Science Fact “A plane with some combination of these qualities is technically possible, but it would be practically useless,” says Richard Whittle, author of The Dream Machine, a history of the V-22 Osprey. To take off vertically, the X-Jet would need to generate a pound of thrust for every pound of aircraft, he says. This would burn so much fuel that the plane’s range would be limited to a few counties, not a full country. Instead, the X-Jet would most likely resemble the V-22, which has a 1,000-mile range and a top speed of about 300 mph, and took 25 years and $22 billion to design and build. How do the X-Men overcome such incredible constraints? “With Beast’s technical wisdom and Magneto’s ability to move metal around, you can accomplish a lot in a short time,” says the movie’s producer, Bryan Singer.

 

 

 

Green Lantern

June 17

Story: After chasing down a fallen spacecraft on the California coast, pilot Hal Jordan discovers a ring that grants him extraordinary powers. In accepting it, Jordan becomes the first human to serve as a Green Lantern, a guardian that protects the universe from evil--in this case, the mad scientist Dr. Hector Hammond.

Science Fiction: The ring takes its orders from Jordan’s mind, enabling him to fly, knock multiple bad guys off their feet, and even create wormholes through which he can travel thousands of light-years within minutes.

Science Fact: People can indeed control machines with brain signals. Johns Hopkins University scientists are conducting clinical trials for the Modular Prosthetic Limb, a robotic arm operated by the user’s thoughts. But the ring’s ability to generate shortcuts across the universe raises more questions. “Wormholes are possible in principle,” says physicist Eric Davis of the Institute of Advanced Studies, a think tank in Austin, Texas, but creating them takes a tremendous amount of negative energy. It would take the mass equivalent of –71 percent of Jupiter to create a wormhole suitable for travel. Producer Donald De Line explains that a Green Lantern’s ring derives its energy from a battery on the alien planet Oa. “The battery stores the collected willpower from around the universe,” he says.
Note to NASA: Find Oa, solve energy crisis.

 

 

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

July 1

Story: The Autobots, the good half of a race of shape-shifting alien robots, learn of a secret spacecraft hidden on the moon. The vessel’s contents, which may include former Transformer leader Sentinel Prime, could decide the outcome of the imminent war between the Autobots and their evil half, the Decepticons.

Science Fiction: Autobots and Decepticons rapidly transform from two- to three-story-tall humanoids into cars, trucks and fighter jets.

Science Fact: “We’re a long way from Transformers,” says Carnegie Mellon University roboticist Seth Copen Goldstein, but radically shape-shifting machines are on the distant horizon. He suggests that instead of sending several specialized rovers to Mars, NASA could dispatch a multipurpose robot that could morph from a rover into a hut. These machines would be made from millions of autonomous, adjustable modules. Goldstein’s group is already developing such a module: a millimeter-scale cylinder made from a rolled-up computer chip. He hopes to program several of them to form simple shapes, such as a pyramid.