Before thinking about enhancing tranportation, we should ask ourselves IF we need to travel more.
In the last five years I took 500 flights (all on economy class except for two), and I also took about 100 train rides.
For "short" trips (<600-700 km or 400-500 miles) train might be slightly slower, but there's essentially no dead time and it's cheaper (no rush to the airport, no stupid security checks at the airport, no weather affecting the trip, no big delays, no taxi trip from arriving airport to city center). As a consequence, we should "aggregate" airports and use them only for long range travel, and revert to rail or road for shorter trips. By doing this, we would maximize the frequency and availability of flights from these mega-airports.
Then, by simply providing more leg space, power, and possibly internet connection, we could make flights "suck less".
This is doable now. Any other technology would take decades to develop.
And again, most people don't need to travel NY to Hong Kong in 3 hours. Most people need to travel cheaply, and possibly in a green way.
I rarely travel for business: that one's been sorted by the internet. But I can't go long periods of time without seeing friends and family who are all over the world, and as I'm the one with the freedom I'm the one that travels. As a bonus I get croissants in Paris one day and shrimp in Sydney the next. I don't want to give this up - I want to pay some kind of forward-travel-tax that makes this more sustainable. Speaking of Paris, the Concorde is taunting me sitting at Charles de Gaulle and Orly right now, lifted up as if it's waiting for stronger winds.
How would you feel about traveling in a larger vehicle, think zeppelin, that took 20 hours longer to reach its destination, but in return it would be cheaper and more comfortable - more like traveling on a cruise ship?
I would adore it, given I was comfortable with its safety. Assuming it had high-speed internet it's a travelling hotel, and considering travelling itself is the worst part of travelling I'd welcome it to be pleasurable in itself.
Absolutely! But I also think of it as a responsibility to live and travel and experience, given that I have the rare opportunity to do so without being born into wealth.
In regards to the proposed tech: if this allows for cleaner, cheaper transportation down the road for everyone then the economic opportunities improve for the globe.
Keep in mind, as soon as someone notices enough people are choosing trains instead of air travel, "stupid security checks" will start showing up at train stations as well…
My personal transport-of-choice is a motorcycle. I can get anywhere within ~400km of home in less time by bike than by plane. I reasonably regularly choose to ride Sydney<->Port Macquarie or Sydney<->Canberra for work, mostly because I enjoy the ride, only partly 'cause it takes me less time than cab-to-airport/checkin/fly/cab-at-other-end.
> Keep in mind, as soon as someone notices enough people are choosing trains instead of air travel, "stupid security checks" will start showing up at train stations as well…
Then those people will have to be stomped on, hard.
People hate, but put up with, airline security checks because they (perhaps grudgingly) admit they serve at least some purpose, even if the actual details are often pretty questionable.
But trains and airplanes are fundamentally different in this respect. There's no rational reason to have airline-style security checks for train travel, at all.
London, July 7 2005. Now, I don't agree with any security checks on train stations (and think the security checks on airports are ridiculous) but I'm afraid that those who want to implement such things can at least dig up some argument (not commenting on the validity of those arguments)...
What's that supposed to illustrate? That a bomb in a crowded place can be harmful? Hmm, ok, better get the TSA to cordon off all malls, clubs, popular restaurants...
The thing about air travel is that there is a better argument for (some) security to prevent hijackings and bombs, both because planes are very fragile (there's a decent chance for a smallish bomb to result in the entire plane being lost and all passengers killed), and because they're usable as missiles against much larger targets (as illustrated by 9.11). Planes, in other words, have a somewhat unique ability to magnify the effect of a given terrorist attack.
None of that is the case for rail transport. For the most part, a train is simply a very crowded place, in a society that's absolutely chock-full of very crowded places. Indeed, the long-distance/regional trains most likely to receive TSA "attention" are much less crowded than local trains and subways which will almost certainly never be allowed to fall under TSA control for practical reasons.
The security checks at airports serve very little use in preventing the destruction (through a small explosion) of an aeroplane, given that after going through the security checks it is perfectly trivial to buy large quantities of pressurised containers and accelerants.
On the other hand making sure no one has guns on a plane seems worth queueing at the metal detectors for. Maybe that is just me being anti-gun though...
