Speaker 1: Technology with tech Stuff from hastaff works dot com. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I am your host, Jonathan Strickland,
Speaker 1: lover of all things tech, and today I thought i'd
Speaker 1: talked about the technology that has often been associated with
Speaker 1: our general concept of the future. When you hear the
Speaker 1: terms the future, there's certain things that tend to pop
Speaker 1: up over and over again in people's minds. Now, when
Speaker 1: I think of the future, I think of stuff like
Speaker 1: artificially intelligent computers or robots. I think about meals and
Speaker 1: pill form because you know, I was a kid of
Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties, and that was, for some reason,
Speaker 1: the concept of how we were all going to survive
Speaker 1: in the future was have these these meals that would
Speaker 1: just be in a pill and uh, if you're really lucky,
Speaker 1: you turn into a giant blueberry. But I also would
Speaker 1: think of something else that's going to be the subject
Speaker 1: for today's episode, jet pack x Uh. I've talked about
Speaker 1: flying cars in the past, so that's off the table.
Speaker 1: But jet packs are totally something I can tackle. They
Speaker 1: are prominent in pop culture, and there are a few
Speaker 1: real world examples of jet packs or variations on the theme.
Speaker 1: In some cases it's not a jet pack. It might
Speaker 1: be more like a jet hoverboard, and in some cases
Speaker 1: it might be more of a rocket pack than a
Speaker 1: jet pack. But we're going to cover all of that today, uh,
Speaker 1: and I want to talk about some of the gadgets,
Speaker 1: how they work, and what their limitations are, and also
Speaker 1: explain why I think jet packs will never become a
Speaker 1: real consumer technology. Now, first, let's define a few things.
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk about several different types of technology
Speaker 1: today that tend to get lumped under the general category
Speaker 1: of jet pack. But as I said, not all of
Speaker 1: them use jet engine technology. Some of them are more
Speaker 1: like rocket packs rocket belts because they use a type
Speaker 1: of combustible fuel to generate thrust. And at least one
Speaker 1: of the ones I want to talk about isn't a
Speaker 1: pack at all. It's a platform you would stand on,
Speaker 1: kind of like a quad copter or a drone, but
Speaker 1: souped up to the point where it's powerful enough to
Speaker 1: carry a human being standing on top of it, and
Speaker 1: all of it I think can kind of sort of
Speaker 1: be generously lumped under the term jet pack, even in
Speaker 1: though in some cases you're not wearing a pack at all. Now,
Speaker 1: the concept of strapping jets or rockets to your back
Speaker 1: so that you can achieve flight is pretty old. In
Speaker 1: the October second issue of Scientific American, all the way
Speaker 1: back in nineteen o nine, there was a piece that
Speaker 1: was written by a guy named John Elfrith Watkins, and
Speaker 1: it relayed the story of a supposed ancient Chinese astronaut.
Speaker 1: In his story, this astronaut's name was Wong two. Watkins
Speaker 1: said that according to legend, Wong to set upon a
Speaker 1: chair moult to do on a platform and attached to
Speaker 1: that platform where forty seven rockets. Forty seven attendants lit
Speaker 1: these rockets which were meant to all ignite simultaneously and
Speaker 1: lift Wong two to the heavens in a glorious demonstration
Speaker 1: for the Emperor of China. But Watkins explained, one of
Speaker 1: those rockets exploded and the explosion badly burned Wong too.
Speaker 1: On top of that, the Chinese emperor was quite unhappy
Speaker 1: about the whole thing, And supposedly this event happened all
Speaker 1: the way back in two thousand b c. E. Now,
Speaker 1: there's a very good chance that this whole piece was
Speaker 1: just a tongue in cheek take on the idea and
Speaker 1: a figment of watkins imagination that it was not meant
Speaker 1: to actually relay a real Chinese legend, but it's still meant.
Speaker 1: You've got a precursor to jet packs described in a
Speaker 1: nineteen o nine periodical, which is still fairly early. In
Speaker 1: nineteen forty five, Herbert s. Zem would tell a very
Speaker 1: similar story to Watkins, except in his story the protagonist
Speaker 1: was named Wan Who, and it took place in the
Speaker 1: sixteenth century Common era, so well nearly three thousand, what
Speaker 1: three thousand, six hundred years later it was crazy. In
Speaker 1: any case, we still think the story is probably bunk
Speaker 1: and was invented in the twentieth century, not an ancient
Speaker 1: or medieval China. Also, this was one of the stories
Speaker 1: that would later be tested on the series MythBusters, where
Speaker 1: they would attempt to create a rocket powered chair and
Speaker 1: things went about as well as you would expect. So
Speaker 1: if you haven't seen that episode, you should probably dig
Speaker 1: it up see if you can watch and see what
Speaker 1: happens when someone tries to light a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: rockets mounted underneath the chair. Now, between the accounts of
Speaker 1: Wong two in nineteen o nine and Wan Who in
Speaker 1: nineteen forty five falls. Another early depiction of jet packs,
Speaker 1: and this was an illustration on the cover of the
Speaker 1: short story periodical Amazing Stories. And man, did I love
Speaker 1: Amazing Stories. Not that I was around when it was
Speaker 1: first being published, but I've read several of the stories
Speaker 1: that were that were originally published in Amazing Stories. And
Speaker 1: I even enjoyed to some extent the television series that
Speaker 1: was inspired by it, the TV series that was produced
Speaker 1: by Steven Spielberg in the nineteen eighties. Uh, if you've
Speaker 1: ever had a chance to watch it, it's pretty terrible,
Speaker 1: but I still enjoyed it anyway. Frank R. Paul created
Speaker 1: the illustration for the cover of that issue of Amazing Stories,
Speaker 1: and there is a man wearing a jet pack flying around.
Speaker 1: He's got a hand hold control, uh, the handheld control rather,
Speaker 1: and it's tethered to his harness, So it's clearly the
Speaker 1: control for the jet pack. There's no visible signs of
Speaker 1: what is creating the levitation effect, like there's no exhaust
Speaker 1: or any other designs of what might be creating the thrust.
Speaker 1: So it's not clear what Paul had in my mind
Speaker 1: that would keep this guy up there, but it is
Speaker 1: an evocative image, and it's it's certainly illustrating a certain
Speaker 1: sense of wonder that a lot of people have had
Speaker 1: at the thought of soaring through the skies without you know,
Speaker 1: a plane around you. Now. In that issue of Amazing Stories,
Speaker 1: there was also a tale titled Armageddon twenty four nineteen
Speaker 1: a d and it featured a protagonist called Anthony Rogers,
Speaker 1: or Buck to his friends. The world of Buck Rogers
Speaker 1: featured many science fiction technologies, including those that ran on
Speaker 1: the fictional substance inner Ton or inner Ton if you
Speaker 1: prefer I N E R T O N. This was
Speaker 1: supposedly the densest substance in the universe. It was completely
Speaker 1: fictional for the purposes of the story, and the author
Speaker 1: Philip Nolan, described how that particular substance would allow scientists
Speaker 1: to create magnificent technologies, including a belt. I would allow
Speaker 1: you to adjust the effect that gravity would have on yourself,
Speaker 1: so you could reduce the effects of gravity to the
Speaker 1: point where you could, you know, kind of kind of
Speaker 1: float around a little bit, and if you paired it
Speaker 1: with some rockets, you could even fly, or at least
Speaker 1: float with some sort of sense of direction. As for
Speaker 1: working devices in the real world. One of the earliest
Speaker 1: supposed jet pack precursors was the himmel Stummer. Now, this
Speaker 1: was a mythical flight pack that supposedly was created by
Speaker 1: Nazi scientists during World War Two, and it has been
Speaker 1: widely reported as being an actual thing, but I'm here
Speaker 1: to tell you that's likely not to be the case anyway.
