You Must Be From Away

Lufthansa Cargo is promoting the Air Cargo Innovation Challenge – “the first open innovation and crowdsourcing activity in the airfreight industry”.

One of the more creative ideas is the “Moon Transfer System” whereby the earth is linked to the moon with a chain (I’m not kidding….) along which cargo from one point on the earth is hoisted up and then dropped down when it reaches its destination.

If this isn’t good enough, people appear to be taking it seriously with comments  such as

“Your ideas are likely the true ways to save energy and perhaps show what 2020 will look like. A radical change is needed. Space will help us to be more efficient in air travel.”

“How you imagine chain protection from space objects like satellites , asteroids and human garbage”

“What kind of freight would you transport this way, what about the weather forces,the temperatures nearby earth, in space and flying through earth athmosphere and what will happen, if a plane with 300 passengers will hit your chain?”

“Where would you attach the chain on monn, because moon gets smaller and bigger all the time? Also how to screw chain to moon? Moon sometimes get elipsed [sic]”

The mind simply boggles