George Jetson Has Nothing on Marty McFly

The Boston Globe teased a story about flying cars on today’s front page. ‘Don’t Laugh’ they said. Bostonist is not laughing. We’re patiently waiting for October 21, 2015 (that’sless than a decade) when Marty and Doc Brown come racing “back” into the future from their humble confines of 1985. We’ll hall have flying cars then and a Mr. Fusion to power them. Carl Dietrich, the Globe reports is set to make that more than Bostonist’s childhood dream.

We never expected time travel. The whole Flux Capacitor thing was just too strange. Flying cars on the other hand, well they seemed inevitable through what we’ve seen in movies for years. And with a flying car the whole Big Dig thing seems like it might not ever pay off. The Globe feature leaves out all Back to the Future references but points to Harry Potter, The Fifth Element, and the Jetsons among others for featuring flying cars (online version doesn't have sweet pics like the print edition). Dietrich and a couple of colleagues at MIT are working on a practical design for a flying car which they hope to put into production by 2009. He will be working on it with the help of the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize just awarded.

Bostonist won’t let the Back to the Future: Part II oversight go. Dietrich told the Globe that since he was eight he’d dreamed of being an aerospace engineer, he’s 28 now, so he decided to be an aerospace engineer around the time the trailer for Back to the Future: Part II hit theatres. Beyond that the Lemelson-MIT Student Prize wasn’t awarded to Dietrich for just the flying car idea but his ‘portfolio of designs’ as highlighted in the Globe article. One design mentioned that caught Bostonist’s attention: a desktop-size fusion reactor. Could that be the little brother of Mr. Fusion? In the mean time someone better get to work on those magnetic-powered hoverboards. The gas powered version just isn't as satisfying as the silent sleek look of the 2015 Matel model.