Atlantic Tunnel....This is awsome

I was watching a television show the other day on a new engineering concept that would build a tunnel from New York to London. This transatlantic tunnel will cut the travel time to 54 minutes!!!!!!. Using a Maglev train and a vacuum tight tunnel, this concept will virtually escape friction and this is how the time for travelling is cut down. THis is amazing.

Here is a link to the webpage.

Have a look around, there is a lot of interesting facts about how this is going to work.

I still cant beleive this.

Originally posted by LuDaCrIs
I was watching a television show the other day on a new engineering concept that would build a tunnel from New York to London. This transatlantic tunnel will cut the travel time to 54 minutes!!!!!!. Using a Maglev train and a vacuum tight tunnel, this concept will virtually escape friction and this is how the time for travelling is cut down. THis is amazing.

Here is a link to the webpage.

Have a look around, there is a lot of interesting facts about how this is going to work.

I still cant beleive this.

Its intersting from a tech standpoint, but who is going to front the development costs?????

It would take amazingly fast acceleration to reach such speeds and be there in only 54 minutes. This would cause inmmense g-forces. I have severe doubts especcialy since even the Concord cant make that kind of time even at supersonic speeds.

I am thinking that this project is a join operation bewteen the two countries its connecting. So i am assuming that the US and Britain would split the funds, which are in the order of 12 trillion dollars. Just how they built the tunnel from france to england, i would assume both countries would have input.
12 trillion dollars is alot of money, for any country, but you have to look at the long term benefiets. Imagine how much money can be made off of this. I mean transatlantic flights would have huge competition if this actually followed through.

Does anyone else have more info???....

It would cost more than keeping the Concordes flying. It would be a very expensive ticket, I should think, I can't see this ever happening. Sub-orbital flight between the two places would be more achievable, I think.


[edit on 29-6-2004 by Zzub]

yea but the concord has to make a big arc, this train is following the shortest possible distance between the two cities.

I have thought of using vacums in much the same way. This whole idea is very possible, and even realistic if the money is there.

that's crazy....

would definatly have an astronomical cost,
but think of the convinience (safety?).

60-70 years ago this was considered SciFi, check out a film from the 30's called the "Trans Atlantic Tunnel"... story about some scientist and his crazy idea to contruct a tunnel under the english channel and later on the atlantic version...
source

to think this was fantasy/scifi back then.....

A pitty that this kind of systems is so incredibly prone to attack and easy to sabotage.

You only need a boat, some cash to build or buy a ROV and some explosives to destroy the entire thing :@

They'll need extreem security measures over the entire distance of the system, both above and under water. Also screening of every passenger would be needed to a rather heavy extent.

Originally posted by thematrix
You only need a boat, some cash to build or buy a ROV and some explosives to destroy the entire thing :@

[edit on 29-6-2004 by namehere]

I empathize with your lack of belief. Reminds me of NASA's project of the hour, the "space elevator." The Bible Code link at onealclan0.tripod.com... htas an opposite view of its chances of success

An earthquake or seaquake anywhere along the route would disable the entire apparatus.

Besides, if you want to travel to London in less than an hour from anywhere, have a talk with Bob Lazar, for that matter if you want to go to the moon, mars, or the stars.

Imagine the boondoogles governments keep doing, when technology is here but does not fulfill an agenda of needless and mindless waste for continuing oppression of most of people in the world.

[edit on 29-6-2004 by SkipShipman]

Originally posted by SkipShipman
An earthquake or seaquake anywhere along the route would disable the entire apparatus.

I am pretty sure the engineers would have thought about this. I mean all you need is a flexible building material or some kind of shock absorbing mechanism. In addition wouldn;t the cables provide some protection, like a cushion or something.

As for the whole terrorist thing, i am a big skeptic. It would be a lot easier to destroy something on the mainland using a truck or something rather than a boat. I dunno....maybe ur right.

Heres also another interesting link to the atlantic tunnel. I am not sure if this is the same thing or not, but check it out if ur interested.

A little while ago I posted something about www.atlantictunnel.com and got people mad at me for posting something that I knew was a hoax. I thought it was good for a laugh, but not many others did.

It's called extreme engineering on the discovery channel. So far they only got like 3 episodes. That one premired in the summer of 2003. I've seen this, and think it would be a waste of money to build it. No one is going to use it. Would you rather take a train or an airplane. The train takes way to long, and will envolve billions of dolars to complete. We have planes, and boats. Dont like plane, take the boats, dont like boats take the plane, dont like both...to bad.

If its a joint project then it would probably be worth it. The high G-Forces concern me. Even combat fighter pilots have difficulties some times. And just think if you throw a coin sideways. What you get is a coin moving a thousands of miles an hour in side a train. That and if its a vacuum that coin could say put a hole in the back. And if you have ever seen a movie were a commercial airplane rapidly depressurises then this thing looks more dangerous than ever. Still I'd like to visit London some time.

Originally posted by cyberdude78
And just think if you throw a coin sideways. What you get is a coin moving a thousands of miles an hour in side a train. That and if its a vacuum that coin could say put a hole in the back.

Wat are u talking about. The coin is moving along with the train and it would fall to the ground(in the train). It wouldnt jsut stop in mid air, relative to the tunnel. Its like dropping a coin inside a plane, it doesnt go zipping to the back of the plane. Its all relative.

As for the whole G force thing, i am pretty sure their not gonna be accelerating that fast. Its not like their gonn amake the train go from 0-5000km/hr in 10 seconds. I would assume it'd be more gradual. Couldnt they design some kind of chair or something that would help the G forces????..

Its a great neatogollygeewhiz idea...but I for one sure as hell am not riding any train through any tube at 5000 mph...thats 7333 feet per second folks, two and one half times the speed of a rifle bullet...the slightest mishap and lots of things would disintegrate...the G forces aint gonna bother me one bit, cause my specially designed chair will be in front of the TV watching...

Good idea for some maybe, but certainly not for me. [I don't want to do space travel either!]

I reckon a person would have to be brave to do this kind of travel, all the way under the Atlantic Ocean - that whole underground thing. Even driving through the Sydney Harbor Tunnel is freaky to me.

The only thing that concerns me is the 83 miles per minute...I want sky for that kind of speed.