6 ms·

See also: Why the airship's time might have arrived Why the maglev's time might have arrived Why the supersonic passenger aircraft's time might have arrived

by rob74 3y ago

See also: Why the airship's time might have arrived Why the maglev's time might have arrived Why the supersonic passenger aircraft's time might have arrived Why the hydrofoil ship's time might have arrived Why the ground effect vehicle's time might have arrived (Ok, that's a bit far-fetched) ... I read a lot of these articles along the years, but it always turned out that the time hadn't actually arrived after all - one notable exception being electric cars...

prmoustache 3y ago
Well in the case of the hovercraft, it had already. Just not enough to be ubiquitous. I had the chance to live in Calais in the early 90's and seeing the Princess Anne and Margaret in operation. They were one of the coolest form of transportation. https://youtu.be/FePd0XHIq6U https://youtu.be/FePd0XHIq6U
- GuB-42 3y ago
  All of them exist or have existed. - Airships were the original form of air travel before airplanes obsoleted them, still have some use for publicity (Goodyear blimps) or recreative flying. - There are a few maglev lines in regular service in China. There were others in other places before. - Concorde. Not anymore though. - There are quite a few hydrofoil ships in operation today. - Ground effect vehicles are just planes that fly low. They exist, but I am not aware of passenger service with these.
  - rob74 3y ago
    Yup, these are all niche technologies - some of them (airships) had their time, but today they are all much less common than the alternatives ("regular" airplanes, regular trains, regular ships). Interestingly there is also a parallel between hovercraft and supersonic passenger airplanes: their best-known applications (Concorde and the hoverferry across the English channel) both started in the 1960s, were never really profitable and were discontinued once the original vehicles were getting obsolete in the early 2000s.
  - CobaltFire 3y ago
    Japan has had an operational maglev for years as a local train. The Linimo was built for the 2005 Worlds Fair and has been in regular service since, so it’s not just China.
- croisillon 3y ago
  it might be the hardest Princess Anne and Margaret have ever worked ;)
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
10u152 3y ago
Why fusions time might have arrived…
- Geisterde 3y ago
  Quantum computing is only 20 years away!
Mountain_Skies 3y ago
There's a small but loud group of activists in Atlanta who are sure aerial gondolas are the answer to the city's transportation woes. Looks like Vancouver (Burnaby) is actually going to do it for connecting Simon Fraser University to the city below.
- rjmunro 3y ago
  I think I heard the system in Mexico works well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexicable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexicable The system in London works, but was not built in a very useful place. While it's a handy way to get from the O2 arena to the Excel convention centre (something people needed during the 2012 Olympics), it's very rare for a longer journey to be made quicker by connecting to it - most of the time you can go to a different station and change. While it is part of the London Oyster fares system, it costs extra to ride.
  - papertokyo 3y ago
    Mexico City has 2 (soon to be 3) Cablebús gondola lines that integrate with other public transport types, all using a single smartcard for payment.
- Symbiote 3y ago
  There are mountainous cities which use gondola systems. Medellin in Colombia, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrocable_(Medell%C3%ADn) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrocable_(Medell%C3%ADn)
TedDoesntTalk 3y ago
Another exception: autonomous flight (drones). They were in PopSci magazine in the 70s.
- cubefox 3y ago
  Autonomous though? Did PopSci really make predictions about AI?
  - lupusreal 3y ago
    The ”AI" needed for "autonomous" drones is basically just PID controllers. Autonomous flying vehicles already existed in the 70s, although not so much the hovering sort. For instance Tomahawk missiles with TERCOM navigation are originally from the 70s. Around that time they also developed various missiles and torpedoes that could be fired in a general direction, which would then enter search patterns and look for targets on their own using radar or sonar.
    - cubefox 3y ago
      That's not what I would call an autonomous drone.
      - lupusreal 3y ago
        It's what was meant by autonomous at the time, and isn't terribly far removed from what most autonomous drones are doing today. Today they might be using machine vision to identify targets, in the 70s and 80s they could do signal analysis to match sonar or radar signals to a database of signatures from known baddies.
ponector 3y ago
Hadn't arrived? Looks like their time arrived and gone. All mentioned are nice technologies, but not commercially viable except of special cases.
otabdeveloper4 3y ago
> one notable exception being electric cars "Electric cars" are a patently ridiculous concept. I guarantee you in the future we're using personal electric vehicles (scooters and variations thereof), not "electric cars".
- ethangk 3y ago
  Could you say more? Are you thinking longer term we won't have individual cars, but the vehicles that we do have will be powered by electricity?
  - otabdeveloper4 3y ago
    You don't need a 2000 kg car-shaped monster just to get one person to his office job. That's a historical artifact because ICE engines can't fit onto man-sized vehicles. In the future most vehicles will be man-sized and powered by electrical motors. "Cars" will exist only for hauling freight, and probably only ever occasionally rented, not owned.
    - lupusreal 3y ago
      You need the car if you want to go reasonably fast (much more than 20-30 mph) and stay reasonably safe. You also need the car if you want to haul enough groceries to feed a family for more than one or two meals, or if you want to transport other people who may be too old or young to go cowboying around on an electric scooter. Electric scooters are pretty much only for young urban adults with no children. Like it or not, cars aren't going anywhere. A scooter lifestyle might work for you but it doesn't work for a large enough portion of the population that your wishes for society will never come to pass. Btw, electric scooters are possibly the most idiotic form of personal electric transport; electric bicycles are much safer. The geometry of a scooter, small wheels far below the center of mass of the rider, makes them fundamentally unstable at any speed. Considering bicycles exist, scooters are completely senseless and should probably be banned outright. You are far more likely to crash a scooter by yourself, simply by losing control of it, than to crash a bicycle. Scooters really are for young people who still think they're invincible; which explains why most riders don't even wear helmets.
schnitzelstoat 3y ago
I went on the hovercraft a lot as a kid to visit family on the Isle of Wight. I've never been on these other things, although maglev is quite common in East Asia, no?
- Symbiote 3y ago
  They aren't common. Wikipedia lists 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev#Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev#Systems
_ea1k 3y ago
I read this and though "I bet that EV think will get more skepticism than all the others". And then I read the comments. :lol
mzi 3y ago
> the hydrofoil ship's time might have arrived This spring an EV hydrofoil commute ferry will start its first route in Stockholm, Sweden: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/stockholm/flygande-elfarja-ska-gora-pendlandet-lattare https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/stockholm/flygande-elfarja...
pfdietz 3y ago
Sometimes technologies seem to be going nowhere until there's a breakthrough. It's not the usual course (which is to go nowhere and stay that way) but it does happen. It would be interesting to see what characteristics the success stories have that made them different. Another one I'll bring up is reusable rockets. Talked about for decades, then SpaceX made it practical and won big with the first stage of the F9. I'll argue Musk identified what was holding back previous efforts: that is, they were more optimized for raising funding from government (with all the associated political baggage) rather than achieving practical results. A perhaps more common course for late blooming technologies is long evolution in niche markets until they break into the big time. Overnight successes that take decades. Photovoltaics are of this kind. Sometimes a technology blooms because of advances made elsewhere. Arguably EVs have come because of advances in power electronics and Li-ion batteries that came from other industries.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

