There is an experiment maglev train inside a tube with air pressure reduced to half of atomasphere air pressure at sea level. The speed of the train can reach 6000 KM/Hour. It would take less than two hours for that train to go from DC to Beijing.
1) Do you bore a "tube" thru the Earth directly to D.C. or would there be intermediate stops at LA, SF, LV, Chicago et al? Would it be the ultimate "subway"? 2) Would it be better to build a "floating bridge" across the ocean to Seattle, SF or L.A. instead and then "transfer" the train to overland rail?....Something to ponder on a slow market day. :eek:
I believe you would be better off with a tube 30 meters under water. The tube would be at 4 Bar pressure and face little weather or tidal impact.
I normally do not agree with the things you say, but this time I do. Perhaps this will put things into perspective for fellow ET members. Billion-dollar Boeing Fence on U.S.-Mexico Border Canceled By Pratap Chatterjee* WASHINGTON, Jan 19, 2011 (IPS) - One billion dollars and just over four years after Boeing won a contract to build a "virtual fence" on the Arizona-Mexico border, the high-tech project was canceled last week by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) amid widespread recognition that it has been a failure. the link http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54175 the pdf of the story
It takes a bit longer in the USA to build bridges... we actually still have regulations (believe it or not). In china they use sand cement and hope it lasts the next 6 months. I mean how much of the crap coming out of that shithole is actually worth buying?
Yeah.. thats right.. we outsource all of our Engineering to India and they use the British measurment system.. none of this new fangled metric for us. We use good old miles, feet, inches, lbs. btu's hp... and all of our projects are built by the low bidder and there are never any cost over runs or fraud.
Some of you remind me of what was being said about Japan in the mid 1970s...only you are saying it 35 years later about China.
The crap coming out of Japan in the 70's was crap. Then there was the crap during the 80's about how Japan was going to destroy the US economy. In the end, all of it was nothing but a load of crap...