Posted on 08/11/2010 11:17:16 AM PDT by jmcenanly
Southwest Jiaotong University in China is developing a low pressure underground tubes and maglev train which will travel at 1,000 kilometers per hour (600 mph).
This is double the speed of current maglev trains.
According to Shen Zhiyun, academic member of CAS and CAE, China should target the development of high-speed ground transportation with 600 to 1,000 kilometers per hour which should be in operation between 2020 and 2030.
(Excerpt) Read more at nextbigfuture.com ...
Thanks much for the info. I think China could build most of these tunnels by digging a trench and covering it over. Easier, cheaper than tunneling. Here the property owners would raise too much of a stink. China is authoritarian enough to get away with trenching
What happens to mankind when his technical capacity too far exceeds his moral development?
I think I’d need anethsesia for this one. People already get snockered with Martinis in order to fly and that’s only a few hundred miles an hour.
"Fragile, ugly and inefficient skyscrapers, cities, subdivisions, mass transportation and factories would work better pointed down in a lot of cases."
Yes, such ideas do "work better" - for ants (and termites).
If they really "worked better" for humans they never would have left their caves.
And besides, geologic, seismic and hydraulic conditions can make some underground locations no less "fragile" than above ground locations, and in truth "fragile" anywhere depends on what you do about it.
In addition, "ugly" is in the eye of the beholder and most humans do not think that what they see from their windows above ground is EVER more "ugly" than having no windows at all.
And, in the final retort, "inefficient" is an irrelevant term when detached from whether or not something not only suits the purpose but is deemed satisfying to those who use it.
Down to our caves?? I don't think so.
It’s reminiscent of that claustrophobic scanning tube they slide you into - MRI is it?.
I would think less so than an ordinary high speed train, which has hundreds of miles of exposed track.
To attack this maglev, you would need to penetrate the tube, which would cause a drop in pressure and a shut down of the system. If you use a blast to penetrate the tube, you would need to do that at the precise moment the cars were passing, without a visual confirmation, in order to get a human toll. Not a simple task, without an acoustic emission sensor or some such thing.
It would have to be a big blast, as well. A small blast would damage one car only, and the debris would fall below and scrape the bottom of the rest. It's not like a train car that causes mayhem after it leaves the track.
It would take 2 large jet engines about 48 hours if my calculations are correct. ;)
The only question worth asking is not how technically feasible or technically astounding is the idea, or even “will it work”.
The only question worth asking is: could the cost of raising the capital for it (paying back bonds/investors), and operating it after it is built, be obtained 100% from the fares you could charge for it, or will only a PERMANENT and systemic taxing of non-users to subsidize it make it feasible. Of course in a Fascist/Marxist state, such a question is irrelevant.
To those of us that love liberty, the question is relevant because the indirect cost of any government subsidies for a business is that that money to pay for the subsidies is being deprived from the things that Liberty and freedom would have found the people giving that money to.
In most cases when Liberty and freedom are the source from which we make choices with our money, those things we give our money to are more often than not where our own sense of merit and economic efficiency suggests we spend it; as opposed to someplace the political class wants to dictate that we spend it.
How long does it take the space shuttle to reach cut-off @ 17,500 MPH? Maybe 8 minutes?
We have a 48" pipeline for CNG at about 1200 PSI going in near us. Not much can be done about it due to intimate domain.
You're right about not being able to do it here though. But mostly due to all the other regulations and laws. Not to mention "untested technology"...
If they mean to run the train in a vacuum or partial vac, the amount of energy it would take to “pump out” a 700 mile tunnel would be fantastic.
However, an array of solar panels along the length could maintain the low pressure based on sunshine. Speeds might slow (or propulsion energy increase) during cloudy periods.
If robots could dig a tunnel from America straight to China through the Earth and evacuate all the air it would take very little energy or time to transport cargo between the two points as gravity would do most of the work. It isn’t practical but it’s fun to think about.
The original RAND paper can be downloaded here:
http://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/2008/P4874.pdf
It describes a constant 1-g acceleration and deceleration permitting the LA to NYC trip to be done in 21 minutes hypothetically (that assumes 14,000 mph and a single tube, no stops in between). A more realistic path might have 2 intermediate stops, hence longer transit time. But the point is that G forces do appear to have been taken into account when doing the calculations for the feasibility of this type of train for actual travel.
Just for you Wuuuuuliiiii! Youtube - Negative Waves
:)
Sounds to me, coming from you, like the “pot calling the kettle black”; vis-a-vis your “negative waves” over humanity’s preference to live above ground.
10 meters per second, per second is one gravity. Accelerate at one G (comparable to hard braking in a high performance car - or 1.4 times the force of gravity in a 45 degree angle that forces you into your recliner comfortably) and in 7 minutes and 25 seconds, you’ll be at 10,000mph.
You call living/working in a huge metropolis, factories, slum, ghettos or vast suburbia living "above ground"? Where's the difference?
I'm not suggesting that we ALL move underground by any means. I am suggesting that it might be a low cost alternative to crowded cities, cheaper than skyscrapers and would free up more land for what I mentioned in a previous comment.
On the tunnels for transportation, I suggest beginning economically feasible projects ASAP.
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