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Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette
Speaker 1: and I am an editor at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Sitting across from me as usual actually leaning as senior
Speaker 1: writer Jonathan Strickland. Hey, there, very nice effect like that.
Speaker 1: I didn't know why you really see, we we don't
Speaker 1: talk about that. We you know, if there's a gimmick,
Speaker 1: we wait and find out what it is. It's more
Speaker 1: fun that way. Yes, so we're today we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about It was something that Chris actually suggested. He
Speaker 1: had seen an article that the BBC had published upon
Speaker 1: their website about pretty cool concept and it's not a
Speaker 1: new concept notes, but it's um an interesting one. Vacuum trains. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I um, I've always loved trains. I don't know what
Speaker 1: it is exactly about them that I love you. And
Speaker 1: Disney that's true actually a lot of it. Early Disney
Speaker 1: engineers liked them and um yeah, they showed up a
Speaker 1: lot in those uh and the Disney UH Wave of
Speaker 1: the future sort of things and and others too. You know,
Speaker 1: Jonathan and I have talked about this. Cartoons that talk
Speaker 1: about what's going to happen in the future usually, um,
Speaker 1: they throw in some funny twist about it, but um,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, tomorrow Land. This is kind of a tomorrow
Speaker 1: landy concept. Too far off from the whole monorail, although
Speaker 1: different different method of propulsion. Yeah yeah, And um, you know,
Speaker 1: I've been interested in in magnetic levitation trains mag lev
Speaker 1: trains for quite some time. Um. And it's one of
Speaker 1: those things that, uh, you know, it's not that it's
Speaker 1: so complex that it can't be done. It's more that
Speaker 1: it's so expensive that it's just really hard to do.
Speaker 1: And and vact trains or vacuum trains or another they're
Speaker 1: actually related. They're pretty closely related in some ways. You
Speaker 1: don't necessarily have to have all right, Maglev trains are
Speaker 1: not vacuum trains by definition, but necessarily that's right. And
Speaker 1: vacuum trains do not necessarily have to be maglev trains,
Speaker 1: although they can be vacuum trains that are maglev. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: you can't have you can't have both, but they're not
Speaker 1: necessary for this. For this is not necessarily the same thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so what is a vacuum train? Well, you know, the
Speaker 1: name kind of gives gives it away. What you do
Speaker 1: is the ideas you take a tube, you pump the
Speaker 1: air out of that tube, creating a vacuum, and then
Speaker 1: you allow a train to go through the tube. And
Speaker 1: because you've pumped the air out, you have removed the
Speaker 1: problem of air resistance. Because when a train travels normally
Speaker 1: above ground or even below ground, if it's not a vacuum,
Speaker 1: it's pushing air ahead of it. Yes, that that requires work.
Speaker 1: That air even though air does not feel like we
Speaker 1: don't really necessarily think of air feeling like, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of resistance there. If you've ever been outside a
Speaker 1: heavy wind, you know that it takes work to just
Speaker 1: stand up right. Yeah. Anybody who's skated or written their
Speaker 1: bicycle at a brisk pace, Um, you know you feel
Speaker 1: the wind in your hair and on your face. Or
Speaker 1: somebody actually was written in a convertible, especially in the
Speaker 1: back seat, you're gonna feel, um, the wind pushing on you.
Speaker 1: It's it's like it's it's creating its own little wind.
Speaker 1: So you know, you know wind rest, Yeah, you know
Speaker 1: that of course, there are their companies that dedicate themselves
Speaker 1: to finding new ways to reduce air resistance so that
Speaker 1: uh so that various things can move faster with less
Speaker 1: problems of the air impacting them. Well, well, bullet trains,
Speaker 1: you know, we we've mentioned him a couple of times
Speaker 1: to think on the the podcast before. They you know,
Speaker 1: if you've seen one of these trains, they go very
Speaker 1: very fast, but they are also extremely streamlined. The engine
Speaker 1: is you know, and then that's I think why they
Speaker 1: call them a bullet train is because they have a
Speaker 1: pointy nose on the front which is designed to cut
Speaker 1: down on wind resistance. Yeah, it's all, it's all part
Speaker 1: of the plan. And so the by using a vacuum,
Speaker 1: you remove the air so now you don't have to
Speaker 1: worry about air resistance. There's also, by the way, a
Speaker 1: tendency when a train is pushing air in front of it,
Speaker 1: it's also creating the sort of um vacuum effect on
Speaker 1: its own. There's there's because it's pushing air out the
Speaker 1: way and then the air has to rush into fill
Speaker 1: up that space again. It actually starts to pull a
Speaker 1: bit on the train. So the trains pushing air ahead
Speaker 1: of it and being pulled by air behind it, So
Speaker 1: it's doing work that way. By pumping all the air out,
Speaker 1: you have removed that, um, that that force acting upon
Speaker 1: the train, and it can move at a faster rate
Speaker 1: than it could if air were a factor because all
Speaker 1: that work that it would be putting towards pushing the
Speaker 1: air out of the way can now just be put
Speaker 1: towards speed and acceleration. So even if you had a
Speaker 1: standard electric train in a vacuum, it could travel faster
Speaker 1: than it would normally travel. Yeah, and that was one
Speaker 1: of the things that it was interesting to me when
Speaker 1: I really grab my attention when I read that article
Speaker 1: on the BBC website was because, um, they were suggesting
Speaker 1: that if there were a vacuum tube track from Europe
Speaker 1: to the United States, you could make the trip and
Speaker 1: a vac train in about an hour a little bit
Speaker 1: more maybe, And and then that imagining that versus you know,
Speaker 1: flying across even Yeah, that's the thing that got me
Speaker 1: was the idea of leaving say London and arriving in
Speaker 1: New York four hours before you left, Thank you times owns.
