Posted on 04/20/2012 7:42:53 AM PDT by 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).
"tube-transport will catapult you from New York to Beijing" ...
Why would I ever want to even be in either New York or Beijing?
((((Ping))))
Evacuated Tube Transport could take you around the world in just 6 hours
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=McpWcn-1RZU
You could never have this on the same planet as Islam. It would be too juicy a target.
How do you build a tube across the Pacific?
Yeah! I wanna be going 4-freakin’-thousand miles an hour, when something goes wrong!
Would you need to take the change out your pockets so you wouldn’t get stuck like the smaller one at bank drive-thrus.
It would be over in a flash.
A total pipe dream. I wonder if Obama will fund it?
Only if it's powered by algae.
Is that a bad pun?
“You could never have this on the same planet as Islam. It would be too juicy a target.”
I had seen this on the Discovery Channel for NY to London in 50 Min and it is entirely POSSIBLE but... practical????
Certainly unless the world smartens up and starts to educate everyone on the insanity that is Is-Slime, projects like this would just be targets in waiting for these 6th century sand monkeys and their pig prophet Mo-Ham-Mud.
Indeed, screw Beijing. That’s a marriage in hell for them, and I do not have to support that with my taxes. Good bye.
Another fantasy transport idea I think is cool is the tunnel through the center of the earth and it would require zero power.
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.
Its never going to happen for obvious reasons but its still a cool idea.
http://www.damninteresting.com/the-gravity-express/
If it can be converted into an underground ICBM for Chinese terrorists, yep yep yep, the Chinese will build it and we will be the fools co financing it as a shovel ready job.
Ditch the tubes, keep the catapult and start loading up the liberals and marxists in this country for a one way trip.
Drill a hole straight through the Earth and you can get from New York to China (or just about anywhere on Earth) in 43 minutes. Of course, you might not survive the trip due to intense heat or magma on the tunnel, but you’ll make it there.
I wonder who is paying these guys salaries?
“Ninety minutes from New York to Paris
Well, by 76 we’ll be AOK.
What a beautiful world this will be
What a glorious time to be free.”
Donald Fagen
Outstanding song and album. Great pick for this thread.
A libertarian Author thought this up a long time ago...
Originally penned in 1980, it’s on it’s 3rd incarnation now.
http://www.bigheadpress.com/tpbtgn?page=164
Bighead Press has the whole graphic novel up if anyone is interested in reading the whole thing.
“Outstanding song and album. Great pick for this thread.”
Ditto! Always liked Fagen, with or without Becker.
Not that much different than going 500 miles an hour when something goes wrong
Of course, they haven't worked out the landing yet but experts feel the growing pool of bloody protoplasm at the end of the tube will soon be sufficient enough to buffer the deceleration forces upon landing.
“Is that a bad pun?”
Busted
Well, at least the end would be quick. Messy, but quick.
No need to...you just head east.
Yeah, I don’t want to go to Beijing or New York. I’d rather go to Tahiti.
NYC's not bad,when it's not raining...or snowing...or 15 degrees...or 95...or dark.
It’s no different, effectively, than going 500-600mph 6 miles up in the air.
I’ll never forget the smell of the lower east side.
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.
LA sucks. NY blows. Tell me something I didn’t know.
Imagine the tube burn you would get if you hit the side of the tube at 4000 miles per hour.
Plus all the blood, guts and vomit that would be lining that thing, the smell would be intolerable.
A vacuum tube going to Philly wouldn’t take any energy at all.
Cause Philly sucks!
#Pensin7
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).
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.
Dan bylsma said everyone needs to be their best tonight and that includes you. Do not let him down.
OK. How do you build a tube across the Atlantic?
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.
Nowadays I'm more interested in going back in time than going forward.
Naturally as a precaution you would slather yourself in Crisco. Then you'd just slide to Beijing if anything happened. It would be fun!
"Walk Between the Raindrops" literally makes you feel like you're in 50s-era Miami.
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