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The Future of Aviation | Contrary

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Outside of spaceflight, human aviation is one of the most improbable of all human achievements. Seemingly everyone had doubted it, from Lord Kelvin, who wrote “I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation” in 1896 to the tireless inventor Thomas Edison himself who said in 1895, “It is apparent to me that the possibilities of the aeroplane … have been exhausted.” And yet, today, we find ourselves in a world with a global fleet of airplanes in the tens of thousands. Carrying billions of passengers per year, and many billions more pounds in freight, human flight no longer seems a miracle to us, but rather something entirely ordinary. While the safety and dependability of contemporary commercial air travel are commendable, it’s not at all controversial to say that it leaves much to be desired, certainly when compared to the standards of commercial air travel in the 1950s and 60s, with their standing bars and lobster-course dinner offerings. Indeed, the greatest question f

Outside of spaceflight, human aviation is one of the most improbable of all human achievements. Seemingly everyone had doubted it, from Lord Kelvin, who wrote “I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation” in 1896 to the tireless inventor Thomas Edison himself who said in 1895, “It is apparent to me that the possibilities of the aeroplane … have been exhausted.” And yet, today, we find ourselves in a world with a global fleet of airplanes in the tens of thousands. Carrying billions of passengers per year, and many billions more pounds in freight, human flight no longer seems

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