Mobility: From Rails to Roads to Space Travel

Abstract

This chapter can be regarded as a logical extension of Chap. 10, insofar as it focuses on uses of liquid fuels derived from petroleum, largely for purposes of enhancing automobility. It starts with the history of the internal combustion engine—not an extension of the external combustion (steam) engine. Contrary to rumor, Nikolaus Otto (1832–1891) was far from the first to make an internal combustion engine, one that would burn its fuel inside the cylinder, as contrasted with the so-called external combustion engines, like steam engines. For instance, there were “explosion engines” by Street (1794) and Cecil (1820) and the first commercial stationary gas engines (direct predecessors of Otto) built by Samuel Brown in the 1820s and 1830s. The next steps were taken by Wright (1833) and Barnett (1838), who were the first to try compressing the fuel mixture. The internal combustion engine was rapidly applied to automobiles for use on roads and then on heavier-than-air craft and new travel applications taking advantage from the radical increase in speed of aircraft over surface modes. The latter part of the chapter deals with the larger social implications of automobiles and several other radical new technologies, including manufacturing innovations by Ford, the steam turbines as applied to electric power generation.