Jetpacks are looking to be a mandatory feature for some first person shooter video games. We've seen it fully utilised by Titan pilots in Titanfall where they can do boost jumps to quickly scale walls or go over obstacles to outflank the enemy. It will also be a feature for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare which allows a player do some cool reverse boost jumps to get right behind a pursuing player, turning the tables in which the prey quickly becomes the predator.

Those video games show jetpacks far, far, far into the future but what do you know? It might just become a reality in our lifetime if the researchers from the Arizona State University (ASU) can help it. They're right now developing a jetpack for the U.S. Military in cooperation with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

For now, the jetpack is not about giving soldiers the super human ability to jump over obstacles or scale walls. As part of DARPA's efforts to develop devices to enhance the capabilities of soldiers, such as exoskeletons,  the jetpack project is called the 4MM Project (4-Minute Mile). It is the holy grail for middle-distance runners which was achieved by a handful of runners in recent history since Sir Roger Bannister achieved that in 1954. I can only manage to do that in 10 minutes.

But not every soldier is a fast runner no matter how fit he or she is; and couple that with all the gear and weapons a warfighter has to carry, that goal is not achievable with just a pair of healthy legs and combat boots. Something is needed to boost the speed and exoskeletons are more about strength than speed. Thus, the ASU DARPA 4MM Jetpack Project.

Athletes at ASU have been shaving seconds off their best times whilst testing the Jetpacks though none have achieved the 4 minute mile goal yet. It is understandable for now as the Jetpacks weigh 11 pounds (4.98kg) so that's still extra weight to carry as compared to those who achieved the mark with just their running clothes and shoes. Slowly, they are getting to the objective as they make tweaks to the jet engine and design around the human body.

Once the athletes achieve that, more adjustments will need to be made to the design of the Jetpacks and power of the engines.  Soldiers carry at least a 50-pound load and sometimes even more thus, more power will be needed once soldiers will be testing these. Most probably these jetpacks will be paired with the exoskeletons being developed leading to super human soldiers.

Will we be seeing such Jetpacks give soldiers and perhaps first responders the ability of pilots of Titanfall or operators in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare? We sure hope so and perhaps we might want a commercialised version of theses allowing us lowly joggers to have more power to cover longer distances at shorter times.