4 ms·

Jetpacks only suck due to the lack of a compact power source, one of the things that's commonly handwaved in scifi. If we had a magical power source they'd prov

• jerf 5y ago
  They have a poor backup if a component fails, they're either going to be blasting something hot or something very fast out some set of ports which raises a lot of practical issues, they're always going to be very loud, greasing them up with enough AI to be safe for a normal person is going to be a massive problem, they'll always be difficult to control because such a small, fast thing is going to be super responsive and thus very twitchy and difficult to fly (or, to put it another way, "more dynamic flying experience" is a con, not a pro), and the list goes on. Basically, a jet pack what you get if you take a minimal safe flying vehicle based on jet propulsion, then you strip away a huge number of components. The result is intrinsically unsafe. Paramotoring isn't the safest thing either, but at least it's humanly feasible.
  • stickfigure 5y ago
    In fairness, if you let the word compact do a lot of heavy lifting, I don't see why a sufficiently compact power source would have to be dangerous to fly. Give it enough redundant cells and enough AI to keep you upright, sure why not? From an abstract physics perspective, flying is only a little more complex than keeping a Segway upright. Look at what modern ejection seats can do. The problem is that we are orders of magnitude off in terms of power density, and it seems unlikely that we'll bridge that without some sort of major revolution in physics. So sci-fi it remains.