Forget about self-driving cars. The future of transportation is flying cars. Mark Moore, an advanced aircraft engineer at NASA, is leaving the prestigious organization and joining Uber as director of engineering for aviation. Working on the Uber Elevate project, Moore will strive to bring his idea of VTOL, or vertical takeoff and landing, vehicles to life.
According to Brad Stone for Bloomberg: "Uber isn’t constructing a flying car yet. In its own white paper published last October, the company laid out a radical vision for airborne commutes and identified technical challenges it said it wanted to help the nascent industry solve, like noise pollution, vehicle efficiency and limited battery life. Moore consulted on the paper and was impressed by the company’s vision and potential impact.
Nikhil Goel, Uber’s head of product for advanced programs, says the company wants to organize the industry to help spur development of flying cars. 'Uber continues to see its role as an accelerant-catalyst to the entire ecosystem, and we are excited to have Mark joining us to work with manufacturers and stakeholders as we continue to explore the use case described in our whitepaper,' Goel wrote in an e-mailed statement."