Speaker 1: Himil Schemer literally means sky stormer or heaven stormer, and
Speaker 1: legend would have you believe that the himmel Schemer jet
Speaker 1: pack used what's called a pulse engine, which is a
Speaker 1: real thing, and actually it was supposedly using multiple jet
Speaker 1: pulse and and that these would create enough thrust for
Speaker 1: a soldier to make a really powerful leap, so they
Speaker 1: wouldn't really fly so much as they would jump really
Speaker 1: high and really far, kind of like how Superman originally
Speaker 1: couldn't fly, but he could leap tall buildings in a
Speaker 1: single bound. It's true, like the original Superman didn't fly around,
Speaker 1: he just jumped around a lot. Well we're talking jumps
Speaker 1: that would be around a hundred eighty feet in length
Speaker 1: and fifty feet high, so it's pretty spectacular. And supposedly
Speaker 1: it would allow soldiers to clear entire mine fields or
Speaker 1: other obstacles. But as the story goes, the war ended
Speaker 1: before any of these left the prototype phase and got
Speaker 1: deployed in the field, and that the units that were
Speaker 1: created were either destroyed or, as French theory advocates argue,
Speaker 1: they were confiscated by the United States as part of
Speaker 1: Operation paper Clip. Operation paper Clip was this super secret,
Speaker 1: real operation that the US had. This part is absolutely true,
Speaker 1: where they brought over science and scientists from the Nazi
Speaker 1: Germany area and put them to work for the United States.
Speaker 1: So a lot of the early rocketry program in the
Speaker 1: US was courtesy of scientists who had previously been working
Speaker 1: for the Nazis, So that part has some truth to it,
Speaker 1: although there's no evidence that the himmel Schemmer was ever
Speaker 1: part of this real operation. Now, supposedly these engines would
Speaker 1: burn at temperatures low enough that soldiers would not need
Speaker 1: special protective clothing. Only here's the thing, like I said,
Speaker 1: there is no evidence that any of this ever existed,
Speaker 1: that any jet packs were ever made. There are no photographs,
Speaker 1: there's no documentation, and you know, it's impossible to prove
Speaker 1: a negative. It's impossible to say there's absolutely no way
Speaker 1: these existed, because you know, what you have to do
Speaker 1: is find evidence to actually support the existence, but there's
Speaker 1: no such evidence around. There are photos of a soldier
Speaker 1: supposedly using the heimmel Strmer jet pack, but those are
Speaker 1: just of a toy model that was photoshop to look
Speaker 1: like it was a vintage photograph circa ninety four. If
Speaker 1: you look at the original picture, it's a full color
Speaker 1: picture of a toy with some rockets strap to it.
Speaker 1: The earliest account of any sort of jet pack attributed
Speaker 1: to the Nazis appears to be from a book titled
Speaker 1: German Secret Weapons and Wonder Weapons of World War Two,
Speaker 1: which was written in nineteen seventy six, and it was
Speaker 1: written by a guy who was essentially a Nazi sympathizer
Speaker 1: living in Toronto, Canada, so not exactly an unbiased source,
Speaker 1: and as far as we can tell, it was the
Speaker 1: first and only appearance of well first appearance of this
Speaker 1: jet pack idea that nothing predated that, and the same
Speaker 1: author wrote lots of other stuff, including some Holocaust denial
Speaker 1: uh literature, which is pretty awful, so devinly not a
Speaker 1: reliable source. However, you'll find information on the Internet that
Speaker 1: treats it like the Himmel Schemer was definitely a gadget
Speaker 1: that existed in history, despite the fact that there is
Speaker 1: no evidence that such a thing happened, and the person
Speaker 1: who who first started sharing the story has no credibility whatsoever.
Speaker 1: The first personal flying device, a real note that actually
Speaker 1: did exist that I can really talk about it is
Speaker 1: probably the Hiller VZ one, which was built in the
Speaker 1: early nineteen fifties, And this was not a jet pack,
Speaker 1: but rather a platform upon which the pilot would stand,
Speaker 1: so kind of similar to that that apocryphal Chinese legend
Speaker 1: in a way, except it wasn't powered by rockets. It
Speaker 1: was powered by an enormous ducted fan that had a
Speaker 1: pair of counter rotating coaxial propellers to generate the thrust
Speaker 1: needed to lift the whole thing, pilot and all off
Speaker 1: the ground, and to steer it you actually had to
Speaker 1: shift your weight, which, as it turns out, is not
Speaker 1: the most precise way to conduct maneuvers. And some folks
Speaker 1: in the Navy had a real fun little nickname for
Speaker 1: this setup, and they called it the flying pie pan.
Speaker 1: A December nine issue of Popular Science described some other
Speaker 1: real world attempts at jet pack technology, or at least
Speaker 1: ancestors to jet packs. These were rocket belts also known
Speaker 1: as jump belts, so like the fictional Himmel Schemer, the
Speaker 1: concept was these belts would use rocket power to give
Speaker 1: a boost to a soldier needing to clear an obstacle
Speaker 1: or jump over hazardous terrain. There were some that were
Speaker 1: created by the thecal Chemical Corporation Theicle and I'm probably
Speaker 1: mispronouncing their name, it's th h I O K O L.
Speaker 1: They created the coal jump belts. Uh. These were solid
Speaker 1: fuel rockets strapped to a belt. Uh. There is include
Speaker 1: rockets that would be part of the early Space program
Speaker 1: projects like Gemini and Mercury or Jiminy. If you prefer
Speaker 1: I do not. I prefer Gemini. But the jump belt
Speaker 1: ended up earning a nickname called Grasshopper. The whole idea
Speaker 1: being that again gives a boost to someone who's trying
Speaker 1: to jump over, say, an obstacle. But the project never
Speaker 1: received any funding beyond some early prototypes, so it ultimately
Speaker 1: ended up fading away. It did not go beyond the
Speaker 1: prototype phase. And then there was the flying belt from
Speaker 1: Reaction Motors, which was detailed in that same issue of
Speaker 1: popular Science that talked about the vehicle jump belts. Uh.
