NASA' Urban Air Mobility Plan Is Transport Goal For The Future

Science fiction movies (think, for instance, "Blade Runner") often depict cities of the future where the sky is a maze of invisible roads, chock-a-bloc with aerial vehicles that sometimes drive themselves. But unless you have been living like a hermit, cut off from the world, you would know that sort of a scenario is not entirely in the realm of fiction any more. While companies like Tesla, Uber and Waymo (among many others) have already been testing cars that drive themselves, there are others, including Airbus, Boeing and Toyota, who are working on flying cars. Even NASA is onboard with this vision for the future, and has an Urban Air Mobility (UAM) research team working toward this goal, which the agency calls "a safe and efficient air transportation system where everything from small package delivery drones to passenger-carrying air taxis operate over populated areas, from small towns to the largest cities." While a lot more research needs to be done to create the necessary technology that is both safe and efficient, not to mention the framing of rules and regulations to govern its use, it is certainly not just a pipedream.