InYour Flying Car Awaits , author Paul Milo discusses “ robot butlers , lunar vacations and other drained - wrong forecasting of the twentieth Century . ” Here are 10 fateful technical school failures . Even the one that did make it are n’t anything like their original visions .
Cities Under Domes
The architect and all - around visionary R. Buckminster Fuller believed that one day , cities in cold - weather condition regions cold be case under temperature - controlled geodesic dome . Although it might sound loopy , Fuller argued back in the ’ sixty that such a dome over New York City would pay for itself in 10 years , as there would be no more pauperism for snow removal . In addition to temperature control , the dome were also suppose to contain bug filter that would have prevent us from getting queasy too .
The Food Pill and the Algae Sandwich
In the 1950s and ’ 60s , when experts believe that conventional food product could not possibly keep up with baby output , some think we would have to resort to factory - made capsule full with all our daily nutrients ; work on a true food tab , as defend to a vitamin appurtenance , start about 100 years ago . Or , we might have to chow down on the most canonical foodstuff of all : alga and plankton . One scientist believe we might all have algae tanks on our rooftops today . Another thinking we could send off out automatic “ whales ” to glean kelp from the seas .
The Flying Car
For futurist , this one ’s an oldie but a goodie . By 1909 , forecasters believed that soon , someone would combine , like peanut butter and jelly , the newfangled plane to the equally cut - edge machine . For a century the flying car has been one of those perennially just - around - the - street corner innovations , and while work continues on a practicable prototype , do n’t carry to see your Honda become airborne anytime soon . Although NASA has done some work on creating a “ sky main road , ” an electronic corridor in the sky to be used by pilots of minuscule craft , the elbow grease is still at a very preliminary stage .
The Knowledge Pill
Scientists at the University of Michigan in the early 1960s aim worm to avoid an electric cushion , then noticed that other , untrained dirt ball suddenly possess this skill too after eating their knowing cousins . It was thought that acquired skills were kept in RNA , a chemical similar to DNA that performs the hereditary functions in cells . This top some to speculate that noesis is stored in our body in edible word form and to conclude that one day , learning Spanish would be as wanton as popping a caplet or dos .
Nuclear Bombs for Demolition and Excavation
In the 1950s , when nuclear weapons were still novel , there was a crusade to find so - called “ peaceful uses for the atom”—including using nuclear bomb calorimeter as excavation equipment for titanic construction task . The crusade was acknowledge as “ Project Plowshare ” ( as in what blade get beaten into ) and was intended to show the world that America , then as now the preeminent atomic power , was not hell - bent on global devastation .
Man-Made Oceans
In the late sixties there were plans to damn up the Amazon River and cut up out some reservoirs ( possibly using thermonuclear warhead such as the ones described above ) to create an inland ocean that would have covered a huge clod of South America . The project reached a fairly modern provision microscope stage before it was abandoned by the leader of the Carry Nation that would have been impress . Among the many problems with this plan : a French engineer calculated that placing so much extra water system near the Equator could actually slacken the earth ’s rotation .
Undersea Colonies
By the 1960s , locomotive engineer had figure out how to economically glean the oil colour and other mineral wealthiness of the deep sea . Some thought that this would inevitably lead to the innovation of submersed Gold Rush Ithiel Town , community that would at first house mineworker and , eventually , their families . A advise , corollary innovation was the creation of artificial gills that would have enable residents of these aquatic metropolis to take a breath underwater without bulky gear . In 1964 , at the 2d human beings ’s Fair held in New York City , General Motors patronize an exhibit depicting these submarine homes which , of path , had “ sea car ” park in their submersed drive .
The Self-Driving Car
By now we were all theorise to be able to take our hand off the bicycle and let our elevator car do the drive . At the 1939 World ’s Fair in New York , one exhibit depicted future expressways filled with autos control by radio from a cardinal tower . Sixty eld after , near San Diego , engineers build a demonstration “ smart roadway ” that used sensors and computers to keep the traffic flowing . With the Second Coming of Christ of GPS , ripe collision - dodging technology and cars that can even twin park without human assistance , this is one innovation we might actually be see pretty soon .
The Videophone
A combining telephone - tv set , engineers had been working on this one since the late 1920s , and in reality built prototypes in New York City and Washington . But for a very prospicient sentence costs were prohibitive : even after they figure out how to make it work , Bell Telephone offered the service 35 years ago for a hefty $ 90 a calendar month ( this was in mid-70s money , retrieve ) . Another trouble : Bell ’s own market research , dating from the late fifties , revealed that people do n’t always want to be seen as they visit on the phone .
The Safe Cigarette
When the US Surgeon General formally declare , in the early 1960s , that cigarettes induce cancer , tobacco ship’s company responded by trying to fare up with a in truth dependable smoke . caller scientists try a variety of method , include undertake to distinguish and filter out the harmful chemicals and even experimenting with smokable lettuce , but the effort proved a bust , and was at long last desert following the successful fag company lawsuits of the 1990s .
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