Speaker 1: This prototype look like an actual jet pack. It included
Speaker 1: thrusters that you would then extend to either side, so
Speaker 1: they kind of would go behind and uh and beyond
Speaker 1: your shoulders and stick out to the sides a little
Speaker 1: bit pointing downward, obviously, And it also had a couple
Speaker 1: of large canisters on the back and or to hold
Speaker 1: the fuel, because you need fuel to use. These rocket
Speaker 1: thrusters had a hand control that was mounted by an
Speaker 1: arm to the jet pack harness, so it kind of
Speaker 1: came up over one shoulder and then the arm came
Speaker 1: down so that the handle would be right at arm
Speaker 1: level and you would be able to use that to control, say,
Speaker 1: the throttle. But this was a model of the concept
Speaker 1: in Popular Science. It was just a kind of a
Speaker 1: mock up, and it wasn't indicative of an actual working
Speaker 1: jet pack. In fact, the piece said that we were
Speaker 1: at least a couple of years away from a working
Speaker 1: one that would allow you to fly several miles. As
Speaker 1: it turns out, it would take three years before we
Speaker 1: had a working jet pack, and the first one, i'll
Speaker 1: let you go a couple of feet, uh, turns out,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna strap rocket steer back, you tend to
Speaker 1: be a little cautious the first time you take it
Speaker 1: out for a spin. Now, before I jump into the
Speaker 1: jet packs, that really worked figuratively speaking, um, not really
Speaker 1: going to jump into any jet packs at all in
Speaker 1: this episode, sad to say, Let's talk about the problems
Speaker 1: the jet pack has to overcome in order to allow
Speaker 1: a human being to take flight in the first place.
Speaker 1: And these are not trivial problems. The first is that
Speaker 1: we've got this pesky concept called gravity, and we've got
Speaker 1: to deal with that. Gravity is one of the four
Speaker 1: fundamental forces of the universe. It's the weakest of the four.
Speaker 1: A's the one that we aren't really able to incorporate
Speaker 1: into our standard model in a way that makes nice
Speaker 1: clear sense. The other three fundamental forces are the strong
Speaker 1: nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, and electromagnetism. Gravity is
Speaker 1: the force that describes the attraction between any two objects
Speaker 1: that have mass, and I'm talking about any two objects
Speaker 1: in the universe. That's the interesting thing about gravity, because
Speaker 1: technically speaking, you have a gravitational pull on everything else
Speaker 1: in the universe around you that has mass, But gravity
Speaker 1: is a force dependent upon two things, the mass of
Speaker 1: the two respective objects, and then the distance between them.
Speaker 1: The formula to determine the gravitational attraction between any two
Speaker 1: objects goes like this. First, you take the mass of
Speaker 1: the two object x, and you multiply those figures together. So,
Speaker 1: if you're talking about two people, you've been taking the
Speaker 1: mass of two people and multiplying that together and you
Speaker 1: get a figure. Next, you would divide that number by
Speaker 1: the distance between the two masses squared. So if the
Speaker 1: two people are a thousand kilometers apart, you would take
Speaker 1: a thousand kilometers and you would square that. You would
Speaker 1: then divide the product of the two masses by that,
Speaker 1: and that that a result you've got, which I think
Speaker 1: would be what one million kilometers. That's so you end
Speaker 1: up with a very small number. Uh So, the this
Speaker 1: part of the formula already tells us that the greater
Speaker 1: the distance between the two masses, the smaller the gravitational
Speaker 1: effect is going to be between them. Finally, there's a
Speaker 1: gravitational constant that you have to multiply against this number.
Speaker 1: This was determined by Newton's law of universal gravitation, and
Speaker 1: the constant in case you're curious, is six point six
Speaker 1: seven four times ten to the minus a leventh power
Speaker 1: meters cubed per kilogram per second squared. Now, the important
Speaker 1: thing to remember is you need this constant to make
Speaker 1: the math work out properly. We're not going to go
Speaker 1: into greater detail of where this constant came from because
Speaker 1: it gets super complicated, but we multiply this times the
Speaker 1: result we got before, and what you end up with
Speaker 1: is a figure that describes the force of gravitational attraction
Speaker 1: between those two masses. So for relatively small masses, this
Speaker 1: attraction is so weak that we can ignore it. So
Speaker 1: while it is true that I have a gravitational pull
Speaker 1: on all of you listening right now, it's so weak
Speaker 1: that you can just ignore that. It's it's the gravitational
Speaker 1: pull to a pencil that is close to you is
Speaker 1: greater than the gravitational pull I have on you, unless
Speaker 1: you're sitting really really close to me right now, in
Speaker 1: which case back off, man. I'm a scientist. But if
Speaker 1: one of those masses is considerably large and the distance
Speaker 1: is relatively small between the two masses, that gravitational attraction
Speaker 1: can be significant, such as the attraction between Earth, and
Speaker 1: you know people on Earth. Now we're gonna talk more
Speaker 1: about gravity and how we can overcome it in just
Speaker 1: a second. But before I do that, let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break to thank our sponsor. So, here on Earth,
Speaker 1: the acceleration of gravity is nine point eight meters per
Speaker 1: second per second. At least that's the value of the
Speaker 1: acceleration of gravity at sea level here on Earth. Because
Speaker 1: remember I talked about how the force of gravity is
Speaker 1: dependent upon partly upon the distance between two centers of mass. Uh,
Speaker 1: Since that magnitude depends upon that distance, the acceleration of
Speaker 1: gravity decreases as you climb in elevation. It's actually lower.
Speaker 1: But for most practical applications, it's fine to say nine
Speaker 1: point eight meters per second per second, because the difference
Speaker 1: is for again, for most practical applications are so small
Speaker 1: as to not really be that that important. They're not
Speaker 1: going to make a world of difference for what we're
Speaker 1: talking about. So if you want to slip the surly
Speaker 1: bonds of Earth and dance the skies on laughter, silvered
Speaker 1: wings points to whomever can tell me what that's a
Speaker 1: reference to. You need to create enough force to counteract
Speaker 1: the gravitational pull you experience here on the ground. So
Speaker 1: you need something has a good thrust to weight ratio,
Speaker 1: meaning you need a mechanism that can provide enough thrust
Speaker 1: downwards to nullify the effects of gravity and allow you
Speaker 1: to climb into the air. This ratio has to be
Speaker 1: greater than one, and it means that the thrust must
Speaker 1: be more than the mass of the object you want
Speaker 1: to send into the air, namely, you plus your jet
Speaker 1: pack multiplied by nine point eight one. Now, let's complicate
Speaker 1: things a little bit. In popular culture, you'll see characters
Speaker 1: use jetbacks to do amazing aerobatics and maneuvers. Characters like
Speaker 1: the Rocketeer can fly like a bullet to another location,
Speaker 1: kind of like Superman. This, unfortunately, is not realistic, and
Speaker 1: that's because we humans don't have bodies that can really
Speaker 1: generate lift. Now, for aircraft, lift is the force that
Speaker 1: opposes the weight of an airplane or a helicopter. Clearly,
Speaker 1: they're not shooting any kind of thrust straight down in
Speaker 1: order to maintain height, unless it's a vt O L.
