Tuesday, September 25, 2001

Beyond Air Travel

As air travel comes to a screaming halt with the big time arrival of terrorism in the United States, maybe its time to give up commercial air travel. Our airlines are polluting our skys and using enormous amounts of the fossil fuels. We humans need to invent something better. Perhaps somebody has:

Daryl Oster writes: "Evacuated Tube Transport (ETT) is a new kind of transportation system that requires less than two percent of the energy of current transportation methods. It is also much safer, and can be faster."

"Anywhere there is a road; visualize two tubes below, or above the ground, one tube for each direction. Air is removed from the tubes, eliminating resistance. Aircraft-like passenger cabins (2 – 8 person capacity) travel in the tube on thin steel wheels or on nearly frictionless Maglev. Most of the energy used to accelerate a capsule is "recycled" as the capsule is stopped, by using conventional electrical motor/generator technology."

"Because ETT is so efficient, transportation (at present speeds) could be cheap enough that advertisers would pay for travel if the public were willing to watch commercial videos en route. If not, the fares would be less than one fourth of present-day travel cost. Or travel much faster on the same budget; for example, to go from New York to Miami in about 25 minutes would cost less than flying with super saver airfares. Ultimately rates will decrease fast, as the initial cost of construction is paid off."

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Eliminating Terrorism

Bill Ellis writes: "A basic truism of all transitions is that we can never predict the future of any biological, physical or social system.  Like the weather,  small changes in the initial conditions, the flap of a butterfly wing, may  produce major changes in the future.  We can only prepare for options, and prepare the cells from which the future may be built."

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