The yellow submarine and why we have legs and not wheels

I never had a "dream car". Perhaps that's because, I think wheels are very unimpressive. People say, we should not re-invent the wheel. I fully agree with that. What's so good about wheels? When I was in kindergarten, I often thought: "Why do people have legs and not wheels? And why, if wheels are so great, did they not emerge through the process of evolution, as the standard propulsion solution for mammals?" Well, I concluded this thought at the age of 10 by believing that evolution is about survival of the most adaptable and not of the most efficient way. Obviously legs are more versatile than wheels (and if needed you can make use of the efficiency of wheels by using a bicycle). Many years later, when I was working on ways to control air pressure in tires from a central compressor in a car, and concluded as of the complications I had keeping these systems tight around a rotating axis: it would be very hard to get blood into the toes and keep the nerves connected, if we did not have legs, but wheels. I noted this down somewhere in my diary, and turned my attention from cars to rockets and submarines. I even had a poster of the Trieste in my room, hanging over my bed.

This is why it came as no surprise that I was happy like a child today, when on the way back home, I saw the Russian U-Boat Navigator back in the bay of Cospicua. It carries a small yellow submarine, and this is a fascinating machine. I found the specs online, and it goes down to 1000 meters. Imagine, what that means against a NITROX dive, not even reaching 100 meters.

I heard that dream cars, are those where you stand in front and say, "One day, I want one of these", knowing that you will never have one. Well then, one day I want such a yellow submarine.