Speaker 1: Helicopter kind of is, but an airplane's not. So. For
Speaker 1: a plane, the wings generate the bulk of lift. Although
Speaker 1: the entire body is responsible for lift, it's the wings
Speaker 1: that have the majority of this. And this is an
Speaker 1: aerodynamic force is dependent upon the atmosphere. If we didn't
Speaker 1: have an atmosphere, lift would not be a factor. You
Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to fly. So this is one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why places like Mars, which has a very
Speaker 1: thin atmosphere, it would be very difficult to fly through
Speaker 1: mars atmosphere just because there's not a whole lot of
Speaker 1: density there. Now Earth has a nice dense atmosphere. Flight
Speaker 1: means you're flying through a fluid because the gas typically
Speaker 1: is described as fluid. We would say fluid dynamics play
Speaker 1: apart here. Lift is directed perpendicular to the flow direction.
Speaker 1: So think of an airplane wing. UH an airplane wing
Speaker 1: as it's flying through the air, the flow of atmosphere
Speaker 1: is across the wing, both above and below it. The
Speaker 1: direction of lift is up. It's a ninety degree angle
Speaker 1: from the flow direction. Lift is generated when a fluid
Speaker 1: is turned by a solid object, and lift is a
Speaker 1: force that's in opposite direction to that turn. Now, this
Speaker 1: is in line with Newton's third law of action and reaction.
Speaker 1: There has to be a motion between the object and
Speaker 1: the fluid. So in other words, the wing has to
Speaker 1: travel at a different speed than the air it's moving through.
Speaker 1: If you had incredibly strong winds, I mean, like super
Speaker 1: strong blowing in the same direction as a plane that's
Speaker 1: trying to take off, the plane would not be able
Speaker 1: to get off the ground because the air and the
Speaker 1: wings would be moving at the same speed. You have
Speaker 1: to have a difference in velocity in order to generate lift. Now,
Speaker 1: to go deeply into the concept of lift would require
Speaker 1: a discussion of the work of Danielle Bernowley and Isaac Newton,
Speaker 1: and it would take a long time because there are
Speaker 1: a lot of misconceptions about lift. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of of uh hypotheses that have been talked about that
Speaker 1: are kind of correct but not really correct, and it
Speaker 1: just that's a whole episode on itself. So let's just
Speaker 1: cut to the chase. The human body does not have
Speaker 1: a shape conducive to generating lift, So to stay up
Speaker 1: in the air, you have to consistently apply thrust downwards
Speaker 1: to counteract gravity. You can't just turn the thrusters directly
Speaker 1: behind you and then shoot off into the distance. Otherwise
Speaker 1: you would just come crashing down. The only way you
Speaker 1: could avoid this is if you were moving forward fast
Speaker 1: enough so that as you fall, you're falling at the
Speaker 1: same rate as the Earth's surface is curving away from you.
Speaker 1: Because you're moving forward that fast. Uh, the Earth is
Speaker 1: a sphere. Just news flashed any out there who were
Speaker 1: not aware of this, So you'd have to be going
Speaker 1: wicked fast. You'd have to be going just as fast
Speaker 1: as the Earth is falling away from you. There's actually
Speaker 1: a name for this particular type of falling. It's called orbit.
Speaker 1: But there's no way you would ever achieve a speed
Speaker 1: that incredible using a jet pack. And still, you know,
Speaker 1: keep all your skin on you. So even if you
Speaker 1: had an incredible jet pack in the classic design we
Speaker 1: all think of, you would not be able to fly
Speaker 1: like Superman, because you would steadily fall to the Earth
Speaker 1: until you crashed or you managed to maneuver to apply
Speaker 1: your thrust to counteract gravity. So, in other words, you're
Speaker 1: back in a standing position. If you watched people use
Speaker 1: various types of jet packs, you've probably seen people in
Speaker 1: more or less this upright position, almost as if they
Speaker 1: are standing on solid ground and moving slowly around that way,
Speaker 1: and the limitations around lift are the reason for this. Now,
Speaker 1: there are exceptions. There are wings suits that incorporate a
Speaker 1: jet pack or rocket pack design that can provide lift
Speaker 1: due to their designs. Uh. These are like souped up
Speaker 1: hang gliders almost, and that's a little bit different than
Speaker 1: the jet packs, say Moba set wears in the Star
Speaker 1: Wars series. But there are people who have pulled off
Speaker 1: some amazing stunts using jet packs with a wing design,
Speaker 1: so we'll get to those a little bit later. Now,
Speaker 1: another big limitation with jet packs is where they get
Speaker 1: the energy to create all that thrust. Jet Packs need
Speaker 1: fuel or potentially some other energy source like batteries. But honestly,
Speaker 1: to get the power they need, fuel tends to be
Speaker 1: the way, so fuel or batteries doesn't really matter. That
Speaker 1: represents more weight, so that adds to the overall weight
Speaker 1: that you need to get off the ground. This is
Speaker 1: the sort of stuff that rocket scientists deal with all
Speaker 1: the time. It's one thing to calculate the thrust you
Speaker 1: need to get an empty rocket off the launchpad, but
Speaker 1: then you start adding that fuel in there, and suddenly
Speaker 1: the rocket is much heavier. It's not just the rocket,
Speaker 1: is the rocket plus the fuel. That means you have
Speaker 1: to have even more thrust to lift the full rocket
Speaker 1: filled up completely with fuel. While a human being obviously
Speaker 1: ways significantly less than a rocket, you still have to
Speaker 1: factor in things like fuel weight or battery weight when
Speaker 1: calculating the amount of thrust you'll need to get someone airborne,
Speaker 1: and you want enough thrust to have a nice, smooth
Speaker 1: lunch rather than you know, shooting someone off dozens of
Speaker 1: feet into the air with little warning. At least I
Speaker 1: hope that's what you want. Finding a good balance between
Speaker 1: fuel weight and flight time is also tricky. For a
Speaker 1: long time, a lot of jet packs had a maximum
Speaker 1: flight time of around thirty seconds maybe a minute, which
Speaker 1: isn't really that great, but it's because a longer flight
Speaker 1: time would require more fuel, which again, as we know,
Speaker 1: adds more weight, which means you need more powerful thrusters
Speaker 1: which are going to burn fuel through fuel faster, and
Speaker 1: so you can keep chasing these equations. Now these days,
Speaker 1: you can find jet packs that have a much longer
Speaker 1: flight time, up to maybe ten or twelve minutes, which
Speaker 1: is pretty impressive considering that before the maximum was about
Speaker 1: thirty seconds. It's still not a long time to be
Speaker 1: able to fly around, but it's much better than it
Speaker 1: used to be. So if you're using a device that
Speaker 1: consumes fuel, then the safety of that fuel also becomes
Speaker 1: a big concern. After all, we get energy from fuel
Speaker 1: by burning it, you know, combustible fuel. So if you
Speaker 1: put on a backpack that's going to shoot you into
Speaker 1: the air while simultaneously combusting a flammable fuel source, that's
Speaker 1: a little intimidating. It's something you have to take into consideration.
Speaker 1: You have to have safety measures there, which also adds
Speaker 1: typically more weight. There are other limitations to jet packs
Speaker 1: are loud. If you want to strap one on, you
Speaker 1: probably also want to wear some sort of ear protection
Speaker 1: or you're gonna risk damaging your hearing. And you want
Speaker 1: to keep your distance from other people, not just because
Speaker 1: your thrusters might be shooting out hot exhaust or winds
Speaker 1: at high speeds, but also because you wouldn't want to
Speaker 1: harm anyone with all that noise you're generating. So why
Speaker 1: haven't we seen more work to make jet packs quieters, safer,
Speaker 1: and more efficient. Why why are they so far behind
Speaker 1: compared to some other technologies. One large part is because
Speaker 1: there's not really a market for jet packs not a
Speaker 1: big one anyway, and that means there's very little money
Speaker 1: to continue the R and D work on a large scale.
