It appears NASAs studies of the future of air travel and air taxi concepts. By studying these possible futures we may find our selves ready to accept flying cars in everyones garage. Spoke and Hub and the future of Commercial Air Travel has changed drastically over the last two-decades. The proof being the advancement in the marketplace by discount airline carriers of course and the most recent acceleration coming about with fractional jet aircraft market. Here are two great websites so you can read up on this futuristic concept and the innovations rapidly approaching reality. Embry Riddle SATS Program http://sats.erau.edu/whatissats.html NASA Langley SATS Program http://sats.nasa.gov/ We may find ourselves sooner than expected with flying cars, perhaps similar to the cars in the movie; Minority Report with Tom Cruise. This of course is only one possible future; Net-Centric cars, which lock into the system and communicate with one another, like bids in a giant flock. No more traffic jams. The Spoke and Hub was a creation of the larger Airlines and Fred Smiths Fed Ex concept. But even now we are seeing Fed Ex pre-sort and send much of the packages direct, rather than to the Memphis Mid-Night Sort. Which indeed is something to see and is recommended for any logistics or distribution student as the economies of scale nearly pay for the extra distances that many packages travel thru the night to reach you by 10 AM guaranteed the next morning. NASA is rapidly working on ways to improve safety and efficiency in the movement of people around the globe, which will free up air-traffic and alleviate some of the over worked and over used airports of our nation. Think on this. |