You're assuming that protecting people from terrorism is actually a primary motivation of these measures, and that powerful police institutions might might give up a chance at increased control of the population, which makes their jobs easier, for the sake of efficiency.
If you give the police free reign, you'll end up with a society that's only efficient for the police.
Are there airport-style security checks in train stations London? I don’t know, but I guess not.
At any rate, there aren’t any in Germany, even though two islamic terrorists actually targeted two German regional trains in 2006. They left suitcases with – luckily – non-functional bombs in both (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_German_train_bombing_plot). That’s pretty much the only (attempted) islamic terror attack that ever happened in Germany†.
Bigger train stations usually have quite some police presence and there are (horribly racist) spot checks, but that’s all. (Usually the police want to check your ID card and then radio in the name to see whether there’s anything on your name. I’m guessing they are also trying to look for suspicious activity, but the most permanent reminder of the possibility of terrorist attacks are regular announcements to not leave your baggage unattended.)
Even when there was a lot of fear of terror attacks on trains or train stations being imminent a few years back, police presence (in bigger train stations) was merely bumped and you got to see some policewomen and men with submachine guns.
Everything would probably collapse in Germany if airport style checks were introduced in train stations. It’s just not realistic. The way trains are used doesn’t play nice with security checks. I mean, tons of people use trains in Germany to commute. Those trains are already plenty late in many major metropolitan areas, add security checks to that and you have a recipe for disaster. Plus: There are so many train stations, do you need checks in everyone of those? Even just including every high-speed train stop would probably result in many more train stations in Germany needing security equipment than there are airports in Germany.
But everyone can see that high-speed train stops are not enough. The terrorists in 2006 targeted regional trains! Those stop at train stations that are no more than a block of concrete next to the tracks. And those trains are plenty packed, often more so than high-speed trains.
Traveling by air has a different pace. It fits security checks better. There are few airports and airplanes don’t make dozens of stops god knows where.
The economic cost of bringing airport style security checks to trains easily outweighs any benefits even security fanatics might fantasize about. That’s why it doesn’t happen, at least not in countries with heavily used and dense train networks. (Now, countries with very sparse train networks that are not heavily used are a completely different story. Airport-style security checks do happens in those countries. Uzbekistan would be one example.)
—
† In 2011 an Islamist shot and killed two US soldiers (wounded two more) on the way to Afghanistan who were in a bus in front of Frankfurt Airport (about to be transported to Ramstein Air Base).
> Are there airport-style security checks in train stations London?
No, of course not. It's just not realistic, for the same reasons that you gave.
There are spot checks. It has only happened to me once, since I don't fit the profile. That also has drawbacks that you mentioned - it's far too close to racial profiling, and though it's often under the banner of "anti-terrorism", it mostly confiscates knives.
Notwithstanding the 7 July 2005 bombings, Terrorism isn't a major threat. More people die from far more mundane, accidental things.
If you've ever caught a train in China there are airport-style security checks there - put your bag through the X-ray, walk through the arch, show your passport. In fact the whole experience is airport-style - you wait in a numbered lounge and only go onto the platform when your specific train is called.
Even taking the subway means passing through a quick bag check.
Airport-style security at train stations is a terrible idea for many reasons, but it's not as impractical as you make it sound.
Electric jets combined with beamed power could be huge. Such craft would be unencumbered by fuel tankage, so there would be huge potential for savings. One place to start, strangely enough, would be with electric tankers. By lifting fuel to altitude, individual aircraft fuel needs would be greatly reduced to cover the same distance, meaning structural weight could be saved, resulting in even more efficiency. Networks of power beaming stations to power cross country flights would result in aircraft so light, that parachute landing systems for the whole craft might be feasible. (Some on board battery capacity would always be necessary for emergencies.)
There's a fundamental problem here though in power beaming. A plane such as the 777 has engines which use about 170 megawatts of power. Beaming 170 megawatts continuously to a moving target the size of a plane in a way that does not cause any amount of bleed-over around the plane and also somehow doesn't manage to destroy the plane is, suffice it to say, a bit of a technological challenge.
Even if we were talking about a blended wing plane covered in PV arrays and much lighter than a 777 (due to not needing fuel) and thus requiring less power we're still talking about delivering 10s to 100s of kilowatts per square meter of plane. That compares to 1 kilowatt/m^2 of direct sunlight. That's a hell of a lot of power, and I'm not sure there's a way for that amount of power to be safely and effectively delivered without a considerable risk of destroying or damaging the plane.