Speaker 1: A lot of the prototypes that have come out have
Speaker 1: been sort of passion projects by eccentrics who happen to
Speaker 1: have a lot of money and a desire to have
Speaker 1: uh an engine strapped to their back that will push
Speaker 1: them through the air like a maniac. Uh what. I'm
Speaker 1: thankful for them, but they are kind of crazy. The
Speaker 1: other source tends to be things like the Defense Department
Speaker 1: that might have some money set aside for these sorts
Speaker 1: of projects, but otherwise you don't really have a market
Speaker 1: for them. Consumer market for jet packs has only recently
Speaker 1: become a possible, and even then just for people who
Speaker 1: are phil they rich not grubby little podcast here like myself,
Speaker 1: And considering how challenging it must be to keep a
Speaker 1: jet pack in the air and keep the pilot safe,
Speaker 1: it's probably for the best, all right. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about some of the early attempts to make jet packs
Speaker 1: leading up to the kinds that are being developed today.
Speaker 1: So here's another dive into the history of jet packs
Speaker 1: that actually we're working and we're real windle more of
Speaker 1: Bell Arrow Systems created the Bell Rocket Belt, which used
Speaker 1: hydrogen peroxide as rocket fuel, which is useful and that
Speaker 1: it's not explosive, so you don't have to worry about that. Uh,
Speaker 1: And it's safe for a jet pack where to carry around.
Speaker 1: And it was impressive for its time. It worked, it
Speaker 1: did not work for very long. The maximum flight time
Speaker 1: was about twenty one seconds. The belt had three tanks
Speaker 1: mounted on a fiberglass course, which I'm sure was very slimming.
Speaker 1: And they called it a belt instead of a corset,
Speaker 1: I assume because maybe they thought that otherwise it would
Speaker 1: be bad pr The left and right tanks had a
Speaker 1: hydrogen peroxide mix and the center tank contained nitrogen gas.
Speaker 1: So the nitrogen was used to force the hydrogen peroxide
Speaker 1: into a catalyst and that would end up creating this
Speaker 1: chemical mixture of water oxygen and generate a lot of heat.
Speaker 1: And it was all under a great deal of pressure.
Speaker 1: The belt created two hundred eighty pounds of thrust. The
Speaker 1: first successful untethered test flight of the Bell Rocket Belt
Speaker 1: was in the nineteen sixties. The flight lasted for fourteen
Speaker 1: seconds and Harold Graham, the pilot, hit a top speed
Speaker 1: of six miles per hour, a blistering speed, and traveled
Speaker 1: thirty ft. A public demonstration saw him fly for ten seconds,
Speaker 1: flying over a truck at about fifteen feet and traveling
Speaker 1: a hundred fifty ft in distance at about ten miles
Speaker 1: per hour, and more tests revealed that on a typical flight,
Speaker 1: about ten seconds would be required to make a safe landing.
Speaker 1: So if you need ten seconds to land and you've
Speaker 1: got a maximum flight time about twenty one seconds, it
Speaker 1: really limited how much you could actually do and a go.
Speaker 1: So when ten seconds of fuel remained, the pilot's helmet
Speaker 1: would begin to beep, so it would be an alert saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you better start your landing procedure now, because in a
Speaker 1: very short time you will not have that option, and
Speaker 1: we're coming down whether you're ready or not. One of
Speaker 1: the test pilots for the Bell Rocket Belt was a
Speaker 1: guy named Bill Suitor. Suitor would go on to fly
Speaker 1: the jet pack as a stunt double for Sean Connery
Speaker 1: in a little movie called Thunderball. Gordon Yeager was also
Speaker 1: a stunt pilot of the Belt in some shots, so
Speaker 1: it wasn't just Bill Suitor. H Then you also have
Speaker 1: Robert Quarter who also worked on the jet flying belt,
Speaker 1: which used a w R nineteen fan jet engine from
Speaker 1: Williams International. That would make this a true jet pack,
Speaker 1: but they still called it a belt at the time,
Speaker 1: as opposed to a courset. This was a project funded
Speaker 1: by the Advanced Research Projects Agency, also known as ARPA.
Speaker 1: That's the same agency that funded the development of technologies
Speaker 1: that would later become the underlying tech of the Internet itself.
Speaker 1: So the reason we have the Internet largely is because
Speaker 1: of ARPA. They funded a project called Arpanet, which some
Speaker 1: call the grandfather to the Internet. It's definitely true that
Speaker 1: the people who worked on Arpanet started to develop the
Speaker 1: protocols that would end up being the backbone of the
Speaker 1: Internet itself. Now, this jet flying belt was the product
Speaker 1: of John K. Hilbert and Wendell F. Moore. So we're
Speaker 1: back to talking about more again. Now More had worked
Speaker 1: on the rocket belt that bell Aero Systems was looking
Speaker 1: at a few years earlier. Now they were looking at
Speaker 1: a fan based belt, a fan jet engine belt, so
Speaker 1: they're moving away from rockets to jet engines um And
Speaker 1: it definitely looked like a jet pack. It was large
Speaker 1: and bulky with thrusters that would extend out to the sides.
Speaker 1: It kind of looked like oversized shoulders behind the pilot
Speaker 1: um or a little bit like exhaust pipes that you
Speaker 1: would see like the exhaust hose that you see out
Speaker 1: of the back of a of a dryer and a
Speaker 1: washer dryer, but or you know, just some ducting. That's
Speaker 1: what kind of what it looked like. Quarter was able
Speaker 1: to fly to an altitude of about seven meters and
Speaker 1: he hit top speeds of forty five kilometers an hour.
Speaker 1: And the big events here was that it was in
Speaker 1: fact a jet belt, not a rocket belt, So I
Speaker 1: was using that real jet engine to generate thrust rather
Speaker 1: than busting rocket fuel, which meant that you didn't have
Speaker 1: that super hot exhaust like you did with the rocket belts,
Speaker 1: and that could make it a little safer to operate,
Speaker 1: at least in the sense that you're not likely to
Speaker 1: set yourself on fire right away. Brad Barker partnered with
Speaker 1: a guy named Joe Wright and another guy named Larry
Speaker 1: Stanley to build a new rocket belt, and they based
Speaker 1: it off of Wendell Moore's design, but this time they
Speaker 1: were using lighter components and they were using more fuel
Speaker 1: and in this way, they were able to create a
Speaker 1: jet belt that would uh actually or a rocket belt
Speaker 1: I should say, that would actually allow for longer flying
Speaker 1: times because it was less weight and more fuel. They
Speaker 1: even got Bill Suitor to test fly it, so the
Speaker 1: same guy who test flew the previous rocket belt that
Speaker 1: William Moore had made. But this story it ends up
Speaker 1: getting very kind of crazy and tragic. It's one of
Speaker 1: those stories that when you read it, it seems impossible
Speaker 1: to believe it first because it's so unusual. So you
Speaker 1: have Brad Barker and Larry Stanley. They have a disagreement
Speaker 1: that escalated, and then it escalated to the point of violence.
