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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.
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.
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!
It is not necessarily corruption, it is a natural result of people being tasked with spending other people's money. They don't have to be actually receiving bribes, they just don't have an incentive to be super careful with it. This is why a congressman will casually vote for spending say $500 million of public money, usually without even reading the bill, whereas there is no way in hell he would spend even $5 of his own money without being convinced that he is getting a good deal for it.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
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."
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.
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
What you are describing IS corruption. It doesnt have to be bribe-taking. The fact that you can describe it so clearly and NOT call it corruption is symptomatic of our real problem here.
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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.