Speaker 1: Just just because the time zones, you're not literally time traveling,
Speaker 1: you're traveling through time, it would seem because it's still
Speaker 1: progressing as you're sitting there on the train. It's just
Speaker 1: that you're going back through the time zones. And so
Speaker 1: because your your speed is faster than the uh than
Speaker 1: the time zones can account for, you would actually you know,
Speaker 1: you leave at nine am and you would arrive at
Speaker 1: at four am or five am actually because it was
Speaker 1: four hours or so five am, and uh, so you
Speaker 1: have the whole day ahead of you. You know, it's
Speaker 1: all relative, it is all relative. Um. But yeah, there
Speaker 1: were a lot of experiments that were conducted over the
Speaker 1: years to see if this would actually be the case,
Speaker 1: and it did seem to be so. And it did
Speaker 1: seem that they would have that speeding up that would
Speaker 1: cut down on wind resistance and make it a lot
Speaker 1: faster as what you're saying right, Yes, yes, there were
Speaker 1: there were researchers with M I T that did some tests.
Speaker 1: They created a vacuum tube and then they shot things
Speaker 1: through it, like down the tube, not through the tube,
Speaker 1: not by secting the tube, but down the tube along
Speaker 1: the length of the So they said they started with
Speaker 1: the most um I think logical thing to shoot down
Speaker 1: a vacuum tube. Ping pong ball No, hamsters would be
Speaker 1: the first. No, no, no, no, you no, you don't
Speaker 1: want to put an animal in a vacuum tube. It
Speaker 1: would die. That's true. Plus natures a vacuum. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: that's true. That's true because I have never once seen
Speaker 1: a shrubbery do any darn vacuum anyway, So we both
Speaker 1: love animals. Question, they don't do that? They started, yes,
Speaker 1: do not build a tube an air steal tube and
Speaker 1: then pump the air out of it. I think we're
Speaker 1: all I think we're safe on that one. So guys
Speaker 1: that m I T don't do that, don't um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: they shot ping pong balls down the tube first. Then
Speaker 1: they started creating these little mechanical models to travel down.
Speaker 1: And what they do is they would, you know, measure
Speaker 1: how fast the mechanical model could travel in a in
Speaker 1: an air filled environment versus the vacuum environment. And they
Speaker 1: figured that if they had a standard train, they could
Speaker 1: probably you know, well actually a relatively fast trained they
Speaker 1: could probably get up to about five hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: miles per hour, which is about nine d and thirty
Speaker 1: kilometers per hour. That seems reasonably quick that's pretty darn fast.
Speaker 1: And they said that it would be about twice as
Speaker 1: fast as it would be if the tube were filled
Speaker 1: with air. So that gave the suggestion of why don't
Speaker 1: we look into this further, Why don't we look and see,
Speaker 1: you know, what could the upper limits of this be?
