Jetpack Dreams: One Man's Up and Down (But Mostly Down) Search for the Greatest Invention That Never Was

by Mac Montandon

Overview

Jetpack Dreams chronicles the colorful pop history and science of that most amazing and mysterious of machines, the jetpack. While exploring our collective fascination with flight, the tale takes readers from the first flimsy, shoulder-mounted wings to Bill Suitor's 1984 Olympic flight in front of billions of viewers around the world; from a gruesome jetpack-driven murder in Houston in the mid-1990s to the secret laboratories and government facilities of today. Journalist Mac Montandon also explores Hollywood's fascination with the subject, from the 1949 serial King of the Rocket Men to Lost in Space, The Jetsons and The Rocketeer to the cultural jetpack phenomenon represented by Buck Rogers, James Bond, and Boba Fett. He travels the world to meet jetpack enthusiasts who are readying their own personal flying machines for takeoff. Ultimately, it's the search for an answer to two simple questions: Where is the jetpack that was promised to him, and to all of us, years ago? And if it's out there, can he catch a ride?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780786726745
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	05/01/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	276
File size:	702 KB

About the Author

Mac Montandon is the editor of Innocent When You Dream: The Tom Waits Reader. He has written for the New York Times, Radar, Salon.com, and Interview. He lives in Brooklyn.

Table of Contents

1 The Voluptuous Panic, Part I 1

2 The Past Is Prologue? 15

3 Shuffling Off to Buffalo; or, The Cruel Truth about Lift over Drag 65

4 Out of This World 107

5 South of the Border, North of the Future 151

6 Houston, We Have Another Problem 185

7 The Voluptuous Panic, Part II 209

8 Epilogue 237

Acknowledgments 249

Index 251

Editorial Reviews

A breezy niche history of a staple of pulp adventures.

Mid-20th-century science-fiction fans took for granted that another 50 years would bring a cure for cancer, interplanetary travel, world government and practical jetpacks. Many of us regret the absence of the first three, but journalist Montandon discovered that the failure to develop the last intensely upsets a minority of technically savvy men (but almost no women). They take iPods, cell phones and wireless Internet for granted, but the absence of a useful jetpack provokes the yearning question: "Why aren't we living in the future?" The author delivers a quick history of the jetpack from its 1928 debut in a Buck Rogers story through the work of a passionate engineer at Bell Aircraft, Wendell Moore, whose rocket-powered backpack flew in 1961. Most readers will be surprised to learn that it worked, and similar devices still fly, though mostly in action films, air shows and special events such as the opening ceremony at the 1984 Olympics. Anyone with $250,000 can buy one, but flying today's jetpack requires great skill. The rocket fires for less than one minute, and no source of substantial money is interested in the massive research required to perfect it. Nonetheless, a surprising number of aficionados are building their own, holding conventions and communicating online. Montandon criss-crosses America with a sidetrip to Mexico, tracking down a surprising number of enthusiasts to observe their work and record their problems—technical, financial and personal.

Since nearly everyone agrees that we will not see a safe, useful jetpack during our lifetime, readers should not expect shocking revelations. Still, Montandan offersan amusing collection of stories about individuals of varying degrees of eccentricity who are devoting much of their lives and personal fortunes to a near-impossible dream.

Agent: Jonathan Lyons/McIntosh & Otis

Kirkus Reviews

AmericanProfile.com, 1/31/10
“A wide-ranging odyssey…Fun, funny, fascinating, full of colorful characters and spiked with unexpected drama, Jetpack Dreams soars to places that might surprise you.”

San Francisco Book Review, March 2010
“[A] thorough, occasionally meandering, love letter to everyone’s favorite not-yet-realized from of transportation…Exhaustively explor[es] the rich history of personalized pyrotechnic-propelled portability…But perhaps the best part of the book is the ongoing examination of why we find them so fascinating, and why we even want jetpacks at all…A merry tribute to a quirky piece of aviation history.”

PopMatters.com, 3/23/10 “A book that is entertaining when it focuses on its proper subject: the jetpack and the people who invented it, its genesis in popular imagination and how its allure continues to lead people to try to build and perfect jetpacks…Great stories all and Montandon manages to tell them with the humor and wit and sympathetic eye they need.”

Midwest Book Review, April 2010
“Offers a lively search for a rocket-powered reality in a fun survey perfect for general lending libraries, science fiction and transportation collections alike.”
 

Vicksburg Post, 10/10/10

From the Publisher