On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin piloted a 2,400 kg spacecraft in humanity's first manned space flight.
A week later, Bell Aero Systems debuted another advancement in aviation: the gas-powered rocket pack.
Capable of flying up to 35 meters in just 13 seconds, the rocket pack stunned the onlookers. But the device's engineers were less enthusiastic.
Despite Years Of Advanced Work
they knew this short flight was all the rocket pack could muster.
So why was it easier to fly a large spacecraft than a pilot?
According to Newton's laws of motion, the physics behind flight is actually quite simple. All you need is an upward force strong enough to counteract the downward force of gravity.
And since more massive objects experience stronger gravity, lighter objects should find it easier to get off the ground.
However, modern jet engines, our primary tool for flight, are actually the larger they are, the more efficient they are.
Jet engines work by sucking in large amounts of air and then expelling that air as quickly as possible.
Although Most Of This Bypasses The Internal Machinery
It still contributes a large portion of the engine's thrust. But the air that enters the engine core is compressed by a series of tightly packed blades.
That compressed air then enters the combustion chamber, where it is injected with jet fuel and burned. The heat causes the compressed air to expand rapidly, bursting through the exhaust and propelling the engine.
As the air leaves the engine it also turns the turbine embedded in the exhaust nozzle. This powers the turbine fan and compressor blades, creating a cycle that maintains thrust as long as fuel is burned.
The more air an engine can take in and expel, the more thrust it can produce. On a modern jet, the front fan is larger in diameter than the propeller.
And even spinning at relatively low speeds, these engines generate more than enough thrust to maintain the speed necessary to fly a passenger plane.
But Small Engines Cannot Take That Much Air
For most of the 20th century, engineers could not create an engine small and light enough to be worn by a person, yet powerful enough to carry its pilot and fuel as well as itself.
The designs could only carry enough fuel for a 30-second flight, and when airborne, the powerful thrust in one direction made the jetpack difficult and dangerous to control.
But the new millennium saw advances in materials, manufacturing, and computing technology, including systems that can manage fuel injection with incredible precision.
Together, the two dramatically improved the fuel efficiency and power-to-weight ratio of jet engines. As of 2016, micro-engines the size of a coffee can and weighing less than 2 kg can achieve 220 newtons of force.
It was then that an English engineer named Richard Browning saw an opportunity to create a new type of lightweight jetpack.
In addition to a single engine strapped to the back, the so-called jet suit includes a pair of micro-engines on each wing to distribute thrust.
Working With The Rear Engine
These provide three points of stability, which some pilots describe as comfortably leaning on crutches while a friend supports your back.
Managing all these engines at once can seem complicated, but many pilots can master it in less than a day with the help of another advanced computer system, their brains.
Different brain regions and multiple sensory systems fine-tune our sense of balance and spatial orientation, helping pilots navigate their flights with ease.
A slight movement of the arms allows operators to raise and lower the elevator, turn quickly in mid-air, or move forward for up to 5 minutes.
The technology is still fairly new, and without major advances in fuel efficiency and engine technology, don't expect your own jetpack anytime soon.
But if reaching for the sky has already taken us this far, who knows where we'll fly next?
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