Speaker 1: Brad Barker actually attacked Larry Stanley with a hammer, so
Speaker 1: Barker was arrested for assault and Stanley in the lawsuit
Speaker 1: one ownership of the rocket belt, which was called the
Speaker 1: RB two thousand. So Larry Stanley goes to claim the
Speaker 1: device from Barker's shop, but he finds that when he
Speaker 1: gets there, both Brad Barker and the device have gone missing.
Speaker 1: So Larry Stanley tracks down the other partner, Joe Right,
Speaker 1: to find out if Joe Wright knows where Brad Barker
Speaker 1: had gone off to but when he finds Joe right,
Speaker 1: Joe Wright is dead. He had been beaten to death.
Speaker 1: Larry Stanley eventually would find Brad Barker, would take him
Speaker 1: to court and win a ten million dollar UH reward.
Speaker 1: I guess or or you know. Barker was fined ten
Speaker 1: million dollars by the judge and was supposed to be
Speaker 1: paid to Stanley, but Barker refused to pay Stanley. So
Speaker 1: Stanley goes finds Barker, grabs him, shoves him in a box,
Speaker 1: and holds him for eight days until Barker managed to escape.
Speaker 1: Police would then arrest Larry Stanley on kidnapping charges, and
Speaker 1: the RB two thousand never turned up. It was lost. Uh.
Speaker 1: Who knows where it is? Maybe Brad Barker. Who's to say?
Speaker 1: That's a pretty crazy story. Now there are other jet
Speaker 1: packs we can talk about some that that really aren't
Speaker 1: jet packs, their rocket packs, because jets wouldn't work in
Speaker 1: the situations that were used in like e v A
Speaker 1: jet packs. These are rocket packs or rocket belts uh,
Speaker 1: and they're meant for extra vehicular activities e v A
Speaker 1: s for space vehicles, so spacewalks is what we're talking
Speaker 1: about here. So clearly jets would not work in space.
Speaker 1: There's no air for you to use to create thrust,
Speaker 1: so you would need to have rockets instead. There was
Speaker 1: an early such rocket pack meant for astronauts. It was
Speaker 1: referred to as the Manned Maneuvering Unit or m m U,
Speaker 1: developed by NASA in the nineteen eighties, specifically for Space
Speaker 1: Shuttle missions UH. It was the descendant of a previous
Speaker 1: project that the US Air Force had been working on
Speaker 1: that was known as the Astronaut Maneuvering Unit or a
Speaker 1: m U. Later on, NASA would develop a smaller system
Speaker 1: called the Simplified AID for e V A Rescue, which
Speaker 1: had the acronym SAFER, and that intended use was for
Speaker 1: emergency rescue of astronauts during spacewalks, rather than as a
Speaker 1: means of propulsion. In general, the mm us were only
Speaker 1: used on three missions. NASA determined that there are alternative
Speaker 1: means of allowing astronauts to perform spacewalks that are safer
Speaker 1: and less complicated. Typically tethering the astronauts to the various spacecraft,
Speaker 1: whether it was the space station or a shuttle or
Speaker 1: whatever was the preferred method, because operating one of these
Speaker 1: in space is hard, and it would be very easy
Speaker 1: to give a command that could make the situation worse
Speaker 1: rather than improve it. So despite films like Gravity where
Speaker 1: you see folks using it all over the place and
Speaker 1: shooting all over, it's very rare that any one would
Speaker 1: actually use one of those in the In outer space,
Speaker 1: they would more likely use robotic arms and tethers to
Speaker 1: help astronauts get around in spacewalks, and not the actual
Speaker 1: rocket packs. We got a little bit more to talk about,
Speaker 1: but before I jump into the final section, let's take
Speaker 1: another quick break to thank our sponsor. All right, let's
Speaker 1: get back into terrestrial jet jet packs. Since we just
Speaker 1: talked about the space one. So besides the ones I've
Speaker 1: already mentioned, there are a few more that I can
Speaker 1: chat about. There's a group called Jet Machines Extreme. They
Speaker 1: created a project called the jet Vest and they claimed
Speaker 1: it was the world's smallest jet turbine flying belt, so
Speaker 1: it's really more of a jet pack. Their design would
Speaker 1: allow for flights of up to three or four minutes,
Speaker 1: so much longer than those hydrogen peroxide based units. In
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve, they decided to hold a kickstart a
Speaker 1: campaign to try and raise thirty dollars to fund the project,
Speaker 1: but the campaign failed with less than two thousand dollars
Speaker 1: raised by the end of it, which is that's an
Speaker 1: ouch where you were twenty eight thousand dollars short of
Speaker 1: your goal. Uh and I feel you guys, I know
Speaker 1: what that feels like. So there are several companies that
Speaker 1: make jet packs that were based off that old more
Speaker 1: design from Bell Aeronautics, obviously updated ones that include a
Speaker 1: company called t AM or TAM, There was another one
Speaker 1: called Go Fast and one called Thunderbolt Arrow Systems. They
Speaker 1: all kind of created variations off that same theme. Um
Speaker 1: Eve's ROSSI that was a person who created one of
Speaker 1: the winged jet packs, demonstrated his in two thousand six.
Speaker 1: He leapt out of a hot air balloon went into
Speaker 1: a free fall. He then ignited his engines and flew
Speaker 1: around for more than six minutes before activating his parachute. Uh.
