Cities Under Domes

The architect and all-around visionary R. Buckminster Fuller believed that one day, cities in cold-weather regions cold be encased under temperature-controlled geodesic domes. Although it might sound loopy, Fuller argued back in the '60s that such a dome over New York City would pay for itself in 10 years, as there would be no more need for snow removal. In addition to temperature control, the domes were also supposed to contain germ filters that would have prevented us from getting sick too.

The Food Pill and the Algae Sandwich

In the 1950s and '60s, when experts thought that conventional food production could not possibly keep up with baby production, some believed we would have to resort to factory-made capsules replete with all our daily nutrients; work on a true food pill, as opposed to a vitamin supplement, began about 100 years ago. Or, we might have to chow down on the most basic foodstuff of all: algae and plankton. One scientist believed we might all have algae tanks on our rooftops today. Another thought we could send out robotic "whales" to harvest kelp from the seas.

The Flying Car

For futurists, this one's an oldie but a goodie. By 1909, forecasters believed that soon, someone would combine, like peanut butter and jelly, the newfangled airplane to the equally cutting-edge automobile. For a century the flying car has been one of those perennially just-around-the-corner innovations, and while work continues on a viable prototype, don't expect to see your Honda become airborne anytime soon. Although NASA has done some work on creating a "sky highway," an electronic corridor in the sky to be used by pilots of small craft, the effort is still at a very preliminary stage.

The Knowledge Pill

Scientists at the University of Michigan in the early 1960s trained worms to avoid an electric shock, then noticed that other, untrained worms suddenly possessed this skill too after eating their learned cousins. It was thought that acquired skills were kept in RNA, a chemical similar to DNA that performs the genetic functions in cells. This led some to speculate that knowledge is stored in our bodies in edible form and to conclude that one day, learning Spanish would be as easy as popping a caplet or dos.

Nuclear Bombs for Demolition and Excavation

In the 1950s, when nuclear weapons were still novel, there was a movement to find so-called "peaceable uses for the atom"—including using atomic bombs as excavation equipment for titanic construction projects. The effort was known as "Project Plowshare" (as in what swords get beaten into) and was intended to show the world that America, then as now the preeminent nuclear power, was not hell-bent on global destruction.

Man-Made Oceans

In the late 1960s there were plans to damn up the Amazon River and carve out some reservoirs (possibly using nukes such as the ones described above) to create an inland ocean that would have covered a huge chunk of South America. The project reached a fairly advanced planning stage before it was abandoned by the leaders of the nations that would have been affected. Among the many problems with this plan: a French engineer calculated that placing so much additional water near the Equator could actually slow the earth's rotation.

Undersea Colonies

By the 1960s, engineers had figured out how to economically harvest the oil and other mineral wealth of the deep seas. Some thought that this would inevitably lead to the creation of underwater Gold Rush towns, communities that would at first house miners and, eventually, their families. A proposed, corollary innovation was the creation of artificial gills that would have enabled residents of these aquatic metropolises to breathe underwater without bulky gear. In 1964, at the second World's Fair held in New York City, General Motors sponsored an exhibit depicting these undersea homes which, of course, had "sea cars" parked in their underwater driveways.

The Self-Driving Car

By now we were all supposed to be able to take our hands off the wheel and let our cars do the driving. At the 1939 World's Fair in New York, one exhibit depicted future expressways filled with autos controlled by radio from a central tower. Sixty years later, near San Diego, engineers built a demonstration "smart roadway" that used sensors and computers to keep the traffic flowing. With the advent of GPS, advanced collision-avoidance technology and cars that can even parallel park without human assistance, this is one innovation we might actually be seeing pretty soon.

The Videophone

A combination telephone-television, engineers had been working on this one since the late 1920s, and actually built prototypes in New York City and Washington. But for a very long time costs were prohibitive: even after they figured out how to make it work, Bell Telephone offered the service 35 years ago for a hefty $90 a month (this was in mid-70s money, remember). Another problem: Bell's own market research, dating from the late 1950s, revealed that people don't always want to be seen as they chat on the phone.

The Safe Cigarette

When the US Surgeon General officially declared, in the early 1960s, that cigarettes cause cancer, tobacco companies responded by trying to come up with a truly safe smoke. Company scientists tried a variety of methods, including attempting to identify and filter out the harmful chemicals and even experimenting with smokable lettuce, but the effort proved a bust, and was finally abandoned following the successful cigarette company lawsuits of the 1990s.

Veteran newspaper reporter Paul Milo is now a freelance writer whose work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Yahoo News, Beliefnet and Editor and Publisher. You can grab a copy of his enjoyable book Your Flying Car Awaits for around $10 at Amazon or find it anywhere else that books are sold.

Laughton's journey will commence from central London on Wednesday morning—on the ground, I presume—and will take him through some of Western Europe, then a large swath of Northern Africa. He'll take to flight when passing through the Pyrenees, then again to cross the Straits of Gibraltar and over the Moroccan Atlas Mountains.

His flight won't be limited though, and Laughton says he'll take off whenever he needs to, or feels like it.

The car was designed by the same team that put together the powered glider that (nearly) flew Bear Grylls over the top of Mount Everest for a TV stunt in 2007, but this machine is altogether more ambitious. Based on a ruggedized dune buggy, the Skycar carries a nylon "ParaWing" which can be fitted and deployed in about three minutes. By utilizing a giant propeller fan, the car is able to take off at about 45mph, after which it an reach a cruising speed of 70mph and an altitude of 3000ft, with the ceiling at a terrifying 15,000ft.

On the ground, the car is no slouch. It'll run 0-60mph in under five seconds, and top out at a bit above 100. Thought the car will spend most of its time on the ground, it can fly continuously for about 180 miles before needing to refuel.

The most interesting bit of this whole story isn't the gee-golly expedition, it's that the team, pending the success of the adventure, plans to sell the Skycar to the public. Though the project has so far cost them $380,000—much of which was dedicated to R&D—the boys think they could sell the whole kit, which would be street legal in the UK, for about $75,000. It's not exactly a Terrafugia, but it'll do. [Skycar via BBC]

Patented on October 13, 1956, the Aerocar is the only car that is a fully FAA-certified airplane. This one has the FAA registration number N103D and apparently it is in working condition after 1,103 flight hours, even while the last official inspection was performed in 1976. According to the eBay seller, "an informal inspection of the plane by an FAA licensed A&P aircraft mechanic was performed in August of 2006." [eBay via Dark Roasted Blend]

They've always been confident, even if the public hasn't, so this is a change of tune for the futurist company. Moller posted a quarterly loss of $81, 071, bringing their deficit to $40.6 million, and they've cited the need for more money to continue operations and manufacturing of flying cars. (Oh coincidence, that's the same reason why my flying car isn't for sale yet.) I'm wondering if Ford could buy the company and pull off the production, considering ex-Boeing executive Alan Mulally is the helm...but now I'm just acting desperate. [Jalopik]

Sure, this Skycar hovered a couple of times in tests, but it looks pretty shaky. You know something's fishy when the sellers are touting it as a "fantastic piece of aviation history." We're about as skeptical as Mike Elegan at Personal Tech Pipeline, worried that today's shitty drivers might be tomorrow's flying car pilots. Flying cars? When pigs fly. – Charlie White

Jump for the video of the flying car tentatively hovering, and look carefully for a little secret.

Check out the crane's safety line, holding onto this "flying car."

Sky Car - A Flying car you can buy for real.

Gimmie My Flying Car Already: The LaBiche Aerospace FSC-1 [Jalopnik]

Tech Start-up Planning Flying Car [Jalopnik]