The Joy of Commuting

The Joy of Commuting

It was remarkable really. This very pretty three bedroom cottage in an equally pretty little village, cost me the same as I sold for my East London bedsit for. Remarkable how an invention everyone at first thought would turn the world on its head and make trips to the Moon as routine as a trip to the shops, turned out to have much more life changing consequences.
It did all start off a bit like a John Wyndham novel. An engineer makes a discovery and tries relentlessly for years to persuade governments, business and academia that it works but no one listens until, well... until someone does.
That someone was actually the boss of a Chinese engineering and manufacturing conglomerate, and the discovery he backed was a completely new kind of engine. It was absolutely silent, ran on electricity and was relatively easy to manufacture once the design had been perfected. It’s called the EmDrive* and, cutting a long story short, it means that today’s family hatchback or SUV is not only capable of driving along a road, they can drive above it too. About 250 feet above it usually.
And there you have it, a science-fiction style flying car. Except that it doesn’t feel that science fiction like. My new Air Rover looks and feels a lot like my old Land Rover, with four doors, a bonnet and boot, and four seats inside. It doesn’t have wings to generate ‘lift’ like an aircraft does, because the lift comes from the EmDrives underneath. Plus it goes upwards from a standing start so doesn’t need a runway either like the old passenger jets did. The steering wheel and controls are still there too, but they don’t get used to drive along a road these days. The Air Rover just has four simple, low tech landing wheels and they aren’t much use for anything but manoeuvring in and out of the garage.
Flying cars have thier limits of course. You can’t fly yourself for a start. The car uses the clever automatic software that Google pioneered for its self-drive vehicles. And if you want to travel long distances you have to use the designated airways which are away from built up areas and which can add a time to any journey.
That said, it cruises along comfortably at 250mph, and the door-to-door commute from my office in London to my cottage in remote North Wales takes under an hour. Tidy. I can make Wales to the south of France in four hours easily most Friday evenings too, French air traffic control permitting of course. It seems funny that my parents only went abroad one or two times a year back in the old days, when traveling meant catching a passenger jet from an airport.
On the whole these new cars have been really good news. The government saves a packet on the transport budget every year, and there’s far less pollution. Traffic jams are mostly a thing of the past and, as for commuting, well it turns out that it really is a pleasure. I can have a drink after work and snooze the whole journey home.
On the downside it really knocked the stuffing out of the London property market. Who wants to rent a bedsit in Clapham when for the same money each month you can live in a three bedroom cottage in Snowdonia, or a farmhouse in Normandy? No-more astronomical rail fares and cattle-truck conditions either. For the price of a season ticket on the old railways you can zip home in your own little air conditioned bubble of luxury.
As an estate agent, you’d probably think I’m struggling as a result. But I’m not. I’m doing very well indeed, thank you very much. The estate agency business has simply boomed outside London. ‘Looking for a desirable property within commuting distance of London sir? How about a cottage in the Lake District? Yes, you’re interested? My name’s Noah, and let me see if I can help you....’
*Evaluating NASA’s Futuristic EM Drive
Last summer, NASA Eagleworks – an advanced propulsion research group led by Dr. Harold “Sonny” White at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) – made waves throughout the scientific and technical communities when the group presented their test results at the 50th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference in Cleveland, Ohio.
Those results related to experimental testing of an EM Drive – a concept that originated around 2001 when a small UK company, Satellite Propulsion Research Ltd (SPR), under Roger J. Shawyer, started a Research and Development (R&D) program.
The concept of an EM Drive as put forth by SPR was that electromagnetic microwave cavities might provide for the direct conversion of electrical energy to thrust without the need to expel any propellant.
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/04/evaluating-nasas-futuristic-em-drive/