Speaker 1: And theoretically, according to the BBC article, those upper limits
Speaker 1: would be about twenty five hundred miles per hour or
Speaker 1: four thousand kilometers per hour. That's what allow you to
Speaker 1: get from Europe to North America in an hour. Um,
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, that's super fast. Now you have to
Speaker 1: do a couple of things. You need to remember that
Speaker 1: even in these super fast systems, you don't accelerate to
Speaker 1: top speed quickly because that would squish you. You would
Speaker 1: be undergoing such tremendous g forces that it would be
Speaker 1: at least uncomfortable, if not uh deadly. So the way
Speaker 1: these trains tend to work is they have a nice
Speaker 1: gradual acceleration so that you feel the acceleration, but it's
Speaker 1: a steady acceleration, so it's not increasing on you as
Speaker 1: time goes by, and then once it hits its speed,
Speaker 1: you coast at that speed for you know, top speed
Speaker 1: for however long you need to, and then you do
Speaker 1: a gradual deceleration. So in most so not like if
Speaker 1: you you know, stopped from ludicrous speed then you end
Speaker 1: up smashing into the console screen or whatever. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1: The way it works is that, Um, typically in most trips,
Speaker 1: you're you are not traveling at top speed for very
Speaker 1: long because you're spending most of the trip accelerating and
Speaker 1: then decelerating. It's you're only at top speed for a
Speaker 1: little while. And because you're not accelerating at top speed,
Speaker 1: it doesn't feel like like within the confines of the vehicle,
Speaker 1: you don't feel like you're going that fast. Now you
Speaker 1: look outside and you see stuff whizzing by, and a
Speaker 1: holy cow, we're going fast. But without that outside uh indicator,
Speaker 1: you feel like you're more or less staying still. Um.
Speaker 1: Same sort of thing with this. Now, to get to
Speaker 1: that incredible speed of twenty miles per hour or four
Speaker 1: thousand kilometers per hour, you would need a special kind
Speaker 1: of train. You know, you wouldn't necessarily be using a
Speaker 1: train that has wheels, or at least not relying solely
Speaker 1: upon wheels to get to where it's going. Where we're going,
Speaker 1: we don't need roads, um, and you do need track
Speaker 1: and uh in a vacuum. In that kind of environment too,
Speaker 1: you'd have to it would it would be very critical
Speaker 1: to have a form of um propulsion that would work
Speaker 1: within that. I would imagine in a vacuum. Uh, it
Speaker 1: would be very difficult to operate a combustion engine, yah,
Speaker 1: since you would need air or well, you would probably
Speaker 1: use an electric engine, and you use like the third
Speaker 1: rail type system that of subway trains and a a lot
Speaker 1: of electrical trains used. I'm speaking from a you know,
Speaker 1: it couldn't be like a diesel train. Um, couldn't. You
Speaker 1: couldn't use You'd have to have it completely in. I
Speaker 1: can't imagine how you would take care of the exhaust, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: because you would have to expose it. I mean you'd
Speaker 1: have to have some sort of air airlock system where
Speaker 1: you could pump exhaust into an airlock h unloaded to
Speaker 1: the vacuum without compromising the whole system. Yeah, it would
Speaker 1: be complicated. What we're saying so electric. Just for my
Speaker 1: own thoughts, I can't imagine how you would do that,
Speaker 1: wouldn't It wouldn't be easy. Those steam engines would be
Speaker 1: terrible in a vacuum. Yeah. Um. So anyway, the it's
Speaker 1: more likely that you would use electric or electro magnetic propulsion. Now,
Speaker 1: plus I'm sure it'd be a lot more fish. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So so that brings us to the maglev trains. Magnetic
Speaker 1: levitation trains. These are super cool and sometimes they're literally
Speaker 1: super cooled. Cuts down a resistance, So the concept here
Speaker 1: is pretty pretty interesting. The idea is that you use
Speaker 1: some combination of magnets. They might be electro magnets or magnets,
Speaker 1: magnets magnets, They might be electro magnets, or they might
Speaker 1: be permanent magnets, or there could be a combination of
Speaker 1: the two, uh, and you use them in such a
Speaker 1: way as to make the train levitate so it's actually
Speaker 1: off the surface of whatever the track is, and that way,
Speaker 1: when it travels, there's no uh. It reduces all that
Speaker 1: resistance as well, so you've reduced the friction that you
Speaker 1: would have from the track, and so it also cuts
Speaker 1: down on things like you don't have to worry about
Speaker 1: maintenance as much because you aren't having that wear and tear.
Speaker 1: You know that the train isn't rubbing against the track.
Speaker 1: The there aren't wheels that are starting to wear down
Speaker 1: over time. It's not wearing down the track over time.
Speaker 1: So once you get the system in place, maintenance theoretically
Speaker 1: should be pretty routine. You shouldn't have to worry about
Speaker 1: wear and tear so much. Now there's going to be
Speaker 1: somewhere in tear depending on the style of the train involved,
Speaker 1: but we'll get into that. Yeah, the the magnets themselves
Speaker 1: will be put in in something called a Halbach array.
