Slashdot Mirror
Transportation Designs For a Future That Never Came
An anonymous reader writes "The recently unveiled plans for the Hyperloop have raised a lot of eyebrows, but this is not the first time someone has proposed an idea for mass transit that seemed too good to be true. Here's a look at a few other ideas over the years that never seemed to get off the ground. 'In 1930, the magazine Modern Mechanix presented a plan for a "unique bus of the future (that would) duplicate the speed of railroads. Recent developments in everything that moves has caused many flights of imagination," it wrote. "The bus between New York and San Francisco will be equipped with airplanes for (side trips). For diversion, billiard rooms, swimming pool, dancing floor and a bridle path would be available. The pilot would be 'enthroned' over his engines, with the radio above. Space for autos would be afforded by the deck." Not surprisingly, it never happened.'"
We don't need boondoggles and fanciful transportation methods that don't pan out. All we need is: the power of our mind.
Close your eyes. Pretend you're surrounded by pretentious rich assholes. Bingo, you're in LA. Total cost: $0. Total time: 15 seconds.
Ok, now close your eyes. Pretend you're surrounded by hipsters and leather deviants. Bang. San Francisco. Ding Ding, you can even hear the trolley and smell the homeless guy peeing.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
sorry, but we don't even have the technology to make an escalator that stands up having 10% of its length exposed to the elements in the midwest. (Eyewitness testimony of subway commuter in large city)
There are plenty of great ideas - many of which are feasible from an engineering only standpoint.
But when you factor in economic viability, that's when you run into problems. And when it comes to publicly sponsored projects, then you run into the inevitable cost "overruns" and mismanagement.
That's something I never got, how is it that a company can bid on a project, win based on that bid, and end up making whatever the hell they want to in the end - See "Big Dig" in Boston and every other municipal project out there. Are things that corrupt?!
The shortest way... is through the planet's core. Tunnel boring machines, a little slow, but eventually your carcass will get there. Whether you're still living in it is for a different thread.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I know just the place for it, in terms of technical desirability.
Lake Washington, next to Seattle, has two pontoon bridges. The surface is a bad place for them because they're vulnerable to the regions occasional but fierce windstorms. The lakebed is too deep and mucky to be good for construction (which is why they are pontoon bridges).
I don't know how bad currents get in a lake.
It's not the politics that are the big obstacle. Politics is the playing field where the different interests are fighting each other until there is some result. Politics thus are mainly a result, not the reason for something. The big obstacle is that we don't need most of those transportation means so much, that it might be feasible to invest enough. What's the point of having a cruiser ship like bus line across the U.S.? It might have made sense in a time when even air travel was not faster than 150 mph, and when NY - LA was a two day trip with 10 hrs of flight each day. It does't make much sense when it takes 5 hrs.
Even those ideas for mass transit that did work out are not always a success.
It appears to be difficult to predict the usage of such a network.
We got a highspeed rail line but nobody is using it. Existing connections had to
be terminated before some people forcefully started using this train (at higher tariffs).
And specially built trains that were ordered for a lower priced service were a total disaster.
For those wanting a visual of the bus: http://blog.modernmechanix.com/mags/ModernMechanix/6-1930/giant_bus.jpg
The displacement of the inexpensive, efficient and reliable urban transportation known as "street cars" by diesel-powered buses was one of the gravest errors in urban planning. How's that for a future that never came? Expanding the street car rather than replacing it would have reduced the smog so endemic in the 60's and 70's.
> I don't know how bad currents get in a lake.
Magnets.
You're welcome.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
In the most cases, the role of politics is either completely misunderstood, or greatly exaggerated. There are much more simple processes at work. Some of the ideas might have been really good, but for every good concept, there are two adversaries: the one, that is better, and the other one, that is good enough. Having an idea that is really at the sweet spot of being feasable and being between being really better than the current state of affairs, and not being outcompeted by another idea that is better is a very rare occurance.
Or these days (high-bypass)Turbofan.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
The biggest energy expense in fast travel is air resistance so the idea of a (partially) vacuum tunnel is only logic.
