L.A. To N.Y. In A Half Hour, 10,000 MPH Tunnel Tube System In 1972?

You're still going feel the effects of gravity, but I don't see how that affects the acceleration. You'll be pressed into the back of your chair as it accelerates, but rockets can accelerate to speeds faster than this in a few minutes.

Originally posted by Frosty
...Even in a vacuum chamber the effects of gravity are still felt.

Exactly my point. How could a person survive reaching 10,000 mph within the Earth's gravitational field?? It's not now, and never will be possible. One would have to be inside their own gravitational field, and then one would not even feel G-foces regardless of speed.

Peace

You're always going to feel one g down, just as normal. As the train accelerates or decelerates, you'd feel g forces pushing you forwards or backwards, just as you feel pressed back in your seat when you step on the gas pedal in a car or forward when you slam on the brakes. I don't see how this really affects anything or makes this impossible though

Plus I think it said the seats would swivel so when the train is slowing down, you'll be going backwards so you'll still be pushed back into your seat instead of forwards, making it more comfortable.


[edit on 11/9/2005 by djohnsto77]

Fair enough. I would guess by the time the train arrived at 10,000 mph it would already be time to start slowing down. We're only dealing with a half-hour here.
Normal people can only withstand so many Gs. The rate of acceleration would have to be constant to just keep people short of blacking out. What is that rate? How much time would be consumed. There are still a lot of factors to think about. Somehow it still doesn't seem plausible to me.

Peace

[edit on 9-11-2005 by Dr Love]

Sorry folks, couldn't work for several reasons. As some have stated this is a simple mag-lev train. They're all over the place. The problems here are a.) geology would prohibit a tunnel that long, b.) the speeds and g-forces that would be exerted would literally disembowel the human body, c.) It would be impossible to first create, then maintain a vacuum with so much cubic footage.

A quick breakdown on each one: a.) The Earth's crust is not a static entity. Oh no, it is as dynamic as you and I and changes constantly. Sometimes it shifts very slowly so as to be imperceptibale without very high end scientific measuring devices. Sometimes it shifts very quickly; known as earthquakes. Creating a tunnel that long would shift, twist, buckle and stretch. That would create an unsafe operating environment for a train of any speed, let alone one travelling at M13!!!

b.) Being in a vaccum is not mutually exclusive of gravity. You must leave the gravitational field to be exempt from the forces of gravity. Since this train is not being built in outer space, you would still contend with the forces of gravity. Such gravitational forces would exert g's (The measure of gravity exerted by weight - more on that here: science.howstuffworks.com... ) that the human body could not handle. Most human beings become dizzy at 5 Gs and the best fighter pilots and astronauts can only hold 9 Gs for a few seconds before blacking out! We are talking about 457.9 Gs being exerted during acceleration at the given speed of 10,000MPH or 14,652 Feet Per Second @ 1 G equalling only 32 FPS! Deceleration, although a different formula would exert similar, yet higher g forces as well. Not gonna happen!

c.) I challenge anyone to tell me how they are going to make such a tunnel, with all of it's geologic shifting, airtight. Okay, let's pretend by some miracle of modern material technology that they could make it airtight, how are you going to remove the air? Okay, let's pretend that by some mastery of modern technology a machine is invented that could complete such a task - how are you going to get people into and out of the train in a vacuum??? Humans cannot survive in a vacuum - we need air and atmospheric pressure lest we EXPLODE

As we can clearly see - this is the stuff of science fiction devoid of reality. Althoug it's fun to talk about and theoretically possible it is neither practical nor affordible to even entertain. In fact - it's kind of like that space elevator idea.

Originally posted by Dr Love
Fair enough. I would guess by the time the train arrived at 10,000 mph it would already be time to start slowing down. We're only dealing with a half-hour here.

Pretty much.

According to my calculations, you'd need 7.6 minutes to get up to 10,000 miles per hour accelerating at one g, therefore feeling one g pressure pushing you back in your seat. Like I said, you'd still just feel one g down since you're not going up or down, just traveling along Earth's surface. This would not be uncomfortable or cause any problems to anyone, even the elderly or children. Once you get up to the cruising speed, all you'd feel is one g down until you start to decelerate, then you'd need another 7.6 minutes to slow down, feeling one g.

9.8 m/s^2 x= 4470.4 m/s = 10,000 mi/hr

x = 4470/9.8 s = 456s = 7.6 minutes

I think you'd need calculus to figure out exactly how long the trip would take using this acceleration, and I forget how to that.

[edit on 11/9/2005 by djohnsto77]

I like the idea of a nonstop high speed line from coast to coast. Maybe not so much of a 10,000 MPH tube train, but how about a high speed mag-lev train using above ground and tunnel tracks?

I don't agree that we couldn't build a tunnel from L.A. to N.Y. in 30+ years. Train tracks, highways, huge monumental structures, and much more have all been built in a relatively short time. However, the problem with the G-force (whether humans can survive that speed) and tunneling (starting the tunnel) I do understand that. I do however think it is very very possible to achieve this but would take alot of extra hard work.

Nobody has touched on the air removal issue ! Explain to me how you can remove the air from a tunnel that large and have it operational daily etc.

How do you remove heat from braking inside the vacuum?

Air supply for the passengers?

Many logical things to think about other than the fact that yeah, it would be cool.

In my opinion, with today's technology, this project would take MANY LIFETIMES to finish.

[edit on 9-11-2005 by Dulcimer]

Ah I found my link I was looking for yesterday.

dsc.discovery.com...

For all you tunnel fans, check that out. Its the same principle.

