One of my favorite things about this image is the "special equipment" needed to replace the bar. At first glance I assumed the bubble enclosing the man in the vehicle was to protect him and that air was being pumped in. I then realized that the athletes don't need the same type of protection.
A reoccurring element of the paleo-future is the expectation of superfluous design. That is to say, we make things appear different and beautiful because we can. With a few design modifications the utility vehicle could be much more practical, but where's the fun in that? I guess that's why we fall in love with the future and why dystopian images are that much more jarring.
This image is featured in the 1979 book Future Cities: Homes and Living into the 21st Century (World of the Future) which is a volume in the compilation book The Usborne Book of the Future: A Trip in Time to the Year 2000 and Beyond.
See also:
Olympic Games on the Moon in 2020 (1979)
Sea City 2000 (1979)
Future Cities: Homes and Living into the 21st Century (1979)
Ristos (1979)
The Future World of Transportation
4 comments:
I think the bubble is to protect him in case the pole falls on him, perhaps? Or maybe it's just an all-terrain vehicle, and it's used for ref'ing the beach vacuumball competition as well. (Hopefully, they still wear bikinis under their pressure suits.)
Oh man....can I borrow Future Cities when you're done with it? ;-) That looks like it'd be a fascinating read.
14 meters is about 56 feet, which is *far* too high for a high jumper even on the Moon. It's a common mistake: the Moon's gravity is one sixth of the Earth's so you just multiply existing records by six, right?
Not quite. What is being raised by a high jumper is really just his/her center of gravity which is already 2-3 feet above the ground. The CoG then 'pulls' the legs over as it falls groundwards. So for someone 6 feet tall with a CoG of 3 feet, the gain on the Moon would be 6x3 = 18 + 3 (the 3 feet that exist above the CoG) = 21 feet. Still impressive, but not quite 56...
I remember this one from elementary school. I gorged on these illustrated visions in books, film strips, and Atari packaging. Myspace and Tivo are poor substitutes for ring worlds and lunar olympics.
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