Well, not exactly. Solar impulse is a project engineered by Captain Piccard and his team, a project that on paper sounds impossible: Perpetual flight.

But that's exactly what Piccard aims to achieve with his ground breaking, ultra light-weight Solar Impulse (pictured) which recently managed to get off the ground using purely solar energy.

In it's current form, it's obeying test flight conditions, travelling 1,150 feet just 1 metre above ground level but this is certainly laudable, incredibly so since it's proves in these early stages that a grand idea such as perpetual flight is possible. As long as the sun keeps rising.

"What does the future hold?" is a question I always ask myself when reading about technological feats such as this and it's simple: fuel-less flying. Once the technology has been further developed, imagine flying without impacting the environment whatsoever. It's not impossible, it's certainly futuristic and it's already beginning to happen.

Hats off to Captain Piccard.