Air travel nostalgia

Quote: reno

Sounds crazy. What would the advantage of a Transatlantic tunnel be? Could a 3,400-mile ocean railroad connecting New York and London be built for less than, say, $100 billion? So who would invest that sort of money for a form of transportation that could never match the 560 mph cruising speed of a 747?

Don't get me wrong, I'm actually a fan of high speed rail. But high speed rail only makes sense for short trips less than 500 miles. For long hauls of 3,400 miles, jet aircraft will always be faster. And cheaper.

The idea has been written about since 1895, and many patents have been taken out over the 20th century. It got a wide airing about 8 years ago where a price tag of $88 to $175 billion was circulated in Popular Science. The idea is perceived as working in later decades as an alternative to air travel if the train works in a near vacuum and can achieve top speeds of over 2000 mph.

To repeat, there is almost nothing being planned around the world that is even 1% of the idea. No neutrally buoyant tunnels are being designed. There are very few tunnels built that simply lay on the bottom of a body of water. There are no tunnels being built where the air is even partially removed to reduce resistance.

Given the size of the continental shelf, the idea might work for a New York to Florida run. It is much shorter, and ocean depth is usually on magnitude of 200 meters or less.

The Dalian - Yantai run (100 miles underwater) would be ideal for a tunnel, but even the ambitious Chinese are not designing one.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Filled? Filled with nothing?

Not nothing, Nothing :P

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I know you meant merely "in a vacuum", but that made me laugh.

It's SF conventional humor. Like you'd say a reactor is burning neutrons, or a submarine digs holes through the water.

Quote: Nareed

You missed the hypersonic part. I'm talking a Mach 6+, at least, kind of speed.

It wouldn't be easy or cheap, no, but it might be worth it. A single tunnel for a single route wouldn't be that good, either. But a network of such tunnels all over the world, that would be different. You might board at, say, Sydney and disembark in Vegas, or Toronto, and so on.

This is one possible solution to the sonic boom problem. Instead of flying in the stratosphere, you'd fly a few inches of the track inside a tunnel filled with hard vacuum. No air, no boom.

The problems are huge, however. First thing is to develop a submerged tunnel. Next to keep such tunnels, and underground tunnels in a network, evacuated of air at all times. and while maglev trains do exist, none are yet capable of such speeds. you'd also need a way to deliver power to the tracks.

Building a 10,000 mile underground airless vacuum train tunnel from Sydney to Toronto would probably cost between $500 billion and $1 trillion. (I'd bet closer to $1 trillion.)

So how much will tickets on this $1 trillion train cost?

Quote: reno

Building a 10,000 mile underground airless vacuum train tunnel from Sydney to Toronto would probably cost between $500 billion and $1 trillion. (I'd bet closer to $1 trillion.)

Not one tunnel. Hundreds of them. It would be too expensive now, certainly, but technology and demand can lower prices.

How much would it have cost in 1915 to build the airport network we have today? How much did it actually cost?

Quote: reno

Building a 10,000 mile underground airless vacuum train tunnel from Sydney to Toronto would probably cost between $500 billion and $1 trillion. (I'd bet closer to $1 trillion.)

So how much will tickets on this $1 trillion train cost?

On 6 February 1964, a Green light for Channel Tunnel was announced by the British and French government costing at least £160m and taking five years to build. The chunnel was opened 30 years later and cost £925m (which may be equivalent to £160m in 1964).The chunnel is 50km in total, with 39km under the sea. The tunnels lie an average of 40m below the bed of the Channel. The concept of a "channel tunnel" was first proposed in 1802.The chunnel never carried a fraction of the passenger load that was predicted.

If someone was going to build a trans-Atlantic tunnel in the next century, there would be some projects in the planning stage. There would be a buoyant tunnel being built today. There would be plans to build an underwater tunnel of at least a few hundred km.

Dublin lies only 100 km from Wales over the Irish Sea, and Dublin to London is one of the busiest air routes in the world. Nobody seriously talks about building a neutrally buoyant tunnel under the Irish Sea.

Quote: pacomartin

The chunnel never carried a fraction of the passenger load that was predicted.

Well, for starters they named it "The Chunnel."

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If someone was going to build a trans-Atlantic tunnel in the next century, there would be some projects in the planning stage. There would be a buoyant tunnel being built today. There would be plans to build an underwater tunnel of at least a few hundred km.

I've no idea when or whether something like the Transatlantic Tunnel will be built. Seriously I wouldn't commit to anything more specific than "someday.

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Nobody seriously talks about building a neutrally buoyant tunnel under the Irish Sea.

So what?

"If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it" Albert Einstein.

"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong." Clark'e 1st Law.

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp.

"The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys." Sir William Preece, chief engineer of the British Post Office.

"Radio has no future. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax." William Thomson, Lord Kelvin.

Let's leave it at that for now.

When I say things like "It will always be more profitable to surround someone in luxury and fly them subsonically, then to develop the technology for commercial supersonic flight", I am perfectly aware that many things like that have been said in the past. At one point it was reasonable to fly someone across the Atlantic in a propeller plane with genuine silver service, and to land the planes in the water since runways were expensive to build. The trip might take 36 hours. In the previous generation it made sense to do the same thing with giant ships for a five day crossing.

But, I no longer believe that quantum leaps in mass transportation are a high priority in our society. I wouldn't be surprised if growth in travel to Europe increases by only a few percent per year.

Quote: pacomartin

When I say things like "It will always be more profitable to surround someone in luxury and fly them subsonically, then to develop the technology for commercial supersonic flight", I am perfectly aware that many things like that have been said in the past.

And yet you repeat it.

The nay-sayers in the past had reasons to justify their pronouncements too.

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But, I no longer believe that quantum leaps in mass transportation are a high priority in our society. I wouldn't be surprised if growth in travel to Europe increases by only a few percent per year.

Two different things.

But suppose Concord's tickets had been priced, oh, just 15% more expensive than regular coach. How many planes would have been sold? Dozens? Hundreds? For certain there would have been follow-on models, and Boeing or McDonnell, or both, would have had their own SST in no time flat. By now Supersonic planes would rule the Atlantic.

But SSTs proved to expensive to build and operate. A floating tunnel and the hypersonic maglev train would be hellishly expensive to build, sure. But there's one feature of trains: weight isn't much of an issue. A train can carry thousands of passengers.

The reason rail has failed in America, and elsewhere, is that it isn't flexible over short distances nor fast enough over long ones. Well, all trains will forever remain inflexible; they can only run on dedicated tracks. But if they were faster than aircraft, and priced competitively with planes?

Scientists have set a new record in sending information through thin air using the revolutionary technology of quantum teleportation - although Mr Spock may have to wait a little longer for a Scotty to beam him up with it.

Quote: buzzpaff

Scientists have set a new record in sending information through thin air using the revolutionary technology of quantum teleportation - although Mr Spock may have to wait a little longer for a Scotty to beam him up with it.

Teleportation is one of those things that would be enormously useful and infinitely problematic. Larry Niven tackled some of the problems he foresaw, mostly having to do with crime.

Not to mention all the Trek episodes that showed people ought to be crazy to use such technology :)