Is It The Future Yet?

 You know what's been missing amidst all this talk about election rigging and coronavirus spikes? Jet packs. 

Yes. Back to reality folks! Here we are in the waning moments of 2020 and I am still waiting on my personal jet pack. If only to commemorate the passing of Sean Connery who, as 007, who piloted his own rig back in 1965. Fifty-five years ago. I understand that Q Division has always been ahead of its time when it comes to things like ejector seats in Aston Martins and watches that function as a Geiger counter, but more than half a century later, we're still waiting for a model for the general consumer. 

Unless you happen to be a prankster hanging out near Los Angeles International Airport. Back in early September pilots on approach to LAX complained of interference in their flight paths by what they described as a human being wearing some kind of contraption that could only be described as a jetpack. Local officials and the FAA were quick to express their concerns, but doubted that such a thing could actually happen because the number and makers of personal jetpacks is still extremely limited, and those makers and operators of such devices were quick to deny any sort of involvement in such airborne hooliganism. And the Federal Bureau of Investigation is doing what it does best: Investigating. Because in the eyes of our government, nobody ought to be flying around in a jetpack unless they know about it.

Meanwhile, days weeks months and years fly by, without a personal jetpack for yours truly. Flying cars continue to evade us in much the same way. The future promised us back in 1965 continues to evade us. It seems much more likely that I will live on a Mars colony before I ever get my own private aviation machine for everyday use. 

Speaking of which, last week, Virgin tested their Hyperloop with human subjects. The crash test went off without a hitch as the two passengers emerged from their pod with nary a scratch or collapsed skull. For those of you unfamiliar with hyperloop technology, it's a way of rocketing people and things through a vacuum tube at speeds of up to six hundred miles an hour. Last Sunday's test took place, as most experimental things do, in the desert outside Las Vegas. During the test, the pod only went one hundred miles an hour, mostly because the track is currently only five hundred meters long. And it probably had something to do with confusion about converting to the metric system. Virgin is just one of the companies behind the move to this Habitrail-inspired mode of transport. When it comes to moving hamsters and gerbils around with vacuums, let's just say that my older brother tried that way back in the late sixties, so I feel as if we are still way behind the curve research-wise. 

So go ahead and focus on your COVID-19 vaccines and your mega-pixel cameras attached to phones. I'll wait. I'll be patient. 

Sigh.