Speaker 1: That's that's if they're using permanent magnets. Yeah, that's one method. Well,
Speaker 1: and and that's very cool. UM. I didn't really understand
Speaker 1: exactly how this was done. UM, but apparently that the
Speaker 1: scientist it's named after the scientists who came up with it,
Speaker 1: and he was actually thinking about it in terms of
Speaker 1: a particle accelerator. UM. But if you place the magnets
Speaker 1: in a certain position, it pushes, it concentrates the magnetic
Speaker 1: field on one side of the magnets. UM. And instead,
Speaker 1: so you know how you have a north and a
Speaker 1: south pole. UM. If you line up the magnets in
Speaker 1: the way that uh, the good professor came up with, UM,
Speaker 1: it would concentrate this force on one side, thus enabling
Speaker 1: the to keep the train up. And that's so it's
Speaker 1: it's uh, you know, toward the train and it it
Speaker 1: pushes the magnetic field that way, which is a really
Speaker 1: interesting application of a technology from one purpose to another. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there there's a couple of different ways of doing this.
Speaker 1: Um you know. So so like pole repels like right,
Speaker 1: So north pole and north pole push push push against
Speaker 1: each other. North Pole and south pole opposites a track
Speaker 1: pulled together. So depending on what sort of train you have,
Speaker 1: um that will determine you know, what what sort of
Speaker 1: magnets you using and how you use them. So for example,
Speaker 1: there's a type of maglev train called electro magnetic suspension trains.
Speaker 1: So the way these work, uh So imagining you have
Speaker 1: an elevated track and you have a concrete um guidance
Speaker 1: beam that goes down the middle of the track, and
Speaker 1: it looks like if you were to cut it, cut
Speaker 1: that track in half and look down the length of it,
Speaker 1: like look at it from the cross section, you would
Speaker 1: see that that that um that guidance uh beam is
Speaker 1: shaped kind of like a t. There are edges that
Speaker 1: extend out over either side the train itself, wraps around
Speaker 1: that track, so it keeps it at the optimal distance
Speaker 1: away from the magnets and keeps it from you know,
Speaker 1: going too far away from it. And the magnets in
Speaker 1: this case are set north to south so that they
Speaker 1: attract one another. So the magnet are on the underside
Speaker 1: of the tea all right, So the you have magnets
Speaker 1: that are along the guidance rail that are on the
Speaker 1: underside of the T, and then on the train, the
Speaker 1: magnets are at the point that wrap underneath the T,
Speaker 1: so those magnets are attracting each other. And what happens
Speaker 1: is the magnets on the T are pulling against the
Speaker 1: magnets that are on the train, which lifts the train
Speaker 1: off the the rail. So you've got a floating train. Uh.
Speaker 1: The big advantage of this train over um other systems
Speaker 1: is that you do not need wheels for this train.
Speaker 1: It'll it'll just pull the train up once you start it.
Speaker 1: And then you use an electro magnetic field to push
Speaker 1: and pull the train down the track. So you know,
Speaker 1: you use a opposite opposite magnetic field to pull the
Speaker 1: train towards the front, use a identical magnetic field to
Speaker 1: the train along the back to push it, and you
Speaker 1: alternate the the pulsor the electro magnet magnets in order
Speaker 1: to maintain this wave and to accelerate the wave because
Speaker 1: when you first start, you wouldn't start slowly. Ah, it
Speaker 1: tends to be pretty christi um so yeah, you've got
Speaker 1: this traveling field. That's what moves the train down the
Speaker 1: track and U and it's it's pretty cool. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's a neat way of doing it. It's um not
Speaker 1: that you know. Some trains in Europe use this. And
Speaker 1: then there's another style called the electro dynamic suspension train
Speaker 1: e d S, and these are suspended above the guide way,
Speaker 1: but instead of using the attractive force of magnets to
Speaker 1: pull the train toward this guidance column, it's using repulsive
Speaker 1: the repulsive part of magnets. So it's north to north
Speaker 1: yet not like that, but north to north. So so
Speaker 1: in other words, you don't have the t there anymore.
Speaker 1: You still have the guidance rail, but now the magnets
Speaker 1: are set along the the side of the track, so
Speaker 1: on either side of the guidance rail on the bottom.
Speaker 1: And then you have magnets along the bottom of the
Speaker 1: train and they repel one another, so the train will
Speaker 1: float above the track that way. Now, and these you
Speaker 1: tend to need a uh wheels, And once you reach
Speaker 1: a certain speed then you start to see the train
Speaker 1: actually lift off, so the wheels are needed at slower speeds.
Speaker 1: And in fact, the companies that use this suggest that
Speaker 1: perhaps this is a safer system because should the entire
Speaker 1: system lose power, then the train would come to a
Speaker 1: gradual stop with these wheels, so you wouldn't have a
Speaker 1: jarring crash, which you know, in general terms as far
Speaker 1: as we're concerned, and travel is a bad thing, yes,
Speaker 1: it's not so much the traveling, it's stopping at the
Speaker 1: end there you go. So uh yeah. They the older
Speaker 1: electrodynamic suspension trains used cryogenically cooled super conducting magnets. And
Speaker 1: the reason for that is what I was saying before.
