Tenijua Dix --> Jason Lee
A. More transition sentences
B. Works Cited needs a little work
C. Connect paragraphs
No other comments
Tyler Buckley --> Jason Lee
A. Introduction is too long
B. Concorde no longer flies (Information) remove it
C. Grammar
D. Change sentence opener
Charise Bailey --> Jason Lee
A. Need more of my own analysