jetpacks

The warm autumn sun has burned a hole in the morning haze and opened up the sky above the South Foreland Lighthouse, a historic beacon along the White Cliffs of Dover, England. It marks the narrowest point of the English Channel. You can't quite make out where the sea meets the coast of France, a tantalizing 22 miles distant, but a little surface gauze won't interfere with what's coming across the Channel today.

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The future wasn’t supposed to look like this. Here we are, one month from the very futuristic-sounding 2009, still waiting for robot armies to do our bidding, nuclear fusion to power our homes and a space elevator to zip us up through the atmosphere. Decades, even centuries ago scientists were promising that certain life changing technologies would be ready to go any day.

It might seem that the future is running a little behind schedule. But never fear! It is, indeed, only a matter of time.

So today, allow us to present to you eight technologies that were supposed to be up and running by now, but still haven’t become part of daily life; along with info on when we can expect the technologies to actually arrive.

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Following in the vapor trail of aviator Louis Bleriot, Yves Rossy made a historic flight of his own across the English Channel this morning. After yesterday's poor weather delayed his planned passage, Rossy—also known as FusionMan—became the first human to cross using jet propulsion.

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Today marked the public debut of the Martin Jetpack, a ducted-fan-equipped personal flying vehicle that could keep pilots aloft for 30 minutes or more. Inventor Glenn Martin has been working on the jetpack—which isn't technically a "jet" pack, given the fans—for 27 years, but he has kept it secret until now. Even his son, Harrison, the 16-year-old test pilot, wasn't allowed to tell his friends that he'd been cruising around the yard back home in Christchurch, New Zealand in a revolutionary flying vehicle.

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Today, in Oshkosh Wisconsin, the future is being unveiled. We'll be bringing you live updates throughout the day, but first up is an exclusive interview with 16 year old Harrison Martin--pilot of the most promising jetpack yet unveiled--and footage of the pack in action. Yeah, it sounds like a vacuum, but it's a friggin jetpack!

Check back throughout the day for more comprehensive coverage, and be sure to thumb through staff photographer John B. Carnett's slideshow from Oshkosh, here. Onwards and upwards!

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