Aircar
The scale height of the partially terraformed Martian atmosphere is considerable, allowing aircars to fly above Olympus Mons.
This example is supported by fancloth wings, with millions of tiny embedded rotors which provide lift.
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AircarThe scale height of the partially terraformed Martian atmosphere is considerable, allowing aircars to fly above Olympus Mons. This example is supported by fancloth wings, with millions of tiny embedded rotors which provide lift. |
Small personal aircraft often used
for short to medium range
transportation on planetary surfaces or within habitats
and megastructures.
Aircars as a concept date back to the
Information
Age, but
can only be said to have become practical as a transportation system
during the
Interplanetary
Age when advances in nanotechnology made such vehicles
practical
as anything other than a wealthy sophont’s
toy.
In actuality, the basic concepts of
the modern aircar can be
traced back to the Information Age scientist and thinker J. Storrs
Hall, who
first applied the then theoretical capacities of nanotechnology to the
problems
of personalized air travel. Hall’s
work
on the concepts of fancloth,
ultralight, high-strength materials, and
reconfigurable flight surfaces formed the initial foundation and
inspiration
for later researchers who worked to make his concepts a reality.
A modern aircar uses a system of
extensible landing legs to
first raise itself off the ground and then literally leap into the air. A network of fancloth
‘sails’ deploys from
the main fuselage on extensible smart matter spars and provides
propulsion for
vertical and short range flight. For
longer journeys, the craft reshapes itself using a smart matter hull
into a
streamlined, actively configurable shape optimized for high speed
flight at up
to 1000kph. Small
jet thrusters provide
forward thrust, while the hull surface first microforms itself to
provide
negative drag and then continuously adapts its surface shape to create
the
optimum flight configuration for the volume of atmosphere the craft is
traveling through.
Energy for the craft can be provided
from a number of
sources including hydrogen fuel cells (the oldest fuelling system for
such
craft), nanoflywheels, and beamed power using tightly focused microwave
or
laser based systems.
Most aircars are designed to carry four to six sophonts of roughly near-baseline size although if necessary vehicles configured for larger or smaller numbers of passengers (depending on the size of the beings in question) can be readily produced.
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