Flying Carpet? Yes, But Don’t Get Rid of Your Car Yet

It’s fun to read of ancient times, or even modern-day Harry Potter types of transportation – flying on a broom, a stick, or even a magic carpet.  But, do we really want precious scientific research, and the funds that go along with it, to be spent on proving a plastic flying carpet can be built?

That’s exactly what a researcher at Princeton University has done, but don’t give up your car or more traditional forms of transportation just yet because the laboratory invented carpet is a piece of plastic about four inches square.  You may fit a few of your pet fleas on it but that’s about it. So, why bother building such a device?  Does it advance science and the human condition by some order?  Not really.

Mini-Carpet

And how fast can this plastic carpet go?  About a centimeter a second for now.  But, these high-flying scientists are hoping they will be able to get the thing up to a meter per second.  Now, isn’t that blazing speed?  Of course, you won’t be able to try it out because it can’t fly any farther than the limited area of the research table inside the lab.

Do you think this type of research is a little off base?  You’d be in good company if you did. Even one of the researchers professors at Princeton says he thought it seemed “foolhardy.”  That might be an understatement.  And how long did this foolhardiness take to bring to fruition? Two years.  Can we all agree that was a wasted two years that could have been spent more fruitfully – say, by determining the average length of a peanut?

Off to Mars for Testing?

Not to be dissuaded from conducting such useless experiments again, the nascent Alladin is already working on a larger version of his pint-sized carpet.  This one would be solar-powered and be able to fly over long distances.  One slight problem that has already developed is that such an aircraft would need a wingspan of 50 meters just to carry one person.  Don’t rush to buy tickets just yet.  Unless you want to embark on Mars where, the researchers say, their little high-flyer would undoubtedly work because of the Martian atmosphere might be conducive to such aircraft.

So, here we have the perfect solution.  We pack these researchers off to Mars where they can experiment to their hearts content. And we’ll be free to not have them spending time and money devising things no one needs or wants.

Click here for more articles by The Writin’ Cowboy.