Original 2021 statement: In the future, the idea of a ‘lighter than air’ plane will not seem ridiculous.
What Jim has written about this
From “Why Prague Matters…” (June 2015)
I grew up during the Cold War. I remember the era of atomic weapons as a threat above our heads; I remember my Mom preparing for the end of the world with the situation in Cuba in 1963; she seemed very busy getting lots of extra water and food down into the cellar. I was barely 4 years old. I remember being very scared. It is a memory that is seared in my mind. I have another memory of the cold war. My dad was a Chemical Engineer, working with a company known then as Emery Industries, in London, Ontario, Canada. I have a vivid memory, sometime around 1969, when he spoke of having hired a young, new engineer; the fellow had asked for ‘asylum’ in Canada; was succesful, and was now going to be working with my dad. My dad explained to me, after I had pestered him, that the young fellow had run from the plane in Gander, Newfoundland — seeking freedom. The plane was going from Prague to Cuba; Gander was a fuel stop. He had decided to risk his life, by running, after the horror that was the Prague Spring. The entire concept was new to me. The idea that someone ran from a plane to be free boiled my mind. When Václav Havel helped to immerse the world in freedom in 1989, my mind was boiled again. I’m travelling tomorrow to Prague with my wife. I am so inspired by the idea of what the Prague Spring meant. I think I am lucky to have been touched by it in a small way, through a fellow who ran from a plane almost 40 years ago, in order to gain freedom. I am inspired, simply, by Prague.
From “US Air Force Research Laboratory, Dayton, Ohio - The Future of R&D” (March 2011)
Well, thisi was an interesting audience! I was in Dayton, Ohio, opening the annual leadership meeting for the US Air Force Research Laboratory. In the room were senior military officers, scientists and researchers who control virtually all the research spending for the entire air force. Half the room was in uniform; it seemed the other half were some really ‘interesting’ looking folks with freaky hair. My talk focused on the future of innovative thinking - and how R&D was moving to the edges through crowd based innovation, idea factories and collaboration machines.
From “The BIG Future: New Materials Science” (February 2023)
How might this work? Imagine a solar cell on a piece of farmland - the top part is generating energy, and yet the sun goes straight through the cell to provide needed sunshine for the growth of crops. That’s a revolutionary idea and yet, might not be all that far away. The folks involved in this aspect of materials science speak of achieving maximum ’ energy conversion efficiency’ - that’s the ability of the solar cell to generate energy. With this new aspect of science, the highest values achieved so far have been 9.0% for the front side and 7.1% for the rear side, but they want to achieve a goal of 33%. They are already moving towards that! The cell yielded values of 19.8% for front illumination and 10.9% for rear illumination that had been independently certified by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) in Freiburg/Germany - in the very same cell on a glass substrate. What’s more, the team also succeeded in fabricating, for the very first time, a bifacial CIGS solar cell on a flexible polymer substrate, which - due to their light weight and flexibility - widens the spectrum of potential applications. And finally, the researchers combined two photovoltaic technologies - CIGS and perovskite solar cells - to produce a bifacial “tandem” cell. According to Tiwari, bifacial CIGS technology has the potential to yield energy conversion efficiencies beyond 33%, thus opening up further opportunities for thin film solar cells in the future.
Think big and bold. What might this lead to? Back in 2019, I took on that topic with my ‘19 Trends for 2019’ series. Follow the trend involving the exponentiation of pure science, and we might soon be able to architect aircraft that are lighter than air - just like that of Wonder Woman’s jet! That’s where the fast-emerging trend of new materials science might potentially lead us.
Read the full pieces on jimcarroll.com:
Why Prague Matters…
US Air Force Research Laboratory, Dayton, Ohio - The Future of R&D
The BIG Future: New Materials Science