“Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars.”

-Carl Sagan

Think about the last extended journey that you took. Chances are you were on an airliner, in a car, or maybe you even boldly chose the fading options of sea travel or railway. When you think about it, the way we travel hasn’t really changed all that much in the past fifty years. Automobile standards have improved and air travel has become more common, but we haven’t taken that next big step. For some strange reason the jetpacks and teleporters of the world have never really come to fruition. In fact, many people working at NASA would probably argue that we have taken steps backwards in our capability for travel. The shuttle program has been scrapped, and there hasn’t been a manned moon mission since the early 70’s. Despite possible missteps in the way we move around the world and beyond it, there is some recent evidence that may indicate hope for the coming future. In 25 years you may be able to take a routine trip into low earth orbit (LEO), or be rocketed from New York to Los Angeles in under an hour.

One of the drastic ways our transportation may change in the near future is coming (unsurprisingly) from Google. News of their driverless car over the past several years has been encouraging, but it seems to me that the average person still considers the possibility of autonomous cars quite remote. Perhaps it is because so many of us love the driving experience, the feeling of working with a machine in order to accomplish something that would otherwise be impossible. With a driverless car there is none of that, it would feel completely detached, satiated, boring. While many of us may be putting the possibility of robotic chauffeurs into the back of our minds, the project (among others) has now reached a practical testing phase.

Patrick McLoughlin, a transport official for the UK, has stated that by the start of next year there will likely be autonomous cars performing trials on British motorways. [1] Along with tech companies like Google, carmakers such as Nissan have begun field testing self-driving vehicles that could soon make their way onto public roads. [1] The hope is that with the advent of driverless cars, problems like congestion and pollution can be ameliorated in heavily populated urban areas like London.

We may have all pondered the driverless car of the future, but I doubt that many of us have seriously considered the possibility of what is now being called a “hyperloop”. Elon Musk of Tesla Motors and Space X has recently stated his intention to reconfigure human transportation in the coming years. Musk is now planning to research and develop a system of ultra-highspeed magnetic levitation vehicles that would (theoretically) shoot you across the country in under an hour. [2] The plan is to utilize existing bullet train technology in conjunction with solar power and pneumatics to create a sustainable system of global high-speed travel. On July 15th Musk informed the world via twitter that he plans to formally publish an “alpha design” for the technology by August 12th of 2013. [2]

In addition to these intriguing advances to earthly travel, there has also been encouraging progress in the development of extraterrestrial transportation. Just several days ago the British government disclosed a new joint venture with Reaction Engines Ltd. The project will be funded by a 60 million pound investment from the UK, and aims to develop a space plane utilizing Reaction’s Sabre rocket technology that could allow new LEO planes to reach speeds in excess of 15,000 miles per hour. [3] The hope is that the new type of rocket motor will make refueling and sustainability possible for passenger spaceflight, and allow manned space travel to finally become feasible for a large number of people.

There is also a great deal of interest being generated from NASA’s coordination of efforts with the University of Washington to develop a spacecraft motor using nuclear fusion. The new type of technology is still under development, but could hopefully be used to trim the time of a Mars trip down to a month. [4] All of this progress and visionary achievement shows us just how fascinating a time we live in. One hundred years ago you may have been astonished by the sight of a car traveling amongst horses, and now look where we are. Our species is like an infant that has slowly learned to crawl, then walk, and is just now pushing the boundaries of movement. In twenty years we may have crept up to a slow jog, but I’m excited to see what happens when we hit a dead sprint.

-J.A. Young

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23330681

[2] Lavrinc, Dominic. ”Elon Musk Thinks He Can Get You From NY to LA in 45 Minutes.” http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/07/elon-musk-hyperloop/. Accessed 19 July 2013.

[3] Clark, Stuart. “Sabre rocket engine could open up access to space as never before.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/across-the-universe/2013/jul/17/sabre-rocket-engine-reaction-skylon. Accessed 19 July 2013.

[4] Poeter, Damon. “Mars in a Month? Hook Up the Fusion Drive.” http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2417551,00.asp. Accessed 19 July 2013.