Speaker 1: When you cool down an electro magnet, you reduce resistance,
Speaker 1: so you make it a much more efficient system because
Speaker 1: you know, resistance means that you're losing a lot of
Speaker 1: energy due to heat. So by cooling this really really low,
Speaker 1: you've actually reduced the resistance within the system itself, makes
Speaker 1: it very efficient, does make it very expensive is not
Speaker 1: cheap too super cool stuff because you have to get
Speaker 1: hold of pretty rare elements in some cases in order
Speaker 1: to get the electromantics really cold. Now you're not getting
Speaker 1: them as cold as say, in a particle accelerator like
Speaker 1: the large Hadron collider. They use liquid helium to get
Speaker 1: those electri o magnet magnets as cold as they possibly can,
Speaker 1: So they're just they're just a little bit over zero
Speaker 1: kelvin where you have no molecular movement at all. Um,
Speaker 1: they don't need liquid helium in these systems, doesn't need
Speaker 1: to be quite that cold, so they probably use something
Speaker 1: moral on lines of liquid nitrogen, which does not get
Speaker 1: as cold as liquid helium does. Now. Uh. Then eventually
Speaker 1: that system started to get replaced by the permanent magnet
Speaker 1: system that you were talking about, the the the Halbach
Speaker 1: array and uh, but it's using the same general principle
Speaker 1: where it's using the repulsive force of the magnets in
Speaker 1: order to make the train levitate as opposed to the
Speaker 1: attractive force. And um, yeah, the that's the main difference
Speaker 1: between the various kinds of maglev trains. The end result
Speaker 1: is the same. You get the train levitating above the track,
Speaker 1: and your speed is really limited just by how quickly
Speaker 1: you can manipulate the the magnetic wave that pulls and
Speaker 1: pushes the train. Yeah. So the faster you can do that,
Speaker 1: the faster the trains going to go. Uh. And if
Speaker 1: you eliminate air resistance by putting it in a vacuum tube,
Speaker 1: then you've suddenly created a really really fast means of
Speaker 1: transport which could revolutionize not just consumer travel, but also shipping. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, you can imagine, you know, you've you've really
Speaker 1: cut down the amount of time it takes to get
Speaker 1: goods from one part of the world to another, assuming
Speaker 1: that they are connected by these these um, these tubes.
Speaker 1: One would imagine too that the this mode of transportation
Speaker 1: would be more environmentally efficient then using you know a
Speaker 1: lot of fossil fuel to make this happen. It just
Speaker 1: depends on how you're creating energy for the electromagnets exactly, exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you do have to figure out, however, how the
Speaker 1: the electro magnet magnets themselves are powered. Um And you know,
Speaker 1: if you're using the halback array, then you've taken some
Speaker 1: of that out by using a lot of permanent magnets.
Speaker 1: You still have to create some sort of propulsion, so
Speaker 1: you're probably still using electro magnets at least to propel
Speaker 1: the train. But but yeah, you would you know, you're
Speaker 1: not using you're not necessarily burning the same amount of
Speaker 1: electricity that you would need or creating the same amount
Speaker 1: of electricity you would need in order to power us
Speaker 1: an electric train. Um. Now, there are other things that
Speaker 1: we need to talk about as far as vacuum trains go,
Speaker 1: like how do you create the vacuum? Uh? Now, you
Speaker 1: would need some sort of pumping station in order to
Speaker 1: pump air out of the tube. And the longer the
Speaker 1: tube is, the more pumping stations you would need. Now,
Speaker 1: the because you can't just have it at one end, well,
Speaker 1: you could depends on how the length of the track.
Speaker 1: If you're talking about something that's transatlantic, I can't imagine
Speaker 1: a pumping station on one side of the Atlantic that's
Speaker 1: going to pump all the air out of a transatlantic
Speaker 1: tube by itself. That would take an enormous amount of time.
Speaker 1: That would be very inefficient. Yeah, it would take an
Speaker 1: enormous amount of power as well. Uh. Yeah, in general,
Speaker 1: from what I've read, it sounds like you would need
Speaker 1: a pumping station every I'll say twenty or thirty miles
Speaker 1: along the tube. In order to maintain the vacuum at
Speaker 1: a reasonable rate, you would also need to have an
Speaker 1: airlock system in place, because you're going to have every time,
Speaker 1: every time the train pulls into a station, assuming there
Speaker 1: are people on board who want to get on or off,
Speaker 1: you can't have a vacuum unless unless everyone has some
Speaker 1: sort of environmental suit on, which does not seem terribly
Speaker 1: efficient as far as travel. Yeah, so you can't have
Speaker 1: a vacuum at the destination or the origin of this
Speaker 1: this trip. It would be uh, it would be antithetical
Speaker 1: to the way we live life, mostly the breathing part. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: what you would have to do is have an airlock
Speaker 1: system in order for these trains to pass in and
Speaker 1: out of the vacuum. Moreover, you would likely need to
Speaker 1: have a series of airlocks so that the train is
Speaker 1: passing through decreased air pressure over UM over a series
Speaker 1: of airlock transitions, not just you know, full air pressure
Speaker 1: to vacuum. I would have to go through a couple
Speaker 1: of different um airlocks before it was into the true vacuum.
