|
Jetpack Dreams: One Man's Up and Down (But Mostly Down) Search for the Greatest Invention That Never Was | 
 enlarge | Author: Mac Montandon
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
Buy New: $3.60
You Save: $21.40 (86%)
New (31) Used (13) from $3.05
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 63977
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st Da Capo Press Ed
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 0306815281
Dewey Decimal Number: 629.1333
EAN: 9780306815287
ASIN: 0306815281
Publication Date: October 27, 2008 (New: Last 30 Days)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Jetpack Dreams chronicles the colorful pop history and science of that most amazing and mysterious of machines, the jetpack. While exploring our collective fascination with flight, the tale takes readers from the first flimsy, shoulder-mounted wings to Bill Suitor’s 1984 Olympic flight in front of billions of viewers around the world; from a gruesome jetpack-driven murder in Houston in the mid-1990s to the secret laboratories and government facilities of today. Journalist Mac Montandon also explores Hollywood’s fascination with the subject, from the 1949 serial King of the Rocket Men to Lost in Space, The Jetsons and The Rocketeer to the cultural jetpack phenomenon represented by Buck Rogers, James Bond, and Boba Fett. He travels the world to meet jetpack enthusiasts who are readying their own personal flying machines for takeoff. Ultimately, it’s the search for an answer to two simple questions: Where is the jetpack that was promised to him, and to all of us, years ago? And if it’s out there, can he catch a ride?
|
| Customer Reviews:
You don't have a Jet Pack. This book explain why this is tragedy November 5, 2008
I guess you probably already know why this is tragedy, otherwise you wouldn't have been searching for jet packs on Amazon.
Mr. Montandon hangs down a fascinating crew of carbon-hard entrepreneurs, obsessive savants and murderous engineers, all in a quest to just get his feet a few inches off the ground for a few minutes. The glory of this sly book is that by the last page, you'll find yourself thinking that this an entirely reasonable thing.
It's a good book. If you're a fan of Tom Wolf, or George Plimpton, or Jon Ronson, or Terry Southern, you'll like Jet Pack Dreams
Because, at the end of the day, it's about FREAKIN' JET PACKS.
Pursuing the Dream October 28, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Previous centuries didn't have science fiction as we have had science fiction. We have had descriptions and depictions of the future, from _Metropolis_ to _Flash Gordon_ to _2001_; none of the predictions comes close to what the future actually brought. No one fifty years ago could have expected the scientific and electronic marvels we have now at our fingertips. We have zipped into the future, and it is really quite wonderful, except for one very basic deficiency: "Where's my jetpack?" That's the question that is asked over and over (sometimes with a bit of profanity inserted) by freelance writer Mac Montandon in _Jetpack Dreams: One Man's Up and Down (But Mostly Down) Search for the Greatest Invention That Never Was_ (Da Capo Press). Montandon isn't the only one asking. When Bill Gates was a guest on _The Daily Show_, Jon Stewart did an abrupt change of subject and asked, "When are we going to get jetpacks?" (Gates's answer: "We're not working on that one.") Montandon came of age in the _Star Wars_ era, and "thus was very certain that by no later than the year 2000 we would most definitely be living _in the future_." The future included commuting by jetpack rather than Kias. What happened?
What happened is that imagination betrayed us. Montandon gives one example after another of jetpacks in comics or movies, but points out that the power of each has to do with a fantasy people have had for as long as they have had imaginations: wouldn't it be wonderful if we could fly? A guy with a jetpack is far closer to the fantasy ideal of flight than anyone enclosed within a plane. We got serious about jetpacks in the fifties, when Tom Moore, one of Dr. Wernher Von Braun's circle of engineers and a Buck Rogers fan, got a grant of $25,000 from the Army for this innovative way of moving soldiers. When other engineers got a jetpack that could produce liftoff, test pilots strapped it on, and by the early sixties, reliable, stable flight was being achieved, lasting all of 21 seconds. One of the pilots was Bill Suitor, who became the world's best jetpack pilot. He said flying the gadget was like "standing on a beach ball bobbing in the middle of a swimming pool," but he mastered the art of flying it. It was Suitor who stood in for Sean Connery when James Bond jetpacked in _Thunderball_. He flew it for the opening of the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. And this is just about as far as practical jetpacking has come, a show that gets everyone's attention at openings of malls or state fairs - for 21 seconds. It is a toy, not a tool.
That does not make any difference to the countless tinkerers who are trying to make their jetpack dreams into reality. Montandon has a fine time traveling to see these guys all over the globe, and his rollicking prose makes a reader glad to be with him. He was hoping to don a jetpack himself and try it out; he never got closer than that first step. It's the sort of expectation and disappointment that echoes throughout this amusing tour of an idea that (for some) won't go away. Typical of these geeks is 32-year-old Jeremy McGrane of New Hampshire, who tinkers with his good-looking, sleek jetpack invention in his parents' garage. It is a recreation of Wendell Moore's original machine, with improvements, and it has yet to fly. McGrane says, "Most guys are dreaming of alcohol and women - not me. I'm just dreaming about how to make a throttle valve. It's peculiar behavior, I'll admit it, but sometimes I can't sleep at night." Trek Aerospace has a heli-jet that will do a jetpack's business, once a few kinks, like its 370-pound weight and its inability to fly, get worked out. The Skycar similarly has been in development for millions of dollars and 45 years, but doesn't fly. One of the most successful jetpack pioneers is Juan Manuel Lozano, "The Mexican Rocket Man", whom Montandon visits in Mexico City. Unfortunately, Mr. Lozano is immobile in his recliner, recovering from broken ribs and burns; well, just another jetpack that didn't live up to the dream. The dreamers are not always amiable kooks; the tale of the jetpack called "Pretty Bird" from the American Rocketbelt Corporation involves kidnapping, torture, and murder. It is more fun to enjoy with Montandon the first International Rocketbelt Convention, held in 2006 in Niagara Falls, with the slogan, "Where the past meets the present". Montandon is dismayed the there is so much nostalgia (where is the future in that slogan?). One of the old Bell Aerospace pilots sings his song to the conventioneers about the pioneers of the jetpack, and accompanies himself on the ukulele. At the convention store, you can buy a bumpersticker that says, "I'd Rather Be Flying a Rocketbelt". Dream on.
|
|
|
Copyright 2008 - RailroadBookstore.com
| |
