Travel by air land, and water is being reimagined these days. Tesla is the well-known stock market darling of driverless cars, and Elon Musk also promises travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 30 minutes in his frictionless train. Later, on February 6, 2018, Musk successfully launched his
SpaceX rocket to signal what could be the beginning of commercial space travel. Richard Branson also is in the commercial space travel mix with his plans to take us to Mars.
We've heard about Amazon using drones to deliver our e-commerce orders. But, when it comes to delivering supplies in a medical emergency, drones can be life savers if they fly over traffic congestion, take the most direct route over lakes and hills, and avoid washed-out and impassable roads to reach rural areas. Yet, there are still challenges of battery life, bad weather, and urban neighbors disturbed by the oncoming buzzing sound.
Matternet of California, Mercedes-Benz vans, and the Swiss firm Siroop are partners in a pilot project, approved by Switzerland's aviation authority, in which a drone successfully returned lab samples to the roof of a waiting van that delivered them to a hospital in heavily-populated Zurich, Switzerland. E-commerce firms could follow a similar procedure using UPS or other trucking services for the last leg in the delivery process.
In Norway, Yara is investing in crewless, electric container ships that are expected to cost three times as much as conventional models but offer an operational savings of up to 90% over the costs of fuel and crews on comparable cargo ships. Since travel on autonomous ships in international waters could take until at least 2020 to gain approval by the International Maritime Organization, you're likely to be traveling on an autonomous ferry first.
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