Traveling in the Future

I was recently looking around online for new technologies related to traveling and how we, as people, like to vacation. Historically, all of us are used to seeing hotels as stagnant places you stay when you visit a place. The only exception to being able to stay in your hotel and still be on vacation would be a cruise ship. Cruise ships offer a mode of transportation, entertainment, and luxury accommodation all in one nice package. However cruise ships aren't always the most popular as some people simply don't like the ocean or boats in general as they can get sea sick. Well if you're one of those people you are going to love this.


(Picture taken from Popular Science)

This ship is called "MobyAir" and you can see why. It resembles a blimp but also a plane or spaceship or something. I really can't put my finger on it but it's a flying luxury hotel. According to the article on Popular Science, it is "the brainchild of Igor Pasternak who works for the privately-funded California firm, Worldwide Aeros Corporation, "

Basically, it's the blimp of the future. It uses helium to keep itself "afloat," so to speak, and will use electric propellers powered by hydrogen fuel cells. It's capacity will be about 250 people and it's top speed is 174mph, but it's range is 6,000 miles. It's pretty much the super blimp and has all the amenities of a luxury hotel including a restaurant, luxury suites, and a casino. All in all, it sounds like a pretty cool way to get where you're going, albeit it will certainly take longer than 10 hours but it follows the spirit of a cruise. It even has an on-board automatic buoyancy-management system that acts like the trim function on an airplane. It will adjust itself based on outside conditions and passenger movement so you will rarely feel a shift and it will be as stable as being on land.


(Picture taken from HowStuffWorks.com)

This article came out in early 2006 and said the expected date for release and completion would be in 2010. I searched and found their website, the link is below and it seems like a really cool idea and one that would really make traveling to your destination 15 hours away by plane a lot more enjoyable when it's spread out over a week and you get to play blackjack on the way there. Did I mention it takes off vertically and needs no runway? Because that's pretty awesome and worth mentioning. I really wanna try this thing! Here's their website with more information and it looks amazing. Last year they started doing flying tests and it looks like it's in its final stages of completion. Can't wait!