.

video-phone is already happenning on small scales with cellphones, it should be widespread in a few years.

Holograms went out of style quite some time ago, never figured out why though. Still hoping for hologram TV.

Common space travel... Probably never.

Answer 9

They have this advertisement for a space craft trip around the moon then straight back to earth. No bull. I heard it on the radio a few weeks ago. I'd look it up on google to get full details.

Answer 10

The flying car has already been invented. One obstacle to mass use is similar to that of other innovations --- government bureaucracy. The FAA has not yet approved the flying car. Write your congressman.