by rob74 3y ago

prmoustache 3y ago

Well in the case of the hovercraft, it had already. Just not enough to be ubiquitous. I had the chance to live in Calais in the early 90's and seeing the Princess Anne and Margaret in operation. They were one of the coolest form of transportation. https://youtu.be/FePd0XHIq6U https://youtu.be/FePd0XHIq6U

GuB-42 3y ago
All of them exist or have existed. - Airships were the original form of air travel before airplanes obsoleted them, still have some use for publicity (Goodyear blimps) or recreative flying. - There are a few maglev lines in regular service in China. There were others in other places before. - Concorde. Not anymore though. - There are quite a few hydrofoil ships in operation today. - Ground effect vehicles are just planes that fly low. They exist, but I am not aware of passenger service with these.
- rob74 3y ago
  Yup, these are all niche technologies - some of them (airships) had their time, but today they are all much less common than the alternatives ("regular" airplanes, regular trains, regular ships). Interestingly there is also a parallel between hovercraft and supersonic passenger airplanes: their best-known applications (Concorde and the hoverferry across the English channel) both started in the 1960s, were never really profitable and were discontinued once the original vehicles were getting obsolete in the early 2000s.
- CobaltFire 3y ago
  Japan has had an operational maglev for years as a local train. The Linimo was built for the 2005 Worlds Fair and has been in regular service since, so it’s not just China.
croisillon 3y ago
it might be the hardest Princess Anne and Margaret have ever worked ;)
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

10u152 3y ago

Why fusions time might have arrived…

Geisterde 3y ago
Quantum computing is only 20 years away!

