Real-life Futurama tube-transport will catapult you from New York to Beijing in 2 hours

IO9 ^ | Apr 18, 2012 | Robert T. Gonzalez

[DogByte6RER]

Real-life Futurama tube-transport will catapult you from New York to Beijing in 2 hours

The Simpsons have the monorail. Futurama has the Tube Transport System. The difference is that tube-transport is a fantasy — at least for now.

The folks at ET3 want to make what they call "Evacuated Tube Transport" a reality. Their proposed maglev system would be capable of propelling six-person-capacity cylinders to speeds of over 4000 miles per hour, making it possible for people to travel from New York to L.A. in just 45 minutes, or from New York to Beijing in two hours. What's more, ET3 claims the infrastructure could be built at one-tenth the cost of a high speed rail and would operate fifty times more efficiently than electric cars or trains.

These all sound like very, very bold claims to us — still, it's hard not to get excited about the prospect of a vacuum-sealed, maglev-powered, 4000-mile-per-hour transportation system (though the idea of a collision at those speeds, or the implications of a capsule-leak, are enough to make even the most enthusiastic transpo-futurist a little queasy).

[Grut]

Trains in evacuated tubes isn't a new idea: I remember reading an article with a similar proposal (wheels, though, not maglev) in a Scientific American about fifty years ago. Actually more elegant, since the trains 'fell' down a ramp, rolled along a subterranean track and climbed another ramp into the next station, bringing them to a stop. All done by gravity, with the only energy input needed being to overcome the friction losses involved in rolling.

[Tanniker Smith]

Well, not exactly. Since New York is in the Northern Hemisphere, you’d end up in the Southern Hemisphere. The more tangential the trip (and US to China is very tangential), the less beneficial gravity is.

Actually, if you have a frictionless tunnel (okay, big "if" here, but, hey, we're drilling through the Earth), any tunnel between any two cities anywhere in the world would take 43 minutes (or maybe it was 47 -- it's been a long time since I read the science article about it in Analog).

[calex59]

The nature of gravity would accelerate you toward the center of the earth and as you passed it you would begin to slow down coming to a stop exactly at the surface on the far side of the planet. 42 minutes from anywhere on the globe.

Actually as you neared the center of the earth you would fall slower and slower as gravity weakened, when you got to the exact center your speed would be almost non existent and you would not go past the center, gravity would be pushing you from every direction. No free ride for you. You would be stranded at the center unless you had some sort of power to pull you out, because every direction would be up.

[xsmommy]

Dan bylsma said everyone needs to be their best tonight and that includes you. Do not let him down.

[FatherofFive]

No need to...you just head east.

OK. How do you build a tube across the Atlantic?

[dangus]

Sounds reasonable; The reduction in gravitational force would need to be proportional to the reduction in distance.

BUT it’s pretty easy to understand how to have a frictionless tube which passes through the center of the earth. Well, passing ANY tube through the center of the Earth is rather hard to imagine, but making it frictionless would be easy as pie compared to constructing it; a simple vacuum chamber would do. As you move away from the center, the force pulling away from the center of the tube would become far greater; a friction against the tube itself which would be nonexistent if the tube passed through the center of the Earth would be only marginal if it passed within several degrees of the center of the Earth, but so great if it passed from the US to China that it’d be hardly any less than going completely along the surface.

[Yardstick]

I love the idea of 1976 being in the future.

Nowadays I'm more interested in going back in time than going forward.

[Yardstick]

Imagine the tube burn you would get if you hit the side of the tube at 4000 miles per hour.

Naturally as a precaution you would slather yourself in Crisco. Then you'd just slide to Beijing if anything happened. It would be fun!

[dfwgator]

Outstanding song and album. Great pick for this thread.

"Walk Between the Raindrops" literally makes you feel like you're in 50s-era Miami.