Speaker 1: So that is another limitation you would need to have
Speaker 1: that in place. Also, there's a real concern about safety.
Speaker 1: You're talking about. A vacuum is not, like we said,
Speaker 1: not a good place for a human to be in,
Speaker 1: you know, just without without some form of protection, you
Speaker 1: would you would die. So there's a real concern about
Speaker 1: things like you would have to make sure that whatever
Speaker 1: the train was, that it was made out of a
Speaker 1: material that could be pressurized properly and that would be
Speaker 1: really um resistant to wear and tear, because even the
Speaker 1: smallest fault in so device could mean disaster. He had
Speaker 1: a crack open up in one of those things, then
Speaker 1: suddenly everything would be blown out into the vacuum, not
Speaker 1: sucked out, blown out. Sorry, I was thinking about a movie, um,
Speaker 1: and so uh that that's what we call catastrophic failure.
Speaker 1: That would be terrible even I'm sorry, go ahead, I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, even though that uh, from what I
Speaker 1: understand that these vactorines would not necessarily be in a
Speaker 1: full vacuum, um, it would it would be close enough
Speaker 1: to cause you know, concern in that department. And uh,
Speaker 1: you would also have to have, um, a concern about
Speaker 1: the propulsion system. You would want there to be plenty
Speaker 1: of fail safes there so that if you're if you're
Speaker 1: traveling at something like per hour, Uh, you need to
Speaker 1: make sure the system is reliable in that it's going
Speaker 1: to accelerate and decelerate at a reasonable rate so that
Speaker 1: anyone inside is not going to be um harmed by that.
Speaker 1: And also you need to have a good way of
Speaker 1: making sure that you're not going to have some sort
Speaker 1: of catastrophic failure where, um, perhaps the power is lost
Speaker 1: halfway through and then you have a train stuck in
Speaker 1: a vacuum between Europe and North America. Yeah, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: sure that if this comes closer to reality, there will
Speaker 1: be disaster movies in which people get stuck in the
Speaker 1: train or a terrorist. They'll they'll talk about a terrorist
Speaker 1: plot to blow up the tubes or something like that.
Speaker 1: People will be streaming. Can you imagine traveling in a
Speaker 1: tube where you can't you don't even know where you are.
Speaker 1: It would have to walls would have to be very thick, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you could theoretically have thick walls that are also transparent,
Speaker 1: but if you're traveling through a tube, odds are there's
Speaker 1: not a whole lot to look at. So um, Also
Speaker 1: that speed you'd be like, hey, look, it's a never mind,
Speaker 1: you just missed a whatever that was. Um, I mean
Speaker 1: you could set it up so that, you know, you
Speaker 1: could design the tubes so that they play out some
Speaker 1: sort of animated scene when you travel by a certain speed.
Speaker 1: It would be really interesting to do that. Um. But
Speaker 1: at anyr rate. Uh, yeah, you're probably not gonna have
Speaker 1: any windows, um, at least not traditional ones. You might
Speaker 1: have like some sort of screens that could display whatever
Speaker 1: you want on them, so that you would have, you know,
Speaker 1: the facsimile of windows. So it's very for the claustrophobic
Speaker 1: among us. It would be a terrifying ordeal. You're in
Speaker 1: a tube where there's very little, if any air. Uh,
Speaker 1: you are in a train that's not moving. You have
Speaker 1: no idea where anyone else is. I mean, you might
Speaker 1: be able to I'm sure they would have communication systems
Speaker 1: on board, but it would be a pretty harrowing experience
Speaker 1: should something go wrong. Uh, and you know it's it's
Speaker 1: It's definitely one of those issues where the more you
Speaker 1: think about, the more you like. There is a lot
Speaker 1: of points of failure that would need to be addressed
Speaker 1: before anyone would feel comfortable writing this system. Now that
Speaker 1: being said, a lot of us travel by air a lot,
Speaker 1: and the more you think about traveling by air, the
Speaker 1: more you realize, Wow, we really had to overcome a
Speaker 1: lot of problems in order to make this safe and reliable.