"Kin's flyer circled the low offices and headed northward to the big complex on W-
continent. It skirted the bulk of what had been Hendry's machine, its new pilot now
laying down a pattern of offshore reefs. The manoeuvre gave them an impressive view
of the big collector bowl atop the machine, its interior velvety black.
'Why?' said Jalo, peering. Kin twirled the wheel.
'Beamed power from orbiting collectors, slaved to the machine. If we flew over the
bowl we wouldn't even leave any ash.'
'What would happen if the pilot made a mistake and the beam missed the bowl?'
Kin considered this. 'I don't know,' she said. 'We'd certainly never find the pilot.'"
> A plane such as the 777 has engines which use about 170 megawatts of power.
Do you mean emergency thrust, takeoff thrust, or during cruise? These aren't going to be the same amounts. You're going to have to have some amount of batteries for emergency purposes, so these could be used to provide peak power. Beamed power will also have different properties which will lead to different economics and standard operating procedures. (With more gradual climbs.)
> Even if we were talking about a blended wing plane covered in PV arrays and much lighter than a 777 (due to not needing fuel) and thus requiring less power we're still talking about delivering 10s to 100s of kilowatts per square meter of plane. That compares to 1 kilowatt/m^2 of direct sunlight. That's a hell of a lot of power
1000 watts per square meter doesn't seem such a big deal. Right now, I have a 300 watt parabolic space heater about 8-9" or 20 cm in diameter aimed at me from about 3/4ths of a yard. The intensity of this device is much higher than 1000w/m^2. I note that the rear of this device is made out of ordinary plastic and doesn't ever get too hot to touch.
As a matter of perspective, imagine building a large structure out of aluminum with one handheld hair dryer attached to every square meter of the bottom side. (1400 watts.) That would indeed be a lot of power, but barring untimely rain or some kind of design or equipment failure, you wouldn't expect this to go up in flames.
Heck, this thing is a toy, and I'll bet the intensity is a good fraction of 1000 watts/m^2.
> Do you mean emergency thrust, takeoff thrust, or during cruise?
Doesn't matter, that's a percentage difference, and doesn't affect the orders of magnitude here.
> 1000 watts per square meter doesn't seem such a big deal.
Maybe you misread what I wrote, 1 kilowatt/m^2 is the power of direct sunlight. The power per square meter to power a jumbojet realistically needs to be 10s to 100s of times higher than that. And those are dangerous levels of power. For example, the risk of eye damage from reflections would be a significant concern, but realistically at those power levels you could risk melting plastics and so forth.
> Maybe you misread what I wrote, 1 kilowatt/m^2 is the power of direct sunlight. The power per square meter to power a jumbojet realistically needs to be 10s to 100s of times higher than that.
Indeed I did. However, I was primarily thinking about the waste heat, which would only be about 1 or two kilowatt/m^2.
> For example, the risk of eye damage from reflections would be a significant concern
I doubt this would be a concern for microwaves.
> but realistically at those power levels you could risk melting plastics and so forth.
That's only if all the power went towards melting those plastics. If the transmission and conversion is efficient enough, then this isn't necessarily the case. Also, just don't use plastics.
Shielding passengers inside a metal hull from 10 kilowatts/m^2 isn't that big a deal. Nor would dissipating 1.5 kilowatts/m^2 of waste heat.
10s of kilowatts, not 10 kilowatts. And that's for a huge, delta-shaped blended wing aircraft. If you take the takeoff power of a 777 and distribute it over the entire cross-sectional area of the plane you'll end up with several hundred kilowatts per square meter.
Even rounding down to 100 megawatts and then assuming a 70m x 60m triangle (2100 m^2) you end up with about 50 kilowatts per square meter. Now consider that the power gathering equipment not only needs to be extremely efficient (as even 95% efficiency would dump enough heat into the plane's structure to cause it to melt fairly quickly) but also needs to be built extremely carefully as any imperfection that resulted in a drop in efficiency for any small part of the plane would result in catastrophe.
And, of course, as mentioned there would be the problems of bleed-over and so forth. You want to be able to fly planes over populated areas, most likely.
