Futuristic High-Speed Tube Travel Could Take You From New York to Los Angeles in 45 Minutes

[caraher]

11. I've thought about this basic idea a lot lately

but I'm less interested in shooting people at bullet speeds (and faster) than the general question of whether getting the air out of the way can make high-speed (more like hundreds of MPH) travel more energy efficient. In other words, what costs more energy: moving the air out of the way with the nose of the vehicle, or keeping a tube evacuated?

That whole thing about "producing 1 G at top speed" is sheer gibberish, however. I'd flunk the reporter who wrote that out of intro physics in a heartbeat. Are they merely observing that gravity still acts when you're traveling at a constant speed? Duh! But actually, I think they're simply confused: ET3 simply assumed they would limit all accelerations to 1G for the purpose of making back-of-the-envelope estimates of things like travel times.

They do their energy calculations assuming their tubes are pretty much permanently evacuated, with little leakage:

It will take about 5 gallons of gasoline equivalent worth of electrical energy to evacuate a mile. It will take a few days before the water dries out, and the materials stop out gassing.

Their FAQ is full of a lot of statements about "powerful" competing interests such as the high-speed rail cabal we all fear so much (?!)