"New" Jet Pack is Rehash of Previous Failed Technology

"SteveLehto" (stevelehto) 09/18/2014 at 13:00 • Filed to: None

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Have you heard of that fascinating new technology out of Arizona State: a jet pack-like device that allows a wearer to run faster through the wonders of space age technology? It's a lot like something tried and discarded in the 1950s.

The notion that you should be able to strap something to your back and fly has been one of those mirage-like concepts which tease us gravity-bound humans, so much so that !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! have been written on it.The story of "jet packs" often begins with a mention of The Skylark of Space , a sci-fi story which was illustrated with a rendering of a jaunty fellow wearing some kind of flying device on his back. That was 1928, which I only point out for context.

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During the Cold War, the US government hinted it might be interested in purchasing jet pack technology if someone would kindly come up with something that worked. The best and the brightest immediately got right on it. While everyone has seen the rocket belt which was the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! of this low-altitude-space race, there were other entries which fell by the wayside. A patent search reveals that an inventor filed on a wearable man-rocket in 1945. Subtract the skis from these pictures and you might see a parallel with the ASU device,

The inventor with the ski fetish - as far as we know - never developed this beyond the patent stage but others took up the concept and ran with it. (<- Ha!) In 1958, a company called !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! developed two variations of this which they called "jump belts." The first device consisted of a tank which was worn on the back, filled with compressed nitrogen. The operator worked a throttle which blasted the gas out nozzles behind the wearer, pushing the person forward. Don't take my word for it; check out these official drawings.

They claimed this device would create 350 pounds of thrust for five seconds and allow its wearer to run at 22 MPH, albeit for a short period of time. After testing, Thiokol scrapped the device. It seems that the device was too bulky for what little benefit it added. They moved on to a different device: a belt of solid fuel rocket canisters which the wearer could fire as needed. They exhausted through downward facing nozzles, creating thrust which augmented the wearer's motion. The canisters could be fired simultaneously or in sequence, depending on whether one was looking for power or longevity.

This wearable propulsion device could, according to the maker, allow its wearer to jump horizontally 50 feet or vertically into a second story window. Interestingly, when Thiokol pitched this jump belt to the military, they claimed it would also allow a wearer to run at 35 MPH by using the belt to augment the action of running.They claimed that if the canisters were fired one at a time, they would provide a minute's worth of thrust.

Thiokol ran some tests which, for the most part, they kept under wraps. They tried to get the government to buy the devices. No one ever bit and the project fizzled as others moved on to slightly more practical rocket belts. This despite the really high-tech illustrations they created to explain how the device would work even when swimming .

Admittedly, Thiokol probably stretched a bit with its claimed results for the jump belts. If someone actually did run at 35 MPH wearing one of these belts, wouldn't they have filmed it? (By comparison, Usain Bolt hits a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .) And, how cool would it have been to see someone jump up into a second story window?

Even so, the gains from such a device - if it worked - would have been incremental at best. Especially when you consider the difference between a laboratory and a battlefield. It would be nice if we could strap a "jet pack" to a soldier's back and have him outrun Usain Bolt. But what happens when you load that soldier down with the various tools of his or her job? (Refer to photo of soldier, above.)

And that is the real problem here. Ever run down a really steep hill? Gravity "augments" your run so you go faster. Imagine a pile of equipment on your back as your augmented run speeds you down the hill. You still have to keep your body balanced over your legs. Try not to trip. Which is what will happen as this whole jet pack-rucksack- running soldier conglomeration barrels along, being pushed by a jet pack over a real world surface.

There are also quite a few questions which are not answered in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! created by ASU, some of which probably have the wrong answers. For example, one of the biggest limiting factors in the Bell rocket belt was fuel capacity. An operator could only carry enough for a 21 second flight. The photo at the top of the piece shows a test subject running for 25 seconds. Was the engine running the whole time? If so, how long can it run?

Will American soldiers be zooming around the battlefields of the future, augmenting their movement with a running-man jet pack? We should wait and see before making !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . But I would argue for tempering our expectations: others have gone before us and tried similar things. We can learn from them.

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I am not saying one way or the other whether this latest iteration of the "jet pack" will ever work. I would just advise against holding one's breath in the meantime. There are people at Thiokol who have been holding theirs for 56 years now.

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Steve Lehto is a writer, professor and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! He wrote !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

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Racescort666 > SteveLehto 09/18/2014 at 13:17

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Have you ever written an article like this on flying cars, something I consider equally fanciful?

SteveLehto > Racescort666 09/18/2014 at 13:20

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No but I suspect you are right. They have one of the same drawbacks that jet packs have: What to do when you have a power failure in the red zone? (Too low to use a parachute and too high to survive the fall). Clearly, one of the things we have been promised for years - I'm starting to think they won't get here.

Thanks for the note.

Racescort666 > SteveLehto 09/18/2014 at 14:08

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To me, the thing that has the potential to save flying cars, autonomy, is also the thing that renders the "car" portion of it unnecessary. The running joke is that most people have trouble with 2 dimensions, adding a third will complicate it even further. Well, autonomy fixes that (to a degree but we'll see how the Google car goes before we make that call). If your car switches to automatic mode in flight, why even have a ground mode at all? In short, being capable of flight precludes the necessity of driving.

