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Science fiction has ever been fascinated by the cutting edge and the never-before-seen. We devour stories about exotic breakthrough inventions that can transport us to inner space or cyberspace or outer space. While spinning yarns about using high-tech tools to get someplace beyond the beyond may tickle the imagination, it’s worth looking at the transportation technologies that define our current lives and our immediate futures for story ideas. We who love our genre take them for granted at our intellectual peril. Consider, for example, the humble wheel, which some credit as the most important mechanical invention ever created ae.gatech.edu/news/2024/11/engineering-origin-wheel. (If