in more news from the future, my silver space suit is ready to pick up from the dry cleaners and my bubble helmet is getting a shine. yay! i think the future will be solidified in my simple raised-in-the-80s mind when one of these projects becomes a reality. popular science has an article today about some potential projects of the future that push the limits of our technology and imagination. there have already been a number of grand-scale projects in recent times, such as the massive three-gorges river damn in china, the new tallest building in the world in taipei, taiwan (which sadly looks like its ribbed…for her pleasure), and the artificial island that the chek lap kok airport in hong kong sits on. but the envisioned projects in this article trump those in spades. amongst the projects that the article looks into, of particular coo-ness were the trans-atlantic mag-lev system and the space elevator…either of which would be massive undertakings beyond anything ever done in the past.
space elevator
with the cost and risk of sending rockets and shuttles into space, scientists began devising other methods of space travel a while back. these included newer shuttle designs, a space elevator, and star trek teleportation. jk about the teleporting. but the space elevator tho…that was one of the crazier (but scientifically feasible) proposals to emerge. the idea was to shoot an anchor into space, then tethered to the earth along the equator via a cable. the cable is kept taut simply by centripetal force, which also kept the anchor in a geo-synchronous orbit. an earth-borne elevator is then lifted up via ground-based lasers and can lift payloads up to 5 tons with relative ease. craziness. whats even crazier is the distance of the elevator. the proposed length/distance of the anchor is some 62,000 miles above the earths surface. consider the international space station floating high above the earth, is a mere 250 miles above the surface of the earth and you’ll start understanding the scope of this project. at the moment, one of the major setbacks is the cable itself. there is currently no material resilient enough to withstand such centripetal forces…except nanotube technology. the problem is that the longest nanotube currently ever created was only a few microns long. but research is already underway to combine nanotubes with epoxy resin and then extruding it. there are however other issues as well, such as storms, meteorites, and corrosives, not to mention the laser system itself that would elevate the payload up. craziness.
trans-atlantic service
the trans-atlantic mag-lev system however is my personal favorite future project. i think it would be pretty coo to hop a mag-lev train from penn station, new york and step out of waterloo station, london an hour later. yea…an hour. the project proposes to create a series of neutrally-buoyant tunnels anchored to the atlantic seafloor, and then run a mag-lev train system thru it that can travel upwards of 5,000 mph. holy shit. a proposed route would take the train thru canada, greenland, and iceland first before barreling thru the atlantic…since land-based routes are cheaper to build than ocean-based ones. all the technology exists…the only limitation currently is the cost. at approximately $50 million a square mile, the project is estimated to be as much as $175 billion. poot. but as researcher ernst frankel states, “A transatlantic tunnel will be done. We just have to be as interested in it as we are in getting to the Moon.” woo to the future…
> future projects (via pop sci)
when they finish that 62,000 mile tall elevator shaft thingy, someone should run in and press all the buttons to every floor, then run out.