I see it as less of a flying car and more of a personal (or shared) VTOL vehicle that has no other operator input than destination. Of course people can call them flying cars if they like.

The one argument that it always comes down to is regulation, though. Cars are subject to FMVSS, and aircraft (since it is in fact an aircraft as well) are subject to the FAA's FARs. It doesn't make sense from an engineering standpoint to limit yourself in this way when you can completely eliminate one set of regulation. Even the EPA regulates them differently which has a huge impact to power plant performance.

Anyway, I've had people try to explain why they think flying cars are a good idea and beyond the technical challenge, there's the operator and the government that has to be dealt with as well. In my opinion, technical problems can be overcome but there's more to it than that and no one cares to address these other issues as you've pointed out.

SteveLehto > Racescort666 09/18/2014 at 14:15

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I kept running across stuff on flying cars while I researched my book but had to draw the line somewhere. But you are 100% right on that point: I'm scared of half the people I see in cars. Can you imagine them flying over your house at night? (Let alone sharing the sky with them when you are out and about in your own flying car.)

MasterChef_117 > SteveLehto 09/19/2014 at 03:59

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Dont forget the wonder of Flying Cars that is in most movies then end up having aerial 'highways' where they seem to moving barely any faster than if they were on the ground!

Dusty Ventures > SteveLehto 09/19/2014 at 04:27

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I had two thoughts watching that video:

1: Those are some ugly welds

2: I wish I could run a mile within even two minutes of their guy's unassisted mile time

SteveLehto > MasterChef_117 09/19/2014 at 05:58

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I always thought that was odd too!

MasterChef_117 > SteveLehto 09/19/2014 at 06:10

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Unfortunately, assuming flying cards ever become 100% safe and practical, its exactly what would happen. The chaos of a million people flying individual vehicles on their own flight path? Would never happen, obviously.

The aerial highway does have something going for it though, in that it would certainly make the ground a nicer, safer place to live.

Tradeoffs are a bitch. :p

SteveLehto > Dusty Ventures 09/19/2014 at 06:15

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1: I agree on the welds and

2: Of course, They have a ringer to test it. Slap it on a couple of non-track stars and let's see how its negligible benefits add up.

Arashitora > SteveLehto 09/21/2014 at 14:37

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wait wait wait wait wait... They want me to strap a tank full of liquid explosives (or something REALLY flammable at least) right next to my spinal cord and back bone, then go running around a hostile environment? You know one of those kinds of places that aren't conducive to keep unexploded things staying unexploded? what's this? The thruster nozels may be pointed at the things that will provide my biological locomotion the other 100% of the time? Something tells me flaming jet exhausts next to my legs is a bad idea. Where do I sign on the "Fuck No" line? Ill jump through the 1st floor window and take the stairs.

SteveLehto > Arashitora 09/21/2014 at 14:45

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Interesting point. It will never get that far BUT if it did . . . the machine they made uses electric fans that put out almost no thrust. To get useful thrust would require some other kind of fuel, raising the specter of becoming a walking (or running) Molotov cocktail. I'm with you.

Thanks for the note.

Arashitora > SteveLehto 09/21/2014 at 15:51

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That's what you need for fans to viable. I would rock that for commuting to work in a heart beat.

SteveLehto > Arashitora 09/21/2014 at 15:54

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The Martin? Don't hold your breath on that one either. It has been "just around the corner" now for a decade. They fly it in ground effect and then they fly it at altitude with a lightweight dummy. Hmmmm. Why not fly it just a few feet higher outdoors with a live pilot . . . .? It keeps getting bigger and more unwieldy . . .

Malforus > SteveLehto 09/22/2014 at 09:01

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In the end I feel like the only thing to use in the red zone is an advanced form of the airbags they used for the bounce landing of Curiosity on Mars.

SteveLehto > Malforus 09/22/2014 at 09:03

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I'd be curious to know how expensive they'd be - for ones which would work. That is always the issue - the technology exists. It can just be quite expensive.

Malforus > SteveLehto 09/22/2014 at 09:08

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The deployment mechanism is almost guaranteed to have include heat shielding on the part that covers the exhaust ports so not only would it be expensive it would require a unique version for each thrusted personal flight device.

Much like the Breitling survival watches this kind of device is going to be remarkably expensive. if only to avoid lawsuits if it were not to deploy properly.

SteveLehto > Malforus 09/22/2014 at 09:16

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I seem to recall that Steve Fossett always wore a Breitling Emergency. When they said his plane had disappeared, I knew he was dead. If he wasn't, he could have sent out a beacon.

Malforus > SteveLehto 09/22/2014 at 09:20

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Yes, I fully anticipate any kind of safety bubble to be sold first as a super high end accessory like the Breitling which is one time use (though the newer ones can have the antenna's repacked). Plus only high end individuals can be expected to abide by a release of responsibility if the product doesn't work perfectly.

Either way we know that parachutes don't have the fall distance you need to safely slow people so I still feel like a glorified Zorb is one of the more practical methods to deal with falls from that height.

KayGB > SteveLehto 09/24/2014 at 19:16

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Probably the best performing "wearable" aircraft was the W.A.S.P., dangerous as hell but worked like a damn.

SteveLehto > KayGB 09/24/2014 at 20:25

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I interviewed Bob Courter, who flew that and many of the other devices. The WASP was quite cool.