Uber Technologies Inc.’s ambitions are heading to the sky, and the ride-hailing giant has hired a former U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration engineer to lead its push into developing flying cars.

Uber has hired Mark Moore, who was with NASA for 30 years and is regarded as an expert on vertical takeoff and landing vehicles to head Uber Elevate, according to Bloomberg.

Uber announced the formation of Elevate in October with the release of a 98-page white paper. In it, Uber claimed that flying cars, using both a pilot and Uber’s self-driving technology, would cut commute times while using electronic propulsion systems that would have zero emissions and general little noise. That, the company said, would allow them to operate in cities “without disturbing the neighbors.”

“On-demand aviation has the potential to radically improve urban mobility, giving people back time lost in their daily commutes,” Uber explains in the paper. “Uber is close to the commute pain that citizens in cities around the world feel. We view helping to solve this problem as core to our mission and our commitment to our rider base. Just as skyscrapers allowed cities to use limited land more efficiently, urban air transportation will use three-dimensional airspace to alleviate transportation congestion on the ground.”

Moore won’t be building a flying car for Uber, though, with the company instead wanting to organize the industry to help spur development of flying cars.

“Uber continues to see its role as an accelerant-catalyst to the entire ecosystem, and we are excited to have Mark joining us to work with manufacturers and stakeholders as we continue to explore the use case described in our whitepaper,” Nikhil Goel, Uber’s head of product for advanced programs, told Bloomberg.

Attempts to bring flying cars dates back over 90 years, with multiple companies failing dismally along the way. Hurdles remain, including engineering challenges and regulatory issues. But at a time when self-driving vehicles are now being tested on suburban streets, something inconceivable a decade ago, the notion that flying cars might be only 10 years away, as Uber contends, no longer seems farfetched.

Photo: lotprocars/Flickr/CC by 2.0