The company Uber wants to hire an engineer from Langley NASA's Research Center to develop the flying cars program proposed in 2016, according to Bloomberg.
Mark Moore, an engineer at NASA's Langley Research Center, has published in 2010 a work that speaks about electric aircraft that take off and land like helicopters, but they are smaller and more quiet.
Flying cars could be built by the former NASA employee
Mark Moore has worked 30 years for NASA and he is best known for his work on vehicles with vertical Takeoff And Landing (VTOL). Moore is the one who inspired Larry Page to launch two startups that deals with technology development needed to create vehicles with vertical takeoff and landing.
Uber want to help the flying cars industry
Uber already has a project dedicated to researchers in the flying cars field. The project is called Uber Elevate. Mark Moore will help spearhead this project.
The company has not built the flying cars yet. Uber says their goal is not to build flying cars, but to help this industry to grow faster.
According to a report, the company presented their vision for air transport. They identified the technological challenges that they want to find solutions for, so the these new air vehicles could be launched.
The noise pollution, the energy efficiency and the battery autonomy are among the problems identified. For now, these ones appear to be some of the biggest problems faced by those in the industry.
Mark Moore believes the obstacles that stand in the way of building these new type of vehicles are not just technical ones. The companies in this field must negotiate lower prices for components with suppliers and they also must convince authorities to adopt a more permissive legislation regarding air traffic.
Flying cars similar to those in science fiction movies
The scenario of Uber is familiar to science fiction movies fans: vehicles taking off and landing on so-called vertiports built in residential areas of tall buildings. Vehicles may have a radius between 80 and 160 kilometers and they would be recharged in the air.
