Sigh, if we hadn't allowed the special interests to completely suppress, they are still heavily funding that suppression, i.e. climate change deniers, the advent of and early advances in alternative energy sources, even as a few continued developing but couldn't bring what they were doing to mass production and to the economic market growth, just think where we'd be today. We would have been a leader in another growth industry with a world market like many before. Just look at the advances in the computer industry and earlier I heard that today is the anniversary of the first text message over a phone and look at all the information and abilities we can stuff into these present ever growing smaller gadgets, Sigh!
December 2, 2012 - Powered entirely by the sun, the plane is the first of its kind to fly at night. The goal? A 20-day, 20-night trip around the world. Bob Simon reports.
December 2, 2012 - In 1903, the Wright brothers became the first men to fly. Twenty-four years later, Charles Lindbergh became the first to fly over the Atlantic. Coming soon...another possible breakthrough. Two Swiss gentlemen have built a plane which they hope to fly across the United States next spring and then around the world without burning an ounce of fuel. The plane is called Solar Impulse and it's powered entirely by the sun. It is not the first solar airplane, but it is the first that can fly at night. Thousands of solar cells on its wings transmit enough energy to batteries to keep it in the sky from sunset to sunrise. Solar Impulse has already flown more than 2,500 miles from Switzerland to North Africa and back. The goal: to make it around the world in 20 days and 20 nights.
["Solar Impulse you are cleared to proceed. Have a good flight."]
It looks like it's flown straight out of Jules Verne. It's so light it weighs less than an SUV and needs only 165 yards of runway to take off compared to over a mile for a commercial jet. It has unnaturally long wings. Rather than fly, the plane seems to glide, like a giant dragonfly.
The plane was created by Bertrand Piccard and his business partner, Andre Borschberg and if there ever was an odd couple, you're looking at them. Andre is a pilot and an engineer but never worked on building an airplane. Until six years ago, Bertrand didn't even know how to fly one. He's a psychiatrist, an expert in hypnosis, and one of the most intense human beings we've ever met. read more>>>
Till recently, and the U.S. is still behind many as they now have the experienced innovative trades and are advancing the products, it's been some forty years of lost time and economic growth in a potentially wide growth industry!
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