Our wars will be waged with rocket troops and hovercars

This excerpt from the 1979 Usborne Book of the Future certainly causes a few nostalgic, retro-futuristic pangs. According to this book, by the year 2000, squadrons of rocket troops will board NASA-like space shuttles and propelled into orbit, where it will shoot to the other side of the planet at over 16,000 km per hour. Once they've landed in some picturesque Arabian oasis, it's time to swarm over the indigenous natives with armed, floating hover cars. I'd say this seems like overkill just to mop the floor with a gaggle of liberty-threatening Middle Eastern insurgents, but the occupation of Iraq going as it has, perhaps the missing ingredient was rocket troops and hover cars after all.

The Usborne Book of the Future [Pointless Museum via Danger Room]

[#1 posted by zuzu , August 15, 2008 8:59 AM]

Cyborgs and Space, in Astronautics (September 1960), by Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline

Altering man's bodily functions to meet the requirements of extraterrestrial environments would be more logical than providing an earthly environment for him in space ... Artifact-organism systems which would extend man's unconscious, self-regulatory controls are one possibility

[#2 posted by pork musket , August 15, 2008 9:04 AM]

I think you're right about the missing ingredient. I wouldn't fuck with an army that had hovercars.

[#3 posted by OM , August 15, 2008 9:33 AM]

...Of course, the fun part would be to have used a NERVA system for descent. Those who didn't get literally fried at Ground Zero would be glowing in the dark to assist our deployed troops in shooting them and putting them out of our misery :-)

[#4 posted by Anonymous , August 15, 2008 9:44 AM]

Ahhh... Ithacus http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/ithacus.htm Because for a certain kind of space geek, if you say Bono, this is what we think of, not U2.

[#5 posted by pauldrye , August 15, 2008 10:14 AM]

((makes squeeing noises because he had that book as a child))

[#6 posted by Stefan Jones , August 15, 2008 11:31 AM]

This needs to be updated. The hovercrafts should have Raytheon pain-rays.

[#7 posted by themindfantastic , August 15, 2008 12:00 PM]

I bet you with the money that could have went into R&D that has been spent on that war the US is fighting, and wasn't pocketed or used inappropriately I bet we could be a lot closer to actually having Hovercars.

[#8 posted by muteboy , August 15, 2008 12:13 PM]

I had this book too. Usbourne told me everthing I needed to know. Hence my current situation.

[#9 posted by tartar , August 15, 2008 12:21 PM]

But don't forget:
The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?

[#10 posted by JamesMason , August 15, 2008 1:48 PM]

Never mind that this system is several magnitudes more costly then just putting them on jumbo jets escorted by fighter planes.

[#11 posted by Trent Hawkins , August 15, 2008 4:34 PM]

Man these guys were spot on with most of their stuff... well no space pirates yet, but things like hybrid cars are incredibly accurate.

[#12 posted by Tomble , August 15, 2008 7:54 PM]

Ooo, I have this book! I must dig it up. I was really into it as a kid.

[#13 posted by Anonymous , August 15, 2008 9:46 PM]

Holy crap and a handbasket, I recognize that artwork and page style! I have the books about sea monsters, ghosts, and aliens, each one was so amazingly and distrubingly detailed. Funny though because I was born in 84 which means I was reading a bunch of really out of date parascience!

[#14 posted by jimkirk , August 16, 2008 1:22 PM]

Hover cars, no....

Hover bacon, MMmmmmm...

[#15 posted by milovoo , August 26, 2008 4:41 PM]

"Well done troops! The resistance has been put down, now ... how we get home?"