The total power output of a 747 at takeoff is 90MW (90,000,000W), while cruising it is 45MW. (According to answers.com). A kilowatt is 1000W (you seem to have been mixing up megawatts and kilowatts).
Good point. Going further, a big advantage of an electric plane is that it can fly at much higher altitudes since it doesn't burn atmospheric oxygen like normal jets.
At high altitudes, it may be more efficient to beam the power from orbit then from the ground or flying tankers.
EDIT: replaced "the biggest" with "a big", point well taken.
True, but I assume it will use a fan or prop design, which loses efficiency as air density decreases (like swimming in air vs. water). And you will still need to pressurize the cabin.
> the biggest advantage of an electric plane is that it can fly at much higher altitudes since it doesn't burn atmospheric oxygen
The biggest? Not sure about that. Eliminating most of the fuel tankage is pretty huge.
> more efficient to beam the power from orbit than from the ground
That would be vital for over water flights. This might even be a way to jump start orbital solar power satellites.
> flying tankers.
By "electric tankers" I meant using beamed electric power to haul jet fuel to altitude, as a first step. Airplanes purpose built for this use case would have range or efficiency advantages.
> At high altitudes, it may be more efficient to beam the power from orbit then from the ground or flying tankers.
In line with InclinedPlane's comment upthread, I do have a question: how do you prevent such power delivery systems from becoming orbital weapons platforms? It wouldn't be difficult to make such satellite transmit power to a building or road insatead of a plane.
You could use frequencies that dont interfere with a lot of materials/biological tissues.
But once we have the technology to beam huge qtys of power from orbit this will always be a risk: simply retune or develop a satellite just for weapons purposes. Perhaps another way of looking at it is how is it different from ICBMs etc? Most technologies can be weaponised, on 911 some enterprising bastards managed to do it with commercial transport.
> how do you prevent such power delivery systems from becoming orbital weapons platforms?
Rectennas proposed for power transmission are quite large. You can probably design these, such that diffraction limits make spot focusing the beams difficult. You probably can't prevent them from being used as weapons, but you can probably make them rotten weapons.
In any case, you can secure these from most personnel by using crypto and formal methods. This stuff had better work, because if we have powersats, then we'll also have lots of very capable orbital rockets which will use the same security schemes, and those will be >much< more potent weapons.
> a big advantage of an electric plane is that it can fly at much higher altitudes since it doesn't burn atmospheric oxygen like normal jets.
My understanding is that air is still the medium they use for propulsion so I'm not sure how big this benefit will be (like how a jetski jet doesn't work out of water).
Elon Musk certainly sails close to the wind. In this talk he says that SpaceX would no longer exist if the fourth spaceflight had not succeeded. And during the financial crisis in 2008 Tesla almost went bankrupt. I admire Elon's success, but I couldn't take the risks he takes.
That's why I attempt to mitigate the halo effect by using counterfactuals, historic branch extensions and alterations.
For example:
Steve Jobs, an art school college dropout, doesn't meet Wozniak - Where is he now? Steve Jobs gets himself killed in India. Steve Jobs doesn't get hooked onto computers or doesn't hang out with the right hobbyist crowd at the right time, in the right place, with few other options to pursue.
When you look at history you'll see a bunch of events that could have - and most probably - should have happened and things get a whole lot less certain. Things are only guaranteed to people because they happened - but at the time - not so much.
Once you see the world through this light - it's difficult to make the kind of statements that others make about the past and the future. It also reduces the effect of both the halo and hindsight biases and just generally lets you get a feeling for the anthropic principle and its constant interference with daily life (aka we would not be discussing this had Elon not been a success).
These are called mistakes of omission (could have happened) and not commision (did happen). The deeds of omission far out weight all the deeds of commission.
I like when he talks about why Mars is the best planet to inhabit. 24 1/2 hour rotational cycle, 1/2 the earths gravity, lots of water/ice. Co2 atmosphere (which plants like to consume). Ultimately terraform the planet to make it like earth.... Sign me up!
Depends what you mean by debunked. It is a bit of a fantastical idea to begin with requiring technology and engineering on a scale much larger than anything in human experience. It is, therefore, a bit difficult to come up with a plausible plan let alone debunk that plan. I, for one, do not see any fundamental reasons why it couldn't be done, but I can come up with plenty of practical reasons why it probably won't be done anytime soon.
