[ok] Re: [extropy-chat] Communication vs transportation

[Henrique Moraes Machado]

As I said, crazy idea. :)
Just a paradigmatic issue. I wouldn't like to be forever tied to conventional airplanes.
I wouldn't even mind to travel slower than mach .97 (or much slower) aboard a dirigible for instance. It's not a matter of speed. 

The transports need a revolution. When we had only horses, the trains were revolutionary. Then the automobiles and finally airplanes. Nothing new since then. And there goes one hundred years.
One might point that there are rockets and stuff, but how many people do you know have used rockets for transportation? Not practical.
I've seen (discovery channel, internet) many ideas that could change radically the transports but I don't see any of these ideas being implemented.


-----Mensagem Original----- 
De: "Mike Lorrey" <mlorrey at yahoo.com>
Para: "Henrique Moraes Machado" <hemm at br.inter.net>; "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Enviada em: terça-feira, 9 de dezembro de 2003 14:17
Assunto: Re: [ok] Re: [extropy-chat] Communication vs transportation


| Well, atmospheric transportation has hit a wall of diminishing returns
| on velocity, so the new plenum of progress is number of passengers and
| cost efficiency. The Airbus entry is certainly a step in that
| direction. Boeing has had designs for similar aircraft out for years
| with little market interest up to now. Maybe that will change and
| Boeing will do something now that Condit is canned.
| 
| Skyhooks are not a really time efficient means of getting from point A
| to point B on earth. You may go faster in terms of peak velocity, but
| the route is many times longer, going up to geosynch, around (at 23k
| altitude, half circumference is 160,000 miles) and back down, for a
| total route length of over 200,000 miles. You are going to have a trip
| time of over 20 hours, more like 30-40 hours at best, going that way.
| 
| Why not jump in a 747-XFXL (extrafat, extralong) and travel in comfort
| at mach .97 and do it in 15 hours?
| 
| --- Henrique Moraes Machado <hemm at br.inter.net> wrote:
| > Nice. But it's only more of the same. 
| > What I would really like to see is something more revolutionary than
| > evolutionary. For instance, if we build many space elevators around
| > the globe, people could travel between them using ships that would
| > never need to land. It's some crazy idea, but it's an idea. Ok, it's
| > not possible today, but could be considered.
| > On the other hand there are other means of transportation that could
| > be used today and are so neglected. Such as dirigibles and
| > ekranoplanes (http://www.ae.metu.edu.tr/~gulkiz/wig.html)