Speaker 1: He said he didn't have any plans to market that
Speaker 1: version of the jet pack. He has since done several
Speaker 1: stunts using this design, including flying alongside other aircraft like
Speaker 1: a Boeing uh jet. So it's kind of cool. They's
Speaker 1: been managed to do that also, because his design largely
Speaker 1: meant that you were already h igniting engines while you
Speaker 1: were in the air, meant you no longer had to
Speaker 1: take off from the ground. And that wing design also
Speaker 1: means that flying forward he could generate lift. Uh, those
Speaker 1: wings would help him generate lift unlike just the normal
Speaker 1: human body, so that also helped him. He meant that
Speaker 1: he could do crazier maneuvers and not just kind of
Speaker 1: be in this upright standing position and slowly drift around
Speaker 1: left or write or forward or backward or up or
Speaker 1: down as the case. Maybe. Uh. There's a guy named
Speaker 1: Frankie Zapata who recently showed off a hoverboard, which obviously
Speaker 1: isn't quite the same thing as a jet pack, but
Speaker 1: it is similar to that old flying pie pan design
Speaker 1: I talked about previously in this episode, only it's way
Speaker 1: more compact. It looks kind of like a quad copter
Speaker 1: or drone, and according to Zapata, it can fly autonomously
Speaker 1: up to ten thousand feet at a top speed of
Speaker 1: a hundred fifty kilometers perer or ninety three miles pour,
Speaker 1: and it can fly for ten minutes. It's powered by
Speaker 1: kerosene jet fuel, so you know, yikes. It has four
Speaker 1: fifty horsepower engines in it, and it contains a microcomputer
Speaker 1: that calculates how much thrust each engine should generate in
Speaker 1: order to stabilize the platform and allow you to make
Speaker 1: turns and go in certain directions so that way, it's
Speaker 1: not entirely up to the pilot's balance. So the previous
Speaker 1: flying pie pan design meant that you had to shift
Speaker 1: your weight in order to make the hovercraft essentially go
Speaker 1: in whatever direction you wanted. With this high tech version,
Speaker 1: you have a micro controller in that quad copter design
Speaker 1: that does it for you. So what it does is
Speaker 1: it tells each engine how how frequently to turn a
Speaker 1: propeller essentially or a fan in order to generate the
Speaker 1: right amount of thrust to keep the platform relatively stable,
Speaker 1: or to introduce planned instability in order for you to
Speaker 1: go in a specific direction. It's actually a really clever design,
Speaker 1: and it's one that is based off of drones and
Speaker 1: quad copters. That's how those are able to fly at
Speaker 1: a level uh out attitude without you constantly having to
Speaker 1: adjust things on a controller. They'll just kind of most
Speaker 1: of these level out naturally on their own and by naturally,
Speaker 1: I mean it's all controlled by a tiny computer that's
Speaker 1: making very quick decisions as to how much thrust each
Speaker 1: quad or each copter, each propeller should generate. Um, it's
Speaker 1: pretty interesting. Uh. I think we should be glad that
Speaker 1: this is the case, because otherwise, if you were to
Speaker 1: over balance, if you're traveling at that speed, the crash
Speaker 1: would be catastrophic at best, possibly fatal. On Zapata's website,
Speaker 1: he says the flyboard, which is what he calls it,
Speaker 1: is not for sale. If it were for sale, it
Speaker 1: would cost you about two thou dollars. He does offer
Speaker 1: other products, so it's not like this is the one
Speaker 1: thing he's ever done. He's created a bunch of water
Speaker 1: based hoverboards. I'll talk a little bit more about those
Speaker 1: in a second, but these are essentially uh jet engines
Speaker 1: that shoot out water, not air. So you have a
Speaker 1: tether that goes down into the water, a hose essentially
Speaker 1: that goes down into a body of water like a
Speaker 1: lake or river or something like that pulls water up,
Speaker 1: and then the engines shoot the water out at high velocity,
Speaker 1: thus creating the thrust you need to altitude. Ramsey is
Speaker 1: determined to get me into one of these things on
Speaker 1: Lake Lanier and have me fly around. And I am,
Speaker 1: for the record, fully in favor of it. I don't
Speaker 1: want you to think that I'm saying Ramsey had this
Speaker 1: idea and I'm terrified of Ramsey. I am terrified of Ramsey,
Speaker 1: but for totally different reasons. I do want to strap
Speaker 1: on one of these water jet packs. And um apparently
Speaker 1: Lake Lanier, which is not too far from Atlanta, has them.
Speaker 1: So keep an eye out for a potential tech stuff
Speaker 1: video summer of possibly Jonathan Swan song. We'll see. It
Speaker 1: really depends upon a few factors like budget and insurance. Anyway,
Speaker 1: moving on, there was a company called actually there is
Speaker 1: a company called Gravity who was founded by Richard Browning,
Speaker 1: and it broke records in late with a jet engine
Speaker 1: body suit called, and this is a great name for
Speaker 1: a flying body suit, the Dadalus. At least it's not
Speaker 1: the Icarus. If it were the Icarus, I would definitely
Speaker 1: be raising some eyebrows. But the Dadalists. The record he
Speaker 1: set was a speed record. He topped out at fifty
Speaker 1: one point fifty three kilometers per hour or about thirty
Speaker 1: two miles per hour. Now, that's slower than a lot
Speaker 1: of the other devices I've talked about on here. But
Speaker 1: the specific record he broke was for the fastest speed
Speaker 1: in a body controlled jet engine power suit, which is
Speaker 1: such a cool sentence to say that, I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: I'm iron Man now. Browning estimates that customizing a suit
Speaker 1: costs about two fifty thousand dollars, so very similar to
Speaker 1: the Zapota flyboard. His suit includes thrusters that are mounted
Speaker 1: to the arms, meaning you can fly around kind of
Speaker 1: like Iron Man does when he's in his standing position
Speaker 1: and he's using his repulsors to sort of hover in place.
Speaker 1: That's kind of what it looks like when Browning is
Speaker 1: using his jet suit. There are also thrusters that are
Speaker 1: on the base of the backpack itself that are providing
Speaker 1: enough downward thrust to keep you elevated above the ground.
Speaker 1: And you can use the thrusters on the arms to
Speaker 1: sort of guide yourself around and and uh and sort
Speaker 1: of direct your your motion. Um, but it looks a
Speaker 1: lot like the pose that Iron Man has when he's
Speaker 1: hovering in the air. It's kind of cool. And there
Speaker 1: are videos online so you can look at Richard Browning
Speaker 1: and the Dadalists jet Engine body suit and see this
Speaker 1: in action. He also did a TED talk in seventeen
Speaker 1: talking about his journey about deciding to build such a
Speaker 1: thing and what it took to do it and kind
Speaker 1: of the challenges he had to overcome, as well as
Speaker 1: footage of him testing the thing. It's pretty cool. There's
Speaker 1: another company called jet Pack Aviation that has built several
Speaker 1: jet pack models, including one that an actual civilian got
Speaker 1: to fly. Someone who wasn't working for jet Pack Aviation
Speaker 1: was chosen to be a test pilot for one. Uh
Speaker 1: it was a YouTuber named Misha Pollock who flew a
Speaker 1: JB ten jet pack and with no training, he was
Speaker 1: able to hover around. He was tethered to a safety line,
Speaker 1: but he was flying actually in an avocado orchard. So lovely.
Speaker 1: If Jetback Aviation would like a podcaster to do the
Speaker 1: same sort of thing, I happily volunteer. The JB ten
Speaker 1: was announced as a consumer product in two sixteen. They
Speaker 1: said that it would start to be available in uh
Speaker 1: the spring or summer of seventeen. And if you have
Speaker 1: to ask how much it costs, apparently you can't afford it,
Speaker 1: So I don't know how much it costs, but that
Speaker 1: means I can't afford it. At CS eighteen, they showed
Speaker 1: up at the Consumer Electronics Show, so Jetpack Aviation was
Speaker 1: there and they showed off a prototype of the JB eleven,
Speaker 1: the next model in their series. That one is supposed
Speaker 1: to be able to fly up to altitudes of fifteen
Speaker 1: thousand feet for up to twelve minutes with a top
Speaker 1: speed of two hundred miles per hour, which is mind boggling.