Many lifetimes or not, it is still theoretically possible to build this tunnel, am I right Dulcimer? With all the high tech secret technology that the citizens do not know anything about or have access to, I think it is very practical to build this tunnel at the most 20 years once they have everything figured out and how to make it. The tunnel boring I think would be the most difficult part myself. Supposedly there are secret tunnels that are eight miles beneath the earth in existence right now that are top secret.

lol...a underground supersonic train back in the 70's with a secret burget...thats just plain foolish to believe it.

Mag-Levs are still a maturing technology today, with only a few around the world in operation.

Theoretically a maglev going 5,000 of maybe 10,000 mph is possible, but would cost a freakin ton of money.

and yes...people can go faster then 10,000 mph.

Originally posted by Byrd
You see, 10,000 mph is Mach 13, and we weren't doing Mach 13 back then So far, the top speed has been Mach 10:

no, the space shuttle goes mach 25.

Then there's the issue of the sonic booms distrupting the material of the tunnels and so forth.

its its airless...there would be next to no drag, and no sonic boom.

i know i've seen a map of underground places connected all throughout the world, maybe these high speed trains are actually what are being used to connect these places. ive seen the map though theres like 40 in usa that is connected alone.

This is just a brainstorm on my part, so bear with me....

1. To answer the question of how do people survive in the vacuum of the tunnel? They don't. They survive in the airtight compartments of the train. This is similar to spacecraft.

2. How do you get people into the train when the train is in a vacuum? Airlocks. The train comes to the station and an umbilical tube stretches to the door on the side of the train, creates an airtight seal, and you can now safely move from the pressurized train to the pressurized train station.

3. How do you maintain a vacuum over such a long distance? You don't. You create a series of airlocks through the tunnel system to divide the tunnel into a series of compartments, each one airtight. As the train moves through the system, you open the doors of the next compartment in front of the train and close the doors to the compartments behind the train. This would minimize the chances of an accidental blow out.

4. Like djohnsto77 said:

According to my calculations, you'd need 7.6 minutes to get up to 10,000 miles per hour accelerating at one g, therefore feeling one g pressure pushing you back in your seat. Like I said, you'd still just feel one g down since you're not going up or down, just traveling along Earth's surface. This would not be uncomfortable or cause any problems to anyone, even the elderly or children. Once you get up to the cruising speed, all you'd feel is one g down until you start to decelerate, then you'd need another 7.6 minutes to slow down, feeling one g.

People take more than 1G of acceleration on certain amusement park rides, so 1G wouldn't be very bad. And after 7.6 minutes, you wouldn't have to worry about accelerating any more, you'd just need to maintain your speed. Depending on the friction (even a maglev has some friction) you'd hardly feel any acceleration after reaching your "cruising speed" of 10000 MPH.

Of course, none of this post answers my biggest question.....how do you build a 3000 mile tunnel straight enough and stable enough to allow 10000 MPH traffic? I'm still pondering that one....

Use some superstrong as of yet uknown material or variant of a known material thats strong enough to withstand the geologic proceses of the Earth.

[edit on 11/9/2005 by iori_komei]

Originally posted by Dulcimer
Ah I found my link I was looking for yesterday.

dsc.discovery.com...

For all you tunnel fans, check that out. Its the same principle.

i saw the show of how its made or something on discovery on this a few months ago, and its probibly possible but would take way to long and way to much money that i could see the governments to be willing be pay for

Originally posted by trust_no_one

Originally posted by Dulcimer
Ah I found my link I was looking for yesterday.

dsc.discovery.com...

For all you tunnel fans, check that out. Its the same principle.

i saw the show of how its made or something on discovery on this a few months ago, and its probibly possible but would take way to long and way to much money that i could see the governments to be willing be pay for

I agree.

I think its well within our engineering capabilities...but the costs would be mind boggeling / stagering / Massive / Huge / Enormous / Gigantic / Large / Big / ahhhh...I think ya get the point.

I think kozmo is dead on...

Despite the fact that it would take decades to even dig and build such a tunnel.. and forgetting the whole Mach "whatever" debate.. can you possibly imagine the budget that would be needed to maintain such a tunnel? Look at NYC's subway budget.. and those damn trains are breaking down all the time... a tunnel from NY to LA would probably run in the trillions a year just to keep operational. So I seriously doubt, even if it was possible, that such a trip would cost any commuter $50. Probably more like $5000+.

I think a more practical way to travel distances in less time would be to invest in high altitude super sonic aircraft like they are already working on.


Derek

Doesn't seem impossible as nothing really is, but it seems about as feasible as a space elevator. Maybe they should forget the train idea and just build the space elevator. With a space elevator the first part of your trip from coast to coast you would climb into space where you would be given your own resuable rentry capsule (just like the inner tube you get at the top of a water slide ) which would be programmed with the GPS coordinate of where you want to go.



[edit on 10-11-2005 by warpboost]

Originally posted by warpboost
Doesn't seem impossible as nothing really is, but it seems about as feasible as a space elevator. Maybe they should forget the train idea and just build the space elevator. With a space elevator the first part of your trip from coast to coast you would climb into space where you would be given your own resuable rentry capsule (just like the inner tube you get at the top of a water slide

) which would be programmed with the GPS coordinate of where you want to go.

[edit on 10-11-2005 by warpboost]

Actaully your capsule method wouldn't be quicker then a jet. Since the elevator will climb at a rather slow pace of around 200 mph.

and it...unlike the supersonic train, is feasable, and has people working on it, scale models, millions in funding, and will be a reality within 2 decades.