With these speeds a trip doesn't take long and having a relatively small thus cramped cabin is less of an issue.
The problems with Eminent Domain, a total distrust of government etc. will probably make such a system, under- or above ground, not likely to be pioneered in the US but in places like China or even Europe.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Politics: (from Greek: politikos, meaning "of, for, or relating to citizens") is the practice and theory of influencing other people on a civic or individual level. (From wiki, because, what the hell)
I'm sorry, I just got done with another guy who thinks I don't understand the common meaning of words. Two times in one day is a bit much.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Operating costs include not just gasoline but also maintenance, insurance, registration, and parking.
Other costs of owning a car include depreciation, loan servicing, and the opportunity cost of capital.
And then there are hidden costs such as air pollution, carbon emissions, the urban heat island effect, sales and property taxes to build and maintain the roads, and the loss of freedom (and loss of capital utility) to own a home or business without the government forcing you to overbuild your parking lot.
Far fewer people would drive if not for all of these government incentives and coercion to drive.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
New York's first subway, built in 1870s, and long forgotten until a part of it was discovered during excavation, about a decade ago, was the Beach Pneumatic Transit. Created by Alfred Ely Beach, people sat in capsules which were driven through underground tubes via air pressure. A variety of circumstances prevented it from ever being extended beyond its initial demonstration length.
No. Ocean engineer here. Currents have a lot of power (not energy, but power), but unless you mean the whole Gulf Stream, or a very long time period, the energy of the world's nuclear weapons is greater still. But it's kind of hard to argue with someone that isn't consistent with units.
Two ACs arguing about the energy content of ocean currents vs energy content of nuclear weapons, with neither one putting up a single number to back themselves up. Tsk tsk.
Lets see: total world nuclear arsenal currently about 6400 megatons, or 2.7 x 10^18 J. Gulf stream volume 150 million cubic meters/sec at Newfoundland (1.5 x 10^11 kg/sec), speed 2 kt, or 4 m/sec. Kinetic power of stream = 1.2 x 10^12 J/sec. Number of seconds for the kinetic energy of the Gulf Stream to equal the nuclear arsenals = 2.25 million, or 26 days. Is that a "very long time"?
But wait, there's more! The heat transport of the Gulf Stream is 1.2 x 10^15 J/sec, a figure 1000 times larger than its kinetic energy, so the time for the Gulf Stream flow to transport a "world nuclear arsenal" worth of energy is only 2250 seconds, or 38 minutes.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
There's swim vests on planes too -- please look up for me a few examples of situations where those have saved lives ?
Reminds me of an old joke about a Lufthansa flight about to "land" in the ocean - told in a heavy German accent, of course. Over the intercom, the pilot says for those passengers that can swim to get on the left side of the plane with their vests on and, after the plans lands, to swim out to the rafts, then says, "and for those passengers that cannot swim... thank you for flying Lufthansa Airlines."
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
You wouldn't want to do that even if you could. Besides the issues of heat, you'd have to worry about plate tectonics. Not to mention that it would take centuries at the rate we currently excavate. Around here we've had several different deep bore tunnels being dug, I think for a total of about 100 miles between them, and they don't excavate more than about 7.5 meters per day.
And that's at the surface, without having to worry about the increased pressure of being deep within the earth's core.
The way this post was presented is totally idiotic. The fact that some of these ideas have been around for a very long time means only that technical feasibility was not there yet. Remember Jules Verne or DaVinci for that matter. Many of their ideas have become normal part of our lives, while many others were just product of a fertile imagination.
What I really like about the hyperloop is that the idea is old, but it's been re-thought from the perspective of the 21st century, by someone who has the credibility to make things that everyone else said were impossible a fact.
I, for one, think Elon Musk is one of the greatest minds of our generation, and not only because of the ideas, but because of his attitude of "why not" and "build it and they will come". I'd trust him with my tax dollars any day when I see what he has accomplished, vs. the bozos in the State Government.
>There's no technical reason why something like this can't be done. There's lots of other reasons, though.
You mean like the fact that "submerged floating" is an oxymoron ?
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *