Humans need a basic amount of exercise for health. It is hard for me to understand how someone with a functioning brain would look at traffic congestion and propose this solution, particularly with the codicil, "it's already benefiting taxpayers".
No, technological developments that cannot possibly be used by anyone but the wealthy few, no matter how energy-efficient, are not a sane solution to urban transportation issues.
The solutions are more prosaic:
(1) Reduce population, population density, and the product of population times lifestyle. We have exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet, and our science is telling us that unequivocally with a cacophony of data from coral reefs, the status of the ocean, the loss of insects, and many other sources. We must control our own numbers. There is no technological alternative to that.
(2) Create spaces and routes that foster personal human-powered transportation, such as bicycling. Separate the cars from the people to stop the carnage and remove legitimate safety arguments against bicycling.
(3) Make public transit extensive and free. Stop extracting a pound of flesh from the poorest for every ride that they must take to get to a job that doesn't pay a living wage. The inequity of wealth distribution in our society has passed all limits of sanity. Incentive works great in small "c" capitalism, and we need to make sure that mom and pop outfits and very small businesses have the incentive to innovate and produce, but there is no need for the unlimited capitalism that we have now. Take a few pennies out of the pockets of the uber-rich to pay for transit.
(4) Stop the propaganda, herein represented by NASA's usual BS about how we all benefit from their R&D. Organ transplants my fanny. The only thing this kind of transportation is going to do is to further increase the divide between ordinary people and the ultra-rich who pay no taxes in any case. Taxpayer-funded research into new toys for the CEO. Yay.
We are brainwashed into a profligately wasteful, unnecessary, insanely-self-focused lifestyle. Mass media makes us feel bad so we'll go out and spend all our money on the latest stupid thing that will break in a year or less and we'll throw out. All the while we are striving to fill some artificially-stoked hunger for more: more money, more things, more waste and more destruction.
The X-57 feeds right into that brainwashing. It will be our end.
Its actually pointed at reducing the entry cost of flying. So ultimately not for ultra-rich.
NASA spends peanuts, and part of those peanuts is spent on fostering innovation. When I hear "Lets just feed the poor!" I feel ill. We're not so desperate we can't do right by our people, without tearing down everything else that's good. NASA's budget isn't going to feed the poor for more than 10 minutes.
No, technological developments that cannot possibly be used by anyone but the wealthy few, no matter how energy-efficient, are not a sane solution to urban transportation issues.
The solutions are more prosaic:
(1) Reduce population, population density, and the product of population times lifestyle. We have exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet, and our science is telling us that unequivocally with a cacophony of data from coral reefs, the status of the ocean, the loss of insects, and many other sources. We must control our own numbers. There is no technological alternative to that.
(2) Create spaces and routes that foster personal human-powered transportation, such as bicycling. Separate the cars from the people to stop the carnage and remove legitimate safety arguments against bicycling.
(3) Make public transit extensive and free. Stop extracting a pound of flesh from the poorest for every ride that they must take to get to a job that doesn't pay a living wage. The inequity of wealth distribution in our society has passed all limits of sanity. Incentive works great in small "c" capitalism, and we need to make sure that mom and pop outfits and very small businesses have the incentive to innovate and produce, but there is no need for the unlimited capitalism that we have now. Take a few pennies out of the pockets of the uber-rich to pay for transit.
(4) Stop the propaganda, herein represented by NASA's usual BS about how we all benefit from their R&D. Organ transplants my fanny. The only thing this kind of transportation is going to do is to further increase the divide between ordinary people and the ultra-rich who pay no taxes in any case. Taxpayer-funded research into new toys for the CEO. Yay.
We are brainwashed into a profligately wasteful, unnecessary, insanely-self-focused lifestyle. Mass media makes us feel bad so we'll go out and spend all our money on the latest stupid thing that will break in a year or less and we'll throw out. All the while we are striving to fill some artificially-stoked hunger for more: more money, more things, more waste and more destruction.
The X-57 feeds right into that brainwashing. It will be our end.