God’s Tent Rules

In the future, if you go camping, your tent might feature carbon nanotube poles, a HEPA filter, ultra hydrophobic rain fly, a hydrogen fuel cell to power everything and more.

Humorist Dave Barry must not have had much fun when he tried camping out.

“It always rains on tents,” he wrote. “Rainstorms will travel thousands of miles, against prevailing winds, for the opportunity to rain on a tent.”

That may seem to be true, at times, but the fact is, today’s tents are much better than the old canvas ones at keeping out the rain. They’re more secure against bugs, too — and a whole lot lighter to lug around.

Comedian Mitch Hedberg pointed out one problem that modern tents haven’t solved. “I got in an argument with a girlfriend inside of a tent,” he said. “That’s a bad place for an argument, because I tried to walk out and had to slam the flap.”

But maybe slammable flaps will come, too. Wired magazine regularly invites readers to imagine how things might change in the future. The magazine staff then selects one idea per issue and develops a full-page advertisement for the product. Last year, they showed what a top-of-the-line family tent might be like in 2019. The...