Unit3 Tomorrow’s World單元學案

"the neat, gee-whiz part is thinking about what would the vehicle itself look like," said dick paul, a vice president with phantom works, boeing's research and development arm. "but we're trying to think through all the ramifications of what would it take to deploy a fleet of these." past proposals to solve this problem have included artificial intelligence systems to prevent collisions between air traffic. nasa is working on flying vehicles with the initial goal of transforming small plane travel. small planes are generally costly, loud, require months of training and lots of money to operate, making flying to work impractical for most people. but within five years, nasa researchers hope to develop technology for a small plane that can fly out of regional airports, costs less than $100,000 (￡55,725), is as quiet as a motorcycle and as simple to operate as a car. although it would not have any road-driving capabilities, it would bring this form of travel within the grasp of a wider section of people. technology would automate many of the pilot's functions. this small aircraft transportation system (sats) would divert pressure away from the "hub-and-spoke" model of air travel. hub-and-spoke refers to the typically us model of passengers being processed through large "hub" airports and then on to secondary flights to "spoke" airports near their final destination. 由于高速公路上的交通堵塞情況越來越嚴重，一種能夠載人穿梭在“空中高速路”上的新一代“飛車”將成為需要。 這就是美國國家航空航天局和一些航空公司的工程師們的意見，他們預測未來人類將會乘坐“飛車”旅行。 這些車可能會和圖片中見到的波音公司研發中心設計的概念飛車很相像。 然而，這樣的交通工具可能需要25年左右的時間才能投放市場。 人類在過去制造飛車的努力一直都不是很成功。 這樣的交通工具汽車耗資不菲，而且要求駕駛者具備像訓練有素的飛行員一樣的駕駛技巧；不僅如此，在研制過程中還面臨工程學方面的嚴峻挑戰。 馬克·摩爾是美國國家航空航天局蘭利研究中心（位于漢普頓）汽車系統項目組“個人空中交通工具（pav）”小組的負責人，他說：“當你試圖將各個方面組合起來時，得到的是一輛最糟糕的車：非常笨重，速度又慢，價格還高，總之駕駛起來很不方便。” 但波音公司同時也在考慮，在上千輛“飛車”進入空中的情況下如何對空中通道進行管理，防止交通陷入徹底的混亂。 波音公司研發部門“幻影工程隊”的副總裁迪克·保羅說：“最關鍵和最精彩的是設計出這種交通工具本身，但是我們也在全力考慮當這樣一支車隊投入運行后可能出現的所有情況。” 關于如何解決這個問題，以往就有一些建議，包括使用人工智能系統來防止空中交通工具之間發生碰撞。 b.一篇閱讀文章。      gauri nanda sees a wearable computer as a...handbag -- one that's built out of four-inch squares and triangles of fabric, with tiny computer chips embedded in it.