50 years ago, the Concorde crossed the Atlantic for the first time. Today, snail-paced planes are a dystopian nightmare and electric cars take hours to charge to travel 50 miles. DAVID MARCUS' chilling tale of America's lost ambition
The sleek, supersonic 203-foot tailless, nose-down bird streaked across the ocean and sent a shockwave through the water, implying the promise of a new era of modern travel .
It seemed like a start.
It turned out to be a end.
On September 26, 1973, Concorde's sprint from Washington D.C. to Paris lasted three and a half hours.
Today's Boeings cover this distance in more than double that time.
In 1969, four years earlier, American men landed on the Moon in another feat that we don't seem to match. these days.
Was there something in the water? Was Gordon Lightfoot really that inspiring?
If the 20th century was the century of technological transformation, the 21st, so far, looks like that of mechanical mediocrity.
Where's my flying car?
In the 80s my friend Denise was flying British Airways Concorde.
I asked her what it was like to sit at the tip of human activity.
'There was a mid-air takeoff', she recalls when the four Rolls-Royce/SNECMA engines Olympus 593s were finally let loose, pushing passengers into their spacious gray leather seats.
The sleek, supersonic 203-foot tailless, nose-down bird streaked across the ocean and sent a shockwave through the water, implying the promise of a new era of modern travel .
It seemed like a start.
It turned out to be a end.
On September 26, 1973, Concorde's sprint from Washington D.C. to Paris lasted three and a half hours.
Today's Boeings cover this distance in more than double that time.
In 1969, four years earlier, American men landed on the Moon in another feat that we don't seem to match. these days.
Was there something in the water? Was Gordon Lightfoot really that inspiring?
If the 20th century was the century of technological transformation, the 21st, so far, looks like that of mechanical mediocrity.
Where's my flying car?
In the 80s my friend Denise was flying British Airways Concorde.
I asked her what it was like to sit at the tip of human activity.
'There was a mid-air takeoff', she recalls when the four Rolls-Royce/SNECMA engines Olympus 593s were finally let loose, pushing passengers into their spacious gray leather seats.
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