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From my skimming of the PDF, it sounds like a pneumatic tube transportation system with a compressor fan on the front of the vehicle that moves high-pressure ai
by thatoneguy 13y ago
From my skimming of the PDF, it sounds like a pneumatic tube transportation system with a compressor fan on the front of the vehicle that moves high-pressure air from the front to the back maintaining a low-pressure state around the vehicle. Kind of like an Earth-bound Alcubierre drive.
- qiemem 13y agoThe pumped air is also used to create an air cushion around the pod to keep it suspended at high speeds. Also, solar panels line the top of the tube so that it is self powering.
- at-fates-hands 13y agoIf this is going to be running above ground, how do they purpose to find space to even build this? http://mappery.com/maps/Los-Angeles-California-Transportation-Map.gif http://mappery.com/maps/Los-Angeles-California-Transportatio... My only guess would be to build it vertically. . which is were everything is going anyways, right?
- barefoot 13y agoPylons above the existing I-5 freeway.
- athenagoras 13y agoIt would not be built anywhere on the map in your link. The LA station is in Santa Clarita which is further north and west. It seems to me that he has laid out a route that avoids as much as possible dense urban areas. Even his extensions out to Vegas and San Diego by pass most of the urban development in the LA basin.
- tootie 13y agoDoes it support multiple pods in the tube at once?
- bostonvaulter2 13y agoYes but they need to be 5 miles apart so they would board approximately every 30 seconds and carry 28 people each.
- jswhitten 13y agoYes, a pod would depart every 2 minutes or less, which puts about 23 miles between them.
- Florin_Andrei 13y agoI think it's actually more useful to think in terms of "2 minutes between them", as opposed to "23 miles". 2 minutes is all you have - to detect the situation, make a decision, then stop.
- Turing_Machine 13y agoHow much time do you have in heavy freeway traffic?
- lmm 13y agoFour seconds, if you're driving the way you were instructed. But you've got multiple options: go left or right, and if you slam the brakes they'll stop you in time. If something broke the tube, are we looking at several pods slamming into the obstruction one after the other?
- Florin_Andrei 13y agoThe two situations you're comparing are vastly dissimilar.
- Tloewald 13y agoYes, but no discussion of how you'd bring the system down if one broke down mid-trip or how you'd bring it back up. The individual cars only carry power to maintain speed, no to accelerate, so if they have to stop because something goes wrong, a whole bunch of people are stuck in the middle of nowhere without a toilet (or air?)