Alpeon Magazine Alpeon | Page 83

HUNTING FOR IMPRESSIONS | the dynamics of life || 81 human driver who, in addition to an ordinary driver’s li- cense, has to get certification of ability to operate a robot. Google-Waymo cars use video cameras, Google Street View, LIDAR sensors, and geolocation radars for safe driv- ing in traffic. The Toyota Prius, Lexus RX450h, Audi TT, and Mercedes-Benz have now already received permission for testing, but for the time being your chances to get into a Google-Waymo car’s passenger seat are limited to Ann Arbor. Ride a rocket to the Universe in the desert of New Mexico www.spacex.com Take a ride around Ann Arbor, Michigan in a self-driving car www.visitannarbor.org and https://mcity.umich.edu/our-work/mcity-test-facility / In July of 2015 the University of Michigan put into op- eration an entire city called Mcity for testing self-driving motorized transport. And in Nevada it’s been officially per- mitted since 2012 to travel on the highways in Google cars, which incidentally have been farmed out to a company called Waymo; see https://waymo.com/. True, for the time being, the law doesn’t permit dispensing altogether with a ”You’ll have a spaceport as soon as you build a space- ship,” declared New Mexico governor Bill Richardson in 2004. “So build a spaceport, and then I’ll build you a spaceship,” retorted entrepreneur and billionaire Richard Branson. Seven years later, America, the first commercial tourism spaceport in the world, had been built in the small town of Truth or Consequences, which is in the middle of the desert with the cheerful name Jornada del Muerto (Dead Man’s Journey). According to the plans of Virgin Galactic, suborbital flights were to have become common- place, but for now successful test launches can be counted ALPEON.COM