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If there is one cry that sums up our attitude
toward the 21st century it's: "Where the Hell is my jet pack?"
That's what the future was supposed to be all about, right?
Strap on the old jet pack and fly over the rush hour traffic. It
looked so easy on Jonny Quest. James Bond would be undressed
without one.
It's
not as though people weren't trying. In the early '60s the Bell
company worked on a flying belt for the US Army, which had visions of
infantrymen leaping over mountains and rivers like so many supermen.
Using a rocket powered by hydrogen peroxide, the results were pretty
promising, but for one thing: a portable flying belt, for all its
other problems, couldn't carry enough fuel for a flight of more than
twenty seconds. That might be enough for a cool entrance at the Superbowl,
but its hardly what you'd call the killer app. |
