Look I’m all for inline space rockets with heat shield and parachute re-entry, its just safer and in the long run that will determine the public’s fervour for space exploration and Its only in China that they have enough control over the media to tell the world after the fact whether their space flight was indeed successful or even conducted at all. Not really the way to go. But space ships are a bit more complicated, you see, a lot of people know that the Challenger blew up because of a faulty O ring in the booster rocket which had been reused, safely it was thought. What people don’t always know is why the booster rocket was built in so many sections in the first place and thus requiring the use of a massive O ring, if you have ever had to prepare one you’ll know that feeling that you are attempting something risky. You see rocket scientists are pretty good at building rockets as the profession’s title suggests. Politicians on the other hand are not. To be fair across all the States they gave NASA the budget provided they tendered openly across North America. Now that’s fine when it comes to consumables, you do what everyone does, go on ebay, pay it now and have it shipped. There’s your problem, right there, you see shipping isn’t that easy in the States, it’s a big landmass and that maybe why they pipped the rest of the world with the development of the Interstate. But you are limited in how big you can ship in the States, not so in old Europe. To this day we ship by Canal the stuff that’s too big to put on a truck, its actually pretty useful to still have the old waterways in a usable condition.

No such option on the other side of the pond. If you are shipping from an open tender anywhere in the USA and you are shipping the world’s single largest reusable item – The Space Shuttle booster rocket then how do you deliver it to NASA? Simple, you chop it into sections and load up the trucks. The Shuttle was always doomed and not by the Science, it was the administration of the program that sealed its fate not an O ring.
Other vehicle technologies developed by the Third Reich include Stealth, an unforeseen by-product of one of the first Fixed Delta Wing long range plane trials. It took off just before the end of the war and they couldn’t find it with their early radar despite being able to see it from the Tower. One of the experimental planes ended up in a Smithsonian Museum and was allegedly visited by Lockheed Martin personnel during the development of a modern version. It was the reduced, angular profile of the design that eluded detection, radar absorbing materials were developed much later to complete the modern design.

This is all heading in one direction, I am basically saying here that the fundamentals of our technology go back a long way, too far in fact. So, what about these sky cars, if we can’t get space ships right and planes aren’t all that different just bigger (Airbus) then how do we mix it all up and get something really new. Well for years, people have been pinning their hopes on all kinds of crazy science to provide a new form of energy or propulsion.

So where’s my sky car, okay here we go, lets run through the top 10 craziest forms of propulsion and the energy to drive it thought up in the last 200 years;

At 10 The horse, well the horse has its place and its not as far back as you think or should think. The British invested massively in the cavalry leading up to the Second World War – a move described by a German General as the best advantage the German Army could possibly have. In fairness to horses they’ve probably killed as many of us as we have of them.
You see totem poles tell you how many scalps the young warrior collected. Unfortunately, introducing the horse to North America allowed young Braveheart to commute, with devastating effects on the population.

At 9. The Skidoo or Snowmobile, the Swedish army have their own design that has a mug holder on the engine to stop your water bottle freezing. On a skidoo you can cross literally hundreds of miles of frozen wasteland in a single day without the need for exhaustive provisions. One drawback, run out of petrol or have a breakdown and your dead, for sure, guaranteed, 100%