4 ms·

>so putting them in a low-pressure tunnel is not a major revolution. >evacuated train tunnel with air or magnetic tracks does not require new science. The hard

by sigmar 9y ago

>so putting them in a low-pressure tunnel is not a major revolution. >evacuated train tunnel with air or magnetic tracks does not require new science. The hard part is evolving the tech to be reliable and cheap so that people will use it and pay for it - but that doesn't seem to be within economic reach, and that's before factoring in construction and upkeep. You seem to be suggesting that a) we could have done this before because the tech has always been there. b) we can't do this now because the tech is not reliable or cheap. I'm not sure how you can rectify these two arguments since this tech is more reliable and cheaper now than it ever has been.

manigandham 9y ago
Yes it's possible to build, but no it's not cheap enough to make money on = not worth building. We can build lots of fantastic things today but they would cost trillions so clearly are not a good idea. You also missed the ending about construction + maintenance, those will be the real costs and aren't likely to become radically cheaper.
- sigmar 9y ago
  To the generations that traveled the world on boats, constructing flying machines that move faster (and required more tech/maintenance) also probably seemed like an unknown of whether it would be prohibitively expensive or not. I'm grateful that they didn't wait long to explore the possibility, which is what Virgin is doing here.
  - manigandham 9y ago
    Maybe I'm communicating poorly here but the tech is not the problem. We don't need to invent anything new, we know how to do it. It does need to get cheaper but the construction and maintenance costs are gigantic and that hasn't changed for any big project over the last century. Jetliners are complex machines but it's the entire infrastructure of airports and traffic control that actually make it possible, which is only viable because people choose to pay for it. Massive infrastructure does not build or take care of itself, and if it did, that would be a far bigger revolution than just building a train.

by sigmar 9y ago

manigandham 9y ago

Yes it's possible to build, but no it's not cheap enough to make money on = not worth building. We can build lots of fantastic things today but they would cost trillions so clearly are not a good idea. You also missed the ending about construction + maintenance, those will be the real costs and aren't likely to become radically cheaper.

sigmar 9y ago
To the generations that traveled the world on boats, constructing flying machines that move faster (and required more tech/maintenance) also probably seemed like an unknown of whether it would be prohibitively expensive or not. I'm grateful that they didn't wait long to explore the possibility, which is what Virgin is doing here.
- manigandham 9y ago
  Maybe I'm communicating poorly here but the tech is not the problem. We don't need to invent anything new, we know how to do it. It does need to get cheaper but the construction and maintenance costs are gigantic and that hasn't changed for any big project over the last century. Jetliners are complex machines but it's the entire infrastructure of airports and traffic control that actually make it possible, which is only viable because people choose to pay for it. Massive infrastructure does not build or take care of itself, and if it did, that would be a far bigger revolution than just building a train.