We were promised flying cars.

I was having a conversation on Thursday with my best friend about why Scotty was always yelling in Star Trek. This quickly turned into why the engine room of the Enterprise sounded like it was comprised of 100s of diesel engines. My buddy was baffled that how in a future where people are advanced enough to have created replicators, science hadn't figured out how to make engines quieter?

Well, since my friend, (and I assume many of you) are not as nerdy as I am, I proceeded to explain to him how warp technology was only discovered in the early 21st century, 2063 according to wiki, and the original Star Trek didn't take place until the early 23 century, according to my watching the show religiously when I was a child.

 Apparently Scott Bakula did something in 2151 but who cares

I explained to him that clearly this was still new tech, and that they were still dealing with figuring it out, just think of the combustion engine. With that I took to wiki again to find out that the first combustion engine was made in 1807...Then I got sad. Today is 7/27/12 that mean 205 years have passes since the first combustion engines were been created, and for some reason we are still using that same engine all over the place.

All over the place

So in less then 100 years the people in Star Trek developed a new technology, mass produced it, and sent a bunch of people to LIVE IN FREAKING SPACE using it. Back in real life, 205 year after the first internal combustion engine was created, we have just started to really explore electric engines. I somehow feel that if we really wanted to refine the electric engine we would, instead of spending time making things like this. What's really sad is there's been desire to move forward since the 50's.

Go here for more

What's more is it was suggested that all those suckers were going to run on hydro electric, atomic (very bad idea) or electric, and that was 62 years ago that they started toying with this idea. I'm not going to get into why this never happened, but I'm sure you know why (big oil). Well in 62 years we managed to get a semi-electric car, which in essence is just a little more sophisticated then a power wheel.

But a lot less rad

Well, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the discovery of warp technology, or real electric cars (which is more likely) in the next 50 years. That'll make me 78 and bitter cause by that time I'll be too old to drive the flying cars that we'd better have.