Mountain_Skies 3y ago

There's a small but loud group of activists in Atlanta who are sure aerial gondolas are the answer to the city's transportation woes. Looks like Vancouver (Burnaby) is actually going to do it for connecting Simon Fraser University to the city below.

rjmunro 3y ago
I think I heard the system in Mexico works well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexicable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexicable The system in London works, but was not built in a very useful place. While it's a handy way to get from the O2 arena to the Excel convention centre (something people needed during the 2012 Olympics), it's very rare for a longer journey to be made quicker by connecting to it - most of the time you can go to a different station and change. While it is part of the London Oyster fares system, it costs extra to ride.
- papertokyo 3y ago
  Mexico City has 2 (soon to be 3) Cablebús gondola lines that integrate with other public transport types, all using a single smartcard for payment.
Symbiote 3y ago
There are mountainous cities which use gondola systems. Medellin in Colombia, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrocable_(Medell%C3%ADn) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrocable_(Medell%C3%ADn)

TedDoesntTalk 3y ago

Another exception: autonomous flight (drones). They were in PopSci magazine in the 70s.

cubefox 3y ago
Autonomous though? Did PopSci really make predictions about AI?
- lupusreal 3y ago
  The ”AI" needed for "autonomous" drones is basically just PID controllers. Autonomous flying vehicles already existed in the 70s, although not so much the hovering sort. For instance Tomahawk missiles with TERCOM navigation are originally from the 70s. Around that time they also developed various missiles and torpedoes that could be fired in a general direction, which would then enter search patterns and look for targets on their own using radar or sonar.
  - cubefox 3y ago
    That's not what I would call an autonomous drone.
    - lupusreal 3y ago
      It's what was meant by autonomous at the time, and isn't terribly far removed from what most autonomous drones are doing today. Today they might be using machine vision to identify targets, in the 70s and 80s they could do signal analysis to match sonar or radar signals to a database of signatures from known baddies.

ponector 3y ago

Hadn't arrived? Looks like their time arrived and gone. All mentioned are nice technologies, but not commercially viable except of special cases.

otabdeveloper4 3y ago

> one notable exception being electric cars "Electric cars" are a patently ridiculous concept. I guarantee you in the future we're using personal electric vehicles (scooters and variations thereof), not "electric cars".

ethangk 3y ago
Could you say more? Are you thinking longer term we won't have individual cars, but the vehicles that we do have will be powered by electricity?
- otabdeveloper4 3y ago
  You don't need a 2000 kg car-shaped monster just to get one person to his office job. That's a historical artifact because ICE engines can't fit onto man-sized vehicles. In the future most vehicles will be man-sized and powered by electrical motors. "Cars" will exist only for hauling freight, and probably only ever occasionally rented, not owned.
  - lupusreal 3y ago
    You need the car if you want to go reasonably fast (much more than 20-30 mph) and stay reasonably safe. You also need the car if you want to haul enough groceries to feed a family for more than one or two meals, or if you want to transport other people who may be too old or young to go cowboying around on an electric scooter. Electric scooters are pretty much only for young urban adults with no children. Like it or not, cars aren't going anywhere. A scooter lifestyle might work for you but it doesn't work for a large enough portion of the population that your wishes for society will never come to pass. Btw, electric scooters are possibly the most idiotic form of personal electric transport; electric bicycles are much safer. The geometry of a scooter, small wheels far below the center of mass of the rider, makes them fundamentally unstable at any speed. Considering bicycles exist, scooters are completely senseless and should probably be banned outright. You are far more likely to crash a scooter by yourself, simply by losing control of it, than to crash a bicycle. Scooters really are for young people who still think they're invincible; which explains why most riders don't even wear helmets.

schnitzelstoat 3y ago

I went on the hovercraft a lot as a kid to visit family on the Isle of Wight. I've never been on these other things, although maglev is quite common in East Asia, no?

Symbiote 3y ago
They aren't common. Wikipedia lists 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev#Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev#Systems

_ea1k 3y ago

I read this and though "I bet that EV think will get more skepticism than all the others". And then I read the comments. :lol

mzi 3y ago

> the hydrofoil ship's time might have arrived This spring an EV hydrofoil commute ferry will start its first route in Stockholm, Sweden: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/stockholm/flygande-elfarja-ska-gora-pendlandet-lattare https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/stockholm/flygande-elfarja...

pfdietz 3y ago

Sometimes technologies seem to be going nowhere until there's a breakthrough. It's not the usual course (which is to go nowhere and stay that way) but it does happen. It would be interesting to see what characteristics the success stories have that made them different. Another one I'll bring up is reusable rockets. Talked about for decades, then SpaceX made it practical and won big with the first stage of the F9. I'll argue Musk identified what was holding back previous efforts: that is, they were more optimized for raising funding from government (with all the associated political baggage) rather than achieving practical results. A perhaps more common course for late blooming technologies is long evolution in niche markets until they break into the big time. Overnight successes that take decades. Photovoltaics are of this kind. Sometimes a technology blooms because of advances made elsewhere. Arguably EVs have come because of advances in power electronics and Li-ion batteries that came from other industries.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]