I thought the lack of a magnetic field was considered to be such a "fundamental reason", i.e. without one away any significant atmosphere that's created will be stripped away by the solar wind.
The issue is timescale. Yes, the atmosphere is (very slowly) stripped away by the solar wind, so we could not simply terraform it and forget about it. On the other hand, the timescale is very long by human standards, so as long as we produced new atmosphere at a rate faster than it is being stripped away, I don't see it being a fundamental problem. I could be wrong, of course.
With a weak magnetic field, wouldn't something such as a solar flare, which the Earth has more sufficient protection against, possibly wipe out any part of the surface it touched on Mars?
Does anybody know if Elon has a minor speech impediment; stammer or stutter? I myself stutter and was just curious, as I noticed it watching this video.
Maybe this is a silly question but why doesn't SpaceX or Tesla use some form of crowd-funding scheme for their projects in addition to all their other sources of funding?
I really want both companies to succeed and I'd be happy to contribute to either cause (yes, I see both primarily as a cause and philosophy, not just a company). Judging from response around the internet there are many people like me who are just as excited. I can't buy a Model S car because I don't have that money, but I'd be happy to throw some money at Tesla or SpaceX for a little badge and a warm feeling.
Kickstarter actually demonstrates why this is not the sure-win that it appears to be on the surface. Crowdfunding is a great idea, but it's also very risky from a PR perspective. People--not you, perhaps, but most people--feel that giving money merits an equal-value return. At a step above the pure "I believe in you; take my money", you have the step where people at least want constant, accurate updates all the time. That's a cost that may outweigh the benefit of an extra revenue stream. And above that, people keep wanting more and well... that's a problem.
Participating in the secondary market (Stock market) doesn't give the company any money, you just have a stake of the company that varies in price according to the demands of others and the perceived value of the company.
As far as I know there aren't any firm plans for a SpaceX IPO
Buying stock drives the price up of said stock, allowing the company to reap more money per share when it wants to sell more shares on said secondary market, and also allows it to get better deals on loans and future funding rounds. It might not directly give money to the company, but it's definitely an action anyone can take to "vote with your money" that actually benefits a company.
SpaceX remains private. Purchasing stock will be limited to accredited investors, and limited in quantity to 500(?) before the company must become publicly reporting, which carries its own compliment of pain - the new bill will raise that to 1000 I believe - still a minuscule number for a multi-billion dollar effort.
The recent launch success makes the likelihood of it going public soon a little higher, and then everyone will be able to participate - but I can only imagine all the caveats in the filing documents, and frankly after watching the debacle of a meltdown called Facebook, I wouldn't trust anyone on Wall Street to properly bring this to market unless a Dutch Auction was used.
Note that you will need to provide some identification info (I don't remember what) if you want to upload a long HD video to YouTube. IIRC not needed for 480p.
I thought of YouTube, but the 15 minute barrier stopped me. So now I'm uploading to Veoh.com (at 45% as we speak) - it should be done shortly, I'll post the link once it's done. Hopefully they don't want to re-encode it. In that case, I'll upload to depositfiles.com...
Ok, fuck - it uploaded but now it's recoding the file. Sigh. It'll be at http://www.veoh.com/watch/v40542469qRZG8NMn once that's done. I'll now proceed to upload at DepositFiles.com, using the university's not-as-fast-as-I-thought network.
(edit: nevermind. Use the other mirror (^^up there) instead.)
(and when did universities stop having ridiculously overdimensioned internet connections?)
Would love to, but am at a university network and will go home in less than 20 minutes. If the Veoh doesn't work, I'll upload to depositfiles.com, so you could grab it from there and then torrent it? I agree that it's probably is the best solution.
He sounds quite bright. It seems he (and his people) are actually making a dent and are producing some tangible value. He said he could have gone to work for Wall Street. Does Wall Street actually attract our best and brightest people? I wonder what the world would look like if the best and brightest did not put all their talents into skimming value off the top (on Wall Street) but instead actually produced value.
I'm wondering what's the efficiency (speed) limit on ducted fan relative to altitude for the electric airplane concept. Would like to have some data on it
If you Right Click and "Save As", you can open and watch the downloading (.crdownload) file in VLC as well. Just in case you wanted to have it for later I guess.