Speaker 1: And yet we've done it. And so I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that's outside the realm of possibility. I'm not even saying
Speaker 1: that it's going to be uh as difficult as say,
Speaker 1: figuring out how to get a person into outer space
Speaker 1: and back safely. But it's it's one of those things
Speaker 1: where you know, I could see why people would be
Speaker 1: nervous about getting on one right right. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: if we've figured out how to travel by air, you'd
Speaker 1: figure out that we'd be able to figure out how
Speaker 1: to travel by lack of air. Um and uh your breath.
Speaker 1: It's actually interesting that you should mention outer space because
Speaker 1: one of the apple cations for this technology. There There
Speaker 1: already are maglev trains out there. They're not predominantly maglev trains,
Speaker 1: but you know there are there are some, and there're
Speaker 1: people who are predicting that vacuum trains will be along
Speaker 1: within the next ten or so years, maybe a little longer.
Speaker 1: But they're also talking about the possibility that vacuum trains
Speaker 1: could be used to launch space missions. Um, which would
Speaker 1: mean that you need to point them vertically instead of
Speaker 1: horizon only. Let's see, here's the thing about electro magnets.
Speaker 1: They can work that way. Yes, it doesn't matter if
Speaker 1: it's horizontal or vertical. It just needs the magnetic force
Speaker 1: that you're generating, just needs to overcome whatever whatever forces
Speaker 1: are holding it back. So you know, in in a
Speaker 1: regular maglev train that would include things like air resistance,
Speaker 1: and a maglev train that's vertical, it would include gravity. Well,
Speaker 1: it would be sort of like a giant vacuum train
Speaker 1: gun into space. So so there'd be a solid too,
Speaker 1: extending from the surface of the Earth up into at
Speaker 1: least the reaches of low orbit. Dr James Powell has
Speaker 1: a group called Star Tram. It's the Star Tram Project
Speaker 1: and uh, you can visit their website. Um, look look
Speaker 1: it up, thinking I think it could have their their picture.
Speaker 1: I'll show I'll hold it up to the microphone so
Speaker 1: that you all can see it. But yes, he is
Speaker 1: proposing that they create a giant launch system, and you know,
Speaker 1: there would be a tube it wouldn't be exactly vertical. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's it's actually at an angle, as you know, I'm
Speaker 1: showing Jonathan right now. But yeah, they're they're saying that
Speaker 1: it could be proposed sort of a space elevator with
Speaker 1: a vacuum train. That would be the weirdest thing to
Speaker 1: see in the distance. Oh, I'm sure it would just
Speaker 1: a lot stretching up into the sky, even if it's
Speaker 1: even not necessarily vertical, but what a weird I imagine
Speaker 1: it would be very expensive fan and can you imagine
Speaker 1: a tube that heavy being supported by you know, there
Speaker 1: would be a lot of structure underneath it to hold
Speaker 1: it in place. So clearly that would also be another
Speaker 1: one of those things that you can imagine being a
Speaker 1: target for someone who wants to cause a lot of mayhem,
Speaker 1: or or a target for someone who is flying a
Speaker 1: plane nearby, an unintentional target watch out for this sort
Speaker 1: of thing. I mean, I would imagine it would It
Speaker 1: would definitely affect things like like flight routing and things
Speaker 1: like that. But yeah, it's also, um it's similar to
Speaker 1: our our episode on space elevators. Yeah, well you had
Speaker 1: a very similar discussion about that. But they say that
Speaker 1: they proposed that it could be able to launch three
Speaker 1: thousand tons of material into orbit for less than forty
Speaker 1: dollars per kilogram. That's um and you know, and we've
Speaker 1: talked about how that's a big deal because fuel costs
Speaker 1: for getting a vehicle into orbit is um. I mean,
Speaker 1: they're they're really really expensive. So that makes it very
Speaker 1: uh expensive to get any any particular material out into space.
Speaker 1: You know, you figure a craft is able to carry
Speaker 1: x amount of tons of material and it and it
Speaker 1: costs x amount to get the vehicle into orbit. Then
Speaker 1: you figure, you know, you divide it up and you're like, wow,
Speaker 1: that's really expensive freight right there. Yeah. Well, and and
Speaker 1: it takes all that preparation time, it takes fueling up.
Speaker 1: As we know very well that that uh you know,
Speaker 1: can cause explosive problems if there are any flaws at all,
Speaker 1: um risking life and property. So you know, the idea
Speaker 1: of space elevators or vacuum trains to get things in
Speaker 1: orbit might be a more efficient and more reliable way
Speaker 1: to do that. But uh yeah, that's there are some
Speaker 1: serious technological challenges there to be overcome, but fascinating to
Speaker 1: think about. Nonetheless, yeah, definitely and you know, it's whether
Speaker 1: we'll see this or not. I'm a little more skeptical.
Speaker 1: And the reason why I'm skeptical, can't imagine why. Here's
Speaker 1: the reason I'm skeptical at least that we'll see it
Speaker 1: in the United States. Uh. And the reason being is
Speaker 1: not because of the danger, but because it's a massive
Speaker 1: undertaking that would cost lots of money, although according to
Speaker 1: some analysts, not as much as you would imagine. Some
Speaker 1: are argue that it would be more efficient than other
Speaker 1: versions or or as the same expense as it would
Speaker 1: be for um, other kinds of high speed rail. Well,
Speaker 1: the United States has not been very good at at
Speaker 1: implementing high speed rail in general. I mean, the fastest
Speaker 1: train we have is slow compared to the trains in
Speaker 1: Europe and in Asia. Um and and it's just one
Speaker 1: of those things that it's sort of become an afterthought.
Speaker 1: I mean, trains built this nation into what it is.
Speaker 1: You know, before the trains, we had very little unity
Speaker 1: as a nation, and then the trains really brought us
Speaker 1: together in a way that no other technology had. However,
Speaker 1: they're they've sort of haven't changed in the last century
Speaker 1: or so. I haven't there haven't been a huge number
Speaker 1: of developments. There has been the switch over to electrical
Speaker 1: trains versus coal powered trains or things like that, but
Speaker 1: but in general, they have not really advanced that much. Uh.
Speaker 1: And the fact that I it's been so, the fact
Speaker 1: that we have not seen a lot of movement in
Speaker 1: the high speed train, yeah, well, the we haven't seen
Speaker 1: a lot of of development in the high speed train
Speaker 1: arena tells me that while the interest is definitely there,
Speaker 1: and while there are people who are crying out for
Speaker 1: this sort of thing, it hasn't reached the critical mass
Speaker 1: necessary to put it into action. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of political issues at stake, economic issues, um. And it's
Speaker 1: just one of those things where I don't see that
Speaker 1: clearing up. I see the political process taking longer than
Speaker 1: ten years. The technology, I have no doubt up by
Speaker 1: ten years we would be able to do this. We could,
Speaker 1: We could implement something like this today if we dedicated
Speaker 1: our resources to it. Politically, I just don't see it
Speaker 1: happening within ten years now. It might happen in Europe
Speaker 1: and Asia, where train travel has become a very important
Speaker 1: way of getting around and it has been that way
Speaker 1: for for generations. But they have continued to invest in
Speaker 1: it and to continue developing and innovating in that space,
Speaker 1: whereas in the United States the focus shifted dramatically toward
Speaker 1: automobile industry. Well, yeah, the Americans love their cars. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now if we were uh, I mean, I would love
Speaker 1: to be proved wrong way this. I would love that
Speaker 1: in ten years we have high speed trains that connect
Speaker 1: the various uh staies together. For one thing, it could
Speaker 1: help reduce air traffic congestion, It could make you know,
Speaker 1: it could be a viable alternative to taking a flight somewhere.
Speaker 1: So the more choices of consumer have has I maintained
Speaker 1: that the more choices you have, the better off you are.
Speaker 1: Um and and I just think it'd be kind of cool.
Speaker 1: I still don't know that I would be a volunteer
Speaker 1: on the first first manned trip of a maglev vacuum train.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Um, I guess it would depend on
Speaker 1: what I had planned later in the week. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: something really exciting. I'd be like, you know, no, I
Speaker 1: just don't put a lot of rold coins in there,
Speaker 1: you know. That was that was one of the first
Speaker 1: things I thought about when I thought vacuum train. I
Speaker 1: was thinking about the pneumatic tubes that they used the
Speaker 1: bank drive through. Yeah, um, which you know, it would
Speaker 1: be sort of a similar effect, you know. The first thing,
Speaker 1: the first thing I thought was the tubes that the
Speaker 1: characters travel around and in Futurama. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: although clearly you wouldn't be able to use a complete
Speaker 1: vacuum because you know, that would just be yeah, i'd
Speaker 1: just be a corpse delivery system. Really, once you get
Speaker 1: down to it. Yeah, not not pleasant. So, um, I
Speaker 1: hope we didn't bore you, Steff with this podcast. Uh this, uh,
Speaker 1: but you know, it's really kind of a last time.
Speaker 1: He's gonna let me pick a topic. Yeah, you're dead
Speaker 1: right about that. Um, So we're going to wrap this up. Guys.
Speaker 1: It's a really cool idea. It's a neat way of
Speaker 1: thinking about transportation in the future, although we may never
Speaker 1: see it come to pass. But if you guys have
Speaker 1: any topics you would like us to talk about, whether
Speaker 1: they are transportation related or has something you know completely
Speaker 1: disconnected from transportation, let us know. Send us an email
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