Speaker 1: According to the company, you can manage to find your
Speaker 1: self as far away as twenty miles from your starting
Speaker 1: point if you were determined to do so. The weight
Speaker 1: limit for those jet packs is two sixty pounds. It
Speaker 1: is able to fly through courtesy of six turbo jet engines,
Speaker 1: and the pack can carry of fuel as part of
Speaker 1: the setup. Uh. Then there's the Martin jet pack that's
Speaker 1: marketed as the world's first practical jet pack. It's another
Speaker 1: ducted fan approach similar to the platform I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: but this one's in backpack form and has a range
Speaker 1: of thirty kilometers or thirty minutes of flight time, and
Speaker 1: it runs on gasoline, so the fuel is actually quite
Speaker 1: easy to get hold of in that case, there's the
Speaker 1: jet level flyer. This is where we start to move
Speaker 1: into the water based jet packs. So you could call
Speaker 1: it a uh jet in the sense that a jet
Speaker 1: ski is called a jet. So they're using water or
Speaker 1: not air. But you put on your bathing suit, you
Speaker 1: put on your sun screen, you put on your pool shoes.
Speaker 1: You strap on this backpack with a big old y
Speaker 1: shaped pipe that's right behind your head and it kind
Speaker 1: of follows the contours of your shoulders, the ends of
Speaker 1: the y shape turned down towards your feet, with two
Speaker 1: nozzles that spray water at an incredible rate, and it
Speaker 1: looks basically like you've got to fire hoses strapped to
Speaker 1: your back, spraying toward the ground. There's a promo video
Speaker 1: that has a disclaimer that says doc takeoff and landing
Speaker 1: our high risk maneuvers. Expert training required. So that fills
Speaker 1: me with confidence. And from their marketing materials they say
Speaker 1: you don't buy only a jet pack add on kit,
Speaker 1: you will buy a new way of happiness, which involves
Speaker 1: being propelled at high speeds above bodies of water. Apparently
Speaker 1: there's some really cool stuff about this approach. The water
Speaker 1: does not have to escape at the same velocity as
Speaker 1: gas wood in a typical jet pack, because water is
Speaker 1: a higher density and us can provide more thrust at
Speaker 1: lower velocities than a gas would, so you're not shooting
Speaker 1: water out at the same speed that you would have
Speaker 1: to shoot out air in order to get that amount
Speaker 1: of thrust. Also, the engine and the fuel system are
Speaker 1: on a separate floating platform, so the jet pack doesn't
Speaker 1: have to take that weight into account. You are tethered
Speaker 1: both to a floating platform and to the water itself
Speaker 1: in order to have that constant supply of water, and
Speaker 1: that offloads some of the actual weight that you would
Speaker 1: have to carry otherwise for a fully self contained system.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, this does mean that you are
Speaker 1: actually tethered to a surface um and it's really a
Speaker 1: machine on the surface of the water that supplies the
Speaker 1: water pressure for your fire hose jet pack. It's not
Speaker 1: like your fire hose jet pack has a vacuum that's
Speaker 1: sucking up water. You've actually got that on that mounted
Speaker 1: platform as well, but you are still tethered down by
Speaker 1: that water supply hose. And it looks like you could
Speaker 1: attach the jet pack add on to jet skis if
Speaker 1: you wanted to and be really super crazy. And there
Speaker 1: are a lot of different variations of this. I've actually
Speaker 1: seen them in action in various places that I've gone to.
Speaker 1: I've just never been brave enough to strap one on.
Speaker 1: But as I say, perhaps you will get a chance
Speaker 1: to see your beloved podcaster Jonathan Strickland in a very
Speaker 1: not flattering tight wetsuit kind of outfit being tossed around
Speaker 1: in the air by giant torrents of water. And if
Speaker 1: you have never wanted to see that, I bet you
Speaker 1: do now, because I mean, come on laughing at others misfortune,
Speaker 1: it's it's part of life. Well, that kind of wraps
Speaker 1: up this discussion about jet packs. There are other examples
Speaker 1: I could have talked about, both fictional and real, but
Speaker 1: these I felt gave a good overview of the technology
Speaker 1: and what is necessary in order for you to be
Speaker 1: able to actually have a working jet pack. It also
Speaker 1: is kind of a wake up call to say, hey,
Speaker 1: if you want to fly around like Superman, uh, we
Speaker 1: just don't really have the tech for that unless you're
Speaker 1: going to put on one of those winged suits um
Speaker 1: and and launch from the air already. And even in
Speaker 1: that case, it requires incredible amounts of skill on athleticism
Speaker 1: in order to do it properly. And that kind of
Speaker 1: leads me into that final point about how I don't
Speaker 1: think jet packs are ever going to be a real
Speaker 1: consumer technology, largely because they're just so difficult to control
Speaker 1: and they're so expensive. Those two barriers I think are
Speaker 1: going to be constant. I don't see them getting any
Speaker 1: different anytime in the near future. I don't think we're
Speaker 1: gonna have a breakthrough in the cost of jet packs.
Speaker 1: It's going to be a really expensive plaything for a
Speaker 1: few people who can afford it and are crazy enough
Speaker 1: to do it. And then on top of that comes
Speaker 1: the necessity for expertise to be able to operate them safely.
Speaker 1: Most of us don't have that. If you want to
Speaker 1: see what I think a future filled with jet packs
Speaker 1: would look like, you need to look up the jet
Speaker 1: packs sketch from that Mitchell and Web look because I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure it's incredibly accurate to how a real future
Speaker 1: filled with jet packs would go, which mostly means people
Speaker 1: would be turned into projectiles and uncontrollably being hurled into
Speaker 1: various surfaces and obstacles. And I don't think that's the
Speaker 1: future we all want, at least not for most of us.
Speaker 1: But it is a fascinating thing to think about. It's
Speaker 1: this enduring idea and enduring enough for people to actually
Speaker 1: have gone through and made some of the darn things.
Speaker 1: And to me, that is really impressive. Maybe not practical,
Speaker 1: but still a really impressive testament to human achievement. And
Speaker 1: I think that's worth talking about now. If you guys
Speaker 1: have any topics you would like me to cover in
Speaker 1: future episodes of tech Stuff, or maybe there's a guest
Speaker 1: you would like for me to interview on the show,
Speaker 1: or a guest host you would like to have here
Speaker 1: to talk about a specific topic, you should let me
Speaker 1: know send me a message. The email address for this
Speaker 1: show is tech Stuff at how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: or you can drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter.
Speaker 1: The handle at both of those is tech Stuff hs W.
Speaker 1: You can go follow us on Instagram crystals sharing lots
Speaker 1: of cool stuff over there, so check that out. And
Speaker 1: remember you can tune in on Wednesdays and Fridays over
Speaker 1: at twitch dot tv slash tech Stuff. You can actually
Speaker 1: watch me record this show live. There are people doing
Speaker 1: that right now. They're filling up the chat room with funny,
Speaker 1: insightful things that I haven't been able to read yet
Speaker 1: because I've been going over my notes, but I'll be
Speaker 1: reading them shortly and interacting with them. If you ever
Speaker 1: want to get into a conversation with me and say
Speaker 1: nice things to me, preferably, please go to twitch dot
Speaker 1: tv slash tech stuff. You'll see the schedule there and
Speaker 1: maybe you can tune in the next time I do
Speaker 1: one of these shows and be part of the conversation.
Speaker 1: I would love to see you there, and I'll talk
Speaker 1: to you guys again really soon. For more on this
Speaker 1: and fathoms of other topics because it has to works
Speaker 1: dot com