Douglas "Doug" Malewicki is an American aerospace engineer and inventor of Polish descent. Many of his inventions concern flying vehicles, but the range is quite diverse.[3] He is also the concept creator and inventor of Skytran PRT (personal rapid transit).[4]
Malewicki spent 25 years advancing the Skytran concept of ultra-light computer-controlled cars hanging below aluminum maglev (magnetic levitation) tracks that could be supported above roads just by utility poles or the sides of buildings. Skytran basically combines maglev (which allows high speeds) and a hanging design (more stable and smaller tracks) with the 1960s' idea of personal rapid transit (PRT) -- cars that individual commuters take directly to their destination (hence "personal"), but computer-driven and available to others after they exit (hence "transit"). Another key PRT idea that Skytran follows is exiting the main track for boarding, so that the cars behind do not need to wait as they do with mass transit vehicles.[5] In 2019, Israeli media said that Skytran was being considered as a transportation solution for bringing baggage and passengers from the new Ramon Airport to the city of Eilat, 20 kilometres (12mi) away.[6] Skytran was advanced in Israel from 2002 and was proposed at the Knesset in 2011.[7] In 2011, it was revealed that a model of Skytran was being developed with Israel Aerospace Industries.[8]
Malewicki developed the 157 and 156-miles-per-gallon "California Commuter" cars that hold the Guinness fuel economy records for street-legal vehicles driven at freeway speeds — an example of green vehicles.[9]
Malewicki shaking hands with Evel Knievel at Twin Falls
Malewicki developed the following vehicles and rides:
Robosaurus, a 40-foot Tyrannosaurus rex-inspired "entertainment robot" that bites cars and airplanes in half at car shows. This thrill ride folds into a truck and can be driven between locations. It is seen in the movie Waking up in Reno where it is intended to be used as a revenge tool, to consume an SUV about to be sold.[11]
Patented Kitecycle for stuntman/daredevil Bob Correll who reached a world record with it.[15]
Other inventions and innovations
Malewicki was also involved in the development and invention of the following:
Malewicki designed the Nuclear War card game and has sold it independently from 1965. Rick Loomis of Flying Buffalo, for whom the game was one of the influences on his own Nuclear Destructionplay-by-mail game, noticed that people were confusing the two games with each other, so after tracking Malewicki down, he added the game to his own catalogue and started publishing Nuclear War through Flying Buffalo in 1972.[16] Expansions included "Nuclear Proliferation", "Nuclear Escalation" and "Weapons of Mass Destruction".
An aeronautical engineer by training,[citation needed] Malewicki spent much of his career working for American aeronautics and space companies including the Apollo program Moon landing vehicles, the stealth bomber and Cessna aircraft including their first private jet airplane.[citation needed] He was a model rocket enthusiast, becoming famous early in his career for the Malewicki equations that predicted the altitude and coast time of a model rocket flight.
According to Malewicki's daughter, he was the inspiration for the original one-eyed monster, called Mike, on the Pee-wee's Playhouse TV show and was later the inspiration for Mike Wazowski drawn by Ricky Nierva in Monsters, Inc..[17] A copy of the game plans in which he drew the first image of this alien is distributed free.
↑ Gross, AC; Kyle CR; Malewicki DJ (1983). "The aerodynamics of human-powered land vehicles". Scientific American (249): 142-152. This article appears in several patents.
A train is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and transport people or freight. Trains are typically pulled or pushed by locomotives, though some are self-propelled, such as multiple units or railcars. Passengers and cargo are carried in railroad cars, also known as wagons or carriages. Trains are designed to a certain gauge, or distance between rails. Most trains operate on steel tracks with steel wheels, the low friction of which makes them more efficient than other forms of transport. Many countries use rail transport.
Personal rapid transit (PRT), also referred to as podcars or guided/railed taxis, is a public transport mode featuring a network of specially built guideways on which ride small automated vehicles that carry few passengers per vehicle. PRT is a type of automated guideway transit (AGT), a class of system which also includes larger vehicles all the way to small subway systems. In terms of routing, it tends towards personal public transport systems.
This is a timeline of transportation technology and technological developments in the culture of transportation.
An automated guideway transit (AGT) or automated fixed-guideway transit or automatic guideway transit system is a type of fixed guideway transit infrastructure with a riding or suspension track that supports and physically guides one or more driverless vehicles along its length. The vehicles are often rubber tired or steel wheeled, but other traction systems including air cushion, suspended monorail and maglev have been implemented. The guideway provides both physical support, like a road, as well as the guidance. An automated line can be cheaper to run than a conventional line, due to the shorter trains and stations.
Electromagnetic propulsion (EMP) is the principle of accelerating an object by the utilization of a flowing electrical current and magnetic fields. The electrical current is used to either create an opposing magnetic field, or to charge a field, which can then be repelled. When a current flows through a conductor in a magnetic field, an electromagnetic force known as a Lorentz force, pushes the conductor in a direction perpendicular to the conductor and the magnetic field. This repulsing force is what causes propulsion in a system designed to take advantage of the phenomenon. The term electromagnetic propulsion (EMP) can be described by its individual components: electromagnetic – using electricity to create a magnetic field, and propulsion – the process of propelling something. When a fluid is employed as the moving conductor, the propulsion may be termed magnetohydrodynamic drive. One key difference between EMP and propulsion achieved by electric motors is that the electrical energy used for EMP is not used to produce rotational energy for motion; though both use magnetic fields and a flowing electrical current.
Shavit 2 is a small lift launch vehicle produced by Israel from 1982 onwards, to launch satellites into low Earth orbit. It was first launched on 19 September 1988, making Israel the eighth nation to have an orbital launch capability after the USSR, United States, France, Japan, People's Republic of China, United Kingdom, and India.
Inductrack is a passive, fail-safe electrodynamic magnetic levitation system, using only unpowered loops of wire in the track and permanent magnets on the vehicle to achieve magnetic levitation. The track can be in one of two configurations, a "ladder track" and a "laminated track". The ladder track is made of unpowered Litz wire cables, and the laminated track is made out of stacked copper or aluminium sheets.
Maglev is a system of rail transport whose rolling stock is levitated by electromagnets rather than rolled on wheels, eliminating rolling resistance.
Cabinentaxi, sometimes Cabintaxi in English, was a German people mover development project undertaken by Demag and Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm with funding and support from the Bundesministerium für Forschung und Technologie. Cabinentaxi was designed to offer low-cost mass transit services where conventional systems, like a metro, would be too expensive to deploy due to low ridership or high capital costs.
Robosaurus is a transforming dinosaur robot created by inventor Doug Malewicki in 1989 and originally owned and operated by his company, Monster Robots, Inc. Robosaurus is modeled after Transformers toys with the driver sitting in the head of the robot, and the ability to transform from a 48-foot semi trailer into a mechanical Tyrannosaurus rex. It has hydraulically activated arms, grasping claws, and jaws, and a flame thrower in the head to give the effect of breathing fire out of its nostrils. It is used at motorsport events and air shows to "eat" and burn vehicles such as automobiles and small airplanes.
A vactrain is a proposed design for very-high-speed rail transportation. It is a maglev line using partly evacuated tubes or tunnels. Reduced air resistance could permit vactrains to travel at very high (hypersonic) speeds with relatively little power—up to 6,400–8,000 km/h (4,000–5,000 mph). This is 5–6 times the speed of sound in Earth's atmosphere at sea level.
Ultra is a personal rapid transit podcar system developed by the British engineering company Ultra Global PRT.
John Edward Anderson is an American engineer and proponent of personal rapid transit.
Science and technology in Japan has helped fuel the rapid industrial and economic development of the country. Japan has a long history and tradition for scientific research and development, stretching as far back as the Meiji period.
Skytran is a personal rapid transit system concept. It was first proposed by the inventor Douglas Malewicki in 1990 and was under development by Unimodal Inc. A prototype of the skyTran vehicle and a section of track have been constructed. The early magnetic levitation system, Inductrack, which SkyTran has replaced with a similar proprietary design, has been tested by General Atomics with a full-scale model. In 2010, Unimodal signed an agreement with NASA to test and develop skyTran. skyTran had proposed additional projects in France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Lawrence K. Edwards was an American innovator in aerospace and ground transportation. Early in his career, he pioneered technologies for U.S. space and missile defense programs. He went on to invent and promote high-speed Gravity-Vacuum Transit and monobeam rail transit. He obtained a total of fourteen patents in those areas.
StarTram is a proposed space launch system propelled by maglev technology. The initial Generation 1 facility is proposed to launch cargo only from a mountain peak at an altitude of 3 to 7 kilometres using an evacuated tube remaining at local surface level. Annual orbital lift was estimated at approximately 150,000 tons. More advanced technology is required for a Generation 2 system for passengers, with a longer track instead gradually curving up at its end to the thinner air at 22 kilometres (72,000 ft) altitude, supported by magnetic levitation, reducing g-forces when each capsule transitions from the vacuum tube to the atmosphere. A SPESIF 2010 presentation stated that Generation 1 could be completed by the year 2020 or later if funding began in 2010, and Generation 2 by 2030 or later.
ROMAG was a personal rapid transit (PRT) system produced by the American company Rohr, Inc. It featured a linear induction motor that was arranged to provide both traction and suspension in a magnetic levitation system.
Shweeb is a proposed personal rapid transit network in New Zealand, based on human-powered monorail cars. The project prototype was originally designed and implemented in Rotorua, New Zealand, as a leisure attraction. The name is a reference to the German "schweben" meaning "to hang/hover/levitate", and indirectly to the suspended monorail Schwebebahn Wuppertal.
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