Uber Hires NASA Engineer for Flying Car Project

Uber has hired a talented engineer who will help develop the company’s project to roll out flying cars in the future. Uber recently published its white paper on VTOL craft, and Moore was “impressed by Uber’s work on the subject” according to TechCrunch. The news comes on the heels of their interesting plans from last October dubbed “Uber Elevate”.

But this idea is different than what the firm sees with its self-driving ground cars – Uber co-founder and chief executive officer Travis Kalanick has said that the company’s goal is to replace human drivers with driverless vehicles as “quickly as possible”.

Uber’s futuristic vision of autonomous drone-filled skies was detailed in a 99-page white paper, published a year ago by Jeff Holden, Uber’s chief product officer.

Mark Moore is an advanced aircraft engineer with 30 years of experience at NASA and in 2010, made waves after publishing a paper about the feasibility of electric aircraft.

While such advanced technology like flying cars is still probably awhile away from societal application, Uber hopes to explore the nascent field of airborne commuting and transit. “In Los Angeles and Sydney, residents spend seven whole working weeks each year commuting, two of which are wasted unproductively stuck in gridlock”.

To that end, Uber hasn’t built a flying auto yet, but instead, says it wants to support the budding industry’s growth.

In Moore’s white paper, he discussed the idea of the NASA Puffin, describing it as an “on-demand aircraft created to provide quiet, efficient, and safe close proximity operations to businesses and neighborhoods”.

Slovakian company Aeromobil is one of several working on a prototype flying vehicle, which it is aiming to commercialise this year.

Moore’s move to the ride-hailing service represents a step toward flying cars, but he said many obstacles remain, including design, pricing and air-traffic restrictions.

Moore then explained that Uber’s 55 million active riders, which is an astonishing number that will continue to grow as the years progress, will be a large factor in making this all work.