There was a time when the perfect symbol of a bright, shiny, technology-soaked future was the jet pack. We were all supposed to be able to wear a thruster on our backs to get from one place to another in a jiffy, right? Well, so far, no, not so much. Instead, we got the Segway, which is indeed a lightweight personal transportation device but it's also decidedly not a jet pack.
That's not to say that jet packs have proven impossible to build. They're just not quite what we thought they'd be. But as one inventor is showing, even if we don't all have a jet pack of our own, they can still be incredibly cool and usher in a better future.