Uber Brings In NASA Engineer To Build Flying Cars

"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. A network of small, electric aircraft that take off and land vertically (called VTOL aircraft for Vertical Take-off and Landing, and pronounced vee-tol), will enable rapid, reliable transportation between suburbs and cities and, ultimately, within cities.

Acquiring Moore was certainly a coup de grace, as the NASA engineer was just a year away from retirement. As a result, he will not be eligible for his pension and health benefits. However, the move appears to be motivated in part by Moore's desire to see the development of the technology become a reality. And these days, it seems that the private sector - and not within federal agencies - is where this is most likely to happen.

As Moore told Universe Today via email:

"Uber's well suited to lead this because they are the on-demand market leader, with 55 million active monthly users. They've solved the multi-modal last mile problem, with incredible access and availability that provides wait times in major urban areas of only 2 to 3 minutes."

"There will be an evolution from professional human pilots to autonomy over time as the background automation proves itself reliable and not requiring intervention by the human pilot - just as Uber is doing now with autonomous cars on the ground (which is a much harder problem because of how cluttered the ground environment is."