Jetpacks have long been a fixture in science fiction films, but so far, no one has really been able to develop a reliable real-world jetpack solution. Based on a recent article from Engadget, though, the reason for that could be that scientists have been too focused on making jetpacks fly.

Indeed, a team of researchers at Arizona State University is breaking new ground with jetpack technology, and they are doing it by thinking outside of the box and not trying to get their test subjects airborne. Instead, the goal of the project is to create jetpack-like devices that function more or less as turbo boosters for humans on the ground. In other words, the idea behind these jetpacks is to make test subjects run much faster than they would be able to on their own.

The project is being funded by DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) with the goal of creating something that will help soldiers run at Olympic speeds, even when wearing bulky armor and carrying heavy weapons or other equipment. Dubbed 4MM (which stands for “four-minute mile”), the Arizona State University project is being led by Jason Kerestes, a mechanical engineer and robot designer, and Thomas Sugar, a expert in the field of wearable robots from the Human Machine Integration Laboratory at ASU.

Kerestes and Sugar were approached by DARPA and asked to create something that would  help to augment the abilities of soldiers. The answer was a jetpack that could feasibly make it possible for every United States soldier to run with the speed and endurance of the fastest distance runners in the world. So far, the project has not met its goal of breaking the four-minute mile, but Kerestes and Sugar are tweaking the jetpack project and getting the results they want: runners are shaving seconds off their times every day.

The 4MM jetpack weighs 11 pounds and would add a bit of weight to a soldier’s load. However, since being able to run on the battle field at a four-minute-mile pace could undoubtedly mean the difference between life and death, it will not be surprising if the ASU jetpack is a standard issue model in a few year’s time.