'Sci Fi transport': a thing of the past?
Sunday 2 November, 10.00am until 10.45am, Lecture Theatre 2 Breakfast Banter

Whatever happened to the jet-pack, the flying car, the monorail, the personalised Lear jet? Or how about Maglev taxis, automated highways and long-haul flights by space shuttle? All these fantastic transport ideas were commonplace utopian ambitions for the future as imagined by the Sixties generation. Most of them were even technologically possible back then.

Today, if there is ever mention of anything so fanciful, it is dismissed as at best unsustainable, at worst irresponsible. Nowadays, aviation policy demands restraint, eco-towns are designed to encourage us to walk not drive, and transport gurus – like Boris and Dave-style politicians - cycle to work, while manned space travel is deemed too risky. Are future transport visions doomed to be of the modest ‘feet on the ground’ variety, or might we hope for more exciting sci-fi possibilities?

 Speakers
Louis Savy
founder and organiser, SCI-FI-LONDON, the London International Festival of Science Fiction and Fantastic Film.
Mark Charmer
founder, The Movement Design Bureau; European council member, Spark Design Awards; edits Re*Move blog.
Tony Nixon
senior lecturer, Information Systems, Open University; academic consultant, James May's 20th Century
Chair:


 Produced by
Claire Fox director, Academy of Ideas; panellist, BBC Radio 4's Moral Maze; author, I Find That Offensive

 Recommended readings
Pilot postpones jetpack adventure

A Swiss pilot's attempt to become the first person to fly solo across the English Channel using a single jet-propelled wing has been delayed.

BBC News, 25 September 2008

Are driverless pods the future?

There are no drivers, no rails, no timetables and no emissions. But, most importantly for passengers, there are no queues.

Lucy Rodgers, BBC News, 18 December 2007

Transportation in Science Fiction

Sci Fi transport as you read about it first.

technovelgy.com

 Festival Buzz

"Participating in the Battle was a little like entering a Bombay train at rush hour - it's a plunge into a swirl of wildly differing notions of how people should arrange themselves in a really tight situation. When you eventually emerge, you find that you're in a different place from where you started - and that you've been thoroughly energised from the journey. I can't wait to take the trip again next year."
Naresh Fernandes, editor-in-chief, Time Out India