NO DRIVER NEEDED
You exit your high-rise
apartment balcony into
your own private glass
elevator, take a seat, and
say your destination. The
elevator car descends
205 floors to street level
before detaching from the
building and moving to the street. It’s now a cube-shaped car. Another cube carrying your friends is nearby; the vehicles connect
while in motion, transforming into one bigger car. The cube drops you off at school and parks itself. According to Tommaso Gecchelin,
founder of NEXT Future Transportation, driverless cars will work together to end traffic jams and improve safety.GOING UP ... WAY UP!
The space elevator doors
open—welcome to the
space station lobby. It’s
possible that people will
one day ride a space eleva-
tor from Earth to a space
station that orbits our
planet from 22,370 miles
above. The elevator will
carry passengers and
cargo into space without
burning huge amounts of
fuel, unlike today’s rockets.
Aboard the station, travel-
ers might stay in a hotel
room with a truly out-of-
this-world view. Then those
heading to, say, Mars, can
transfer to a spaceship to
continue their journey.TT20 MAY 2017
I
t’s the year 2060, and you’re
ready for school. It’s raining,
so you decide not to take the
drone. Instead you ride in your
driverless cube car.
“The sky’s no longer the limit in
terms of where transportation is
headed,” says Tom Kurfess, a
mechanical engineering profes-
sor at the Georgia Institute of
Technology. Take a peek at
these wild rides of the future.BY KAREN DE SEVE
ART BY MONDOLITHIC