NASA前工程師加盟優步“飛車”團隊

Uber has hired a former Nasa engineer to help it to research flying cars.

優步(Uber)聘請了美國國家航空航天局(NASA)一名前工程師來協助研究飛行汽車。

After more than 30 years at the US space agency, Mark Moore is joining Uber’s Elevate division as its director of engineering for aviation.

在爲NASA服務30多年後，馬克?摩爾(Mark Moore)加入優步的“提升”(Elevate)部門，擔任飛行工程技術總監。

The ride-hailing company first signalled its interest in short-range “vertical take-off and landing” (VTOL) technology in October, when it published a white paper discussing the potential for “on-demand aviation” to transform the daily commute.

去年10月，這家叫車服務公司首次表現出對於短程“垂直起降”(VTOL)技術的興趣，當時該公司發表一份白皮書，討論利用“按需航空服務”轉變日常通勤模式的可能性。

Mr Moore’s research has explored how advances in robotics, autonomous systems and electric propulsion can facilitate new kinds of small aircraft.

摩爾的研究探索了機器人技術、自控系統及電氣推進方面的進步如何能夠帶來新型小型飛行器。

In his LinkedIn profile, Mr Moore said his research into unmanned aerial systems and personal air vehicles had the potential to “facilitate a change in aviation that within the next 20 years could be quite breathtaking in terms of impact and market cap”. In a research paper published while at Nasa, he explained: “A zero emission, highly efficient, highly reliable, ultra-low noise VTOL capability would be a game changer compared with existing close proximity flight capabilities, for both unmanned and manned applications.”

摩爾在自己的領英(LinkedIn)簡介中寫道，他對無人空中系統和個人飛行器的研究可能“帶來航空技術的轉變，這種轉變有望在未來20年產生十分巨大的影響力和市場價值”。在一篇他任職NASA期間發表的論文中，他解釋說：“與現有的短距離飛行能力（無論是無人還是載人飛行器）相比，零排放、高效率、高可靠性、極低噪聲的垂直起降能力將成爲遊戲規則的顛覆者。”

Such a disruptive approach would naturally appeal to Uber, which has already brought sweeping changes to the taxi industry and is credited by some with accelerating a decline in car ownership. Uber is already investing in self-driving cars, striking partnerships with Volvo and Daimler, as well as autonomous trucks through last year’s acquisition of Otto.

這種顛覆性路徑對優步具有天然吸引力，它不僅已經給出租車行業帶來全面變化，還被有些人認爲促使汽車保有量加速下降。優步已投資於自動駕駛汽車，並與沃爾沃(Volvo)和戴姆勒(Daimler)建立合作關係，去年還通過收購奧托(Otto)投資自動駕駛卡車領域。

Uber in its white paper last year proposed taking that work to another level, envisioning a system of “vertiports” and “vertistops” for transport between suburbs and cities and eventually within cities themselves.

在去年發佈的白皮書中，優步提出要將這方面的工作提升至另一高度，展望了在郊區與城市間、最終在市內建立由“垂直起降機場”和“垂直起降站點”構成的交通運輸系統。

“On-demand aviation has the potential to radically improve urban mobility, giving people back time lost in their daily commutes,” it wrote. “Uber is close to the commute pain that citizens in cities around the world feel. We view helping to solve this problem as core to our mission and our commitment to our rider base. Just as skyscrapers allowed cities to use limited land more efficiently, urban air transportation will use three-dimensional airspace to alleviate transportation congestion on the ground.”

“按需航空服務有可能從根本上改善城市的機動性，節省人們浪費在日常通勤上的時間，”白皮書寫道。“優步深知世界各地城市居民的通勤痛苦。我們將協助解決這一問題視爲我們使命和對乘客承諾的核心。正如摩天大樓可讓城市以更高效率利用有限的土地，城市空中交通系統將利用三維空域緩解地面上的交通擁堵。”

Despite this Jetsons-like future vision, many technological hurdles are yet to be overcome, ranging from power requirements and noise to finding safe places for the flying cars to land.

雖然優步描繪了類似《傑森一家》(The Jetsons)的未來願景，但是從動力需求、噪聲到爲飛行汽車尋找安全着陸場所，仍有許多技術障礙有待克服。