Evacuated Tube Transport could take you around the world in just 6 hours

Evacuated Tube Transport is an airless, frictionless, maglev-like form of transportation which is safer, cheaper and quieter than trains or airplanes. Six-person capsules travel in the tubes and can reach a maximum speed of 6,500 km/h, and provide 50 times more transportation per kwh. A tube can travel from New York to Beijing in two hours, and make a round-the-world trip in just six hours.

Sources: ET3.com, Discovery News

• Category

  Science & Technology

[mattymckoble]

Wow, I could go from my home in L.A. to NY or London for a freakin day trip and go back to sleep in my own bed that night.

[Alex Moen]

...why don't we have this yet? I want Futurama world already, dammit.

[LEON13858]

I imagine it's much safer than a train or subway. I think they would of thought that through.

[DeFraans]

looks like an incredibly unsafe system to me! What if some part is damaged, it would still take more than 10 minutes to get it to a halt!

[Dappa Walford]

how do they stop?

[TheTheatreNetwork]

This is great for undergroundroads com. Does it accommodate home shopping, garbage, sewage, water, gas, freight, 3D printer molecules, plasma, telecommunication wires, fibre optics, electricity etc?

[Arjunsaig]

WOW

[Jimbogf]

not enough "profit fuel" to power a system like this

[Kojak Edwards]

What you are saying is true, however airlines could be the operators of this train. I don't see a need for more than two tunnels, one East bound, one West bound. Airlines would have to fly you to the closest mag-lev hub. Then their mag-lev service would take you to your final hub, where the airline would puddle-jump you to your final destination. Well, that's what I do if I were in charge.

[Kojak Edwards]

I have the feeling it is 6 to a "car". Once that "car" has left the station, the next "car" will load 6 additional passengers. When I first hear of this type of transportation, the evacuated tunnel would transport a multi-car 'train'. The problem was that the entire train would have to be fully inside an air lock. Once everything was ready to go, the train's airlock would have all it's air vacuumed out, and then it could enter the evacuated tube.

[400bas1]

Well they could of course start small, then you can test it. Just like almost everything iin our world, computers did also have to develop

[LEDtherebelight]

Because it's not possible to use the system with more than 6 people at a time.

Oh wait.....