/ News
Electric 18-rotor Volocopter makes first manned flight
The pursuit of personal flight took a promising, and kind of wacky, step forward today with the electric 18-rotor Volocopter lifting somebody into the air for the very first time. The maiden manned flight went off without a hitch, with the makers intent on using the emission-free aircraft as flying taxis a little further down the road.
Part multicopter, part helicopter and part alien spaceship, e-volo's Volocopter can take off and land vertically and also hover in the air when need be. Built from fiber composite material with a 450 kg (992 lb) take-off weight, nine individual batteries power the all-electric motors and 18 rotors to make for a top speed of 100 km/h (62 mph).
Despite its complex shape and daunting appearance, the Volocopter is designed to bring personal flight to the masses by being easy to fly – so easy that anyone can apparently have a go. But for now, that privilege has been extended only to e-volo's managing director Alexander Zosel, who took grabbed hold of its single joystick and took the Volocopter to the skies over an airfield in southern Germany on March 30.
"It is definitely a sublime feeling to lift off, fly the first few meters, and then actually take my hand off the joystick and think that, yeah, it's really as if I'm standing on the ground, and then I look down and there are 20-25 meters beneath me," Zosel said. "So it's definitely unbelievable what we've achieved here. It's seriously unbelievable!"
Zosel's test flight saw the Volocopter hit speeds of 25 km/h (15 mph) at only low altitudes. This marks the first part of e-volo's test program. The second phase will test the aircraft at speeds of 50 km/h and a medium altitude, with the final phase to raise that to higher altitudes and its top speed of 100 km/h.
The makers have carried out more than 100 test flights in the buildup to this achievement, though these were unmanned and controlled remotely. The makers say that through this testing they have demonstrated the aircraft's ability to fly almost autonomously.
If things continue to run as planned for e-volo, it plans to start building large quantities of the Volocopter and enter the market within the next two years, with a view to eventually offering air taxi services and another form of public transport. They are likely to have some competition, however, with a number of other personal flight machines making promising strides of late. These have included the Malloy Aeronautics Hoverbike, Ehang's 184 AAVpersonal drone and the Snowstorm electric multicopter, built by students in Singapore.
You can see the Zosel lift-off in the Volocopter in the video below.
Source: e-volo
Source: http://www.gizmag.com/volocopter-manned-flight/42704/
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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