Ask HN: It's 2023 where are the flying cars?

Observations of the behavior of humans inside their personal rapidly moving death boxes only drive us to a single conclusion: the fact that we currently don't have flying cars is a blessing to everyone both involved and not involved.

Given the current laws of physics, flying cars are essentially helicopters, with all the attendant noise and risk of falling out of the sky.

Until the laws of physics change, it's likely we won't have flying cars. I give the odds of that change 10% in the next 20 years.

I'm watching the fringes closely, but nothing has shown real evidence yet. I'm hoping Barry-1 can push itself into a higher orbit without propellant... but that remains to be seen. You too can follow along, watching this page[1,1a], specifically columns 53–63 of line 2 of the Two Line Element set, the mean motion, which is orbits per day.... if that goes down, that is a higher orbit... it's been slowly increasing so far, as drag causes it to get into lower (and faster) orbits.

The first elements based on observation had it at 15.15327300, as of Nov 22 (5 days later) it's at 15.15439447. They hope to boost it's orbit by 100 Kilometers, which should take it below 15 orbits/day.

If it works, that means Mike McCulloch's Quantized Inertia is likely right, and we get to get out of this star system. Along the way, you get flying cars, and I get a personal megawatt.

[1] https://db.satnogs.org/satellite/QDDY-8878-5291-1819-3935#da...

[1a] https://web.archive.org/web/20231125162752/https://db.satnog...

And where are the genetically engineered catgirls? [0]

[0] https://www.engadget.com/self-proclaimed-gay-furry-hackers-b...

Where is good sustainable public transport? Railways is so underdeveloped :/ why is rail often expensive than flying?

Think of how difficult and time consuming it is to get a pilots license.

Now think of how much of a market there is for a vehicle that only pilots can use.

Add to that a dabble of the safety issues and FAA requirements of turning 75% of the cityscape into potential landing zones.

That's why.

In the end they are not actually that great solution. Specially if they do not use lift bodies...

And then there is all the funs of things crashing in 3d...

Traffic is bad enough in two dimensions, I can't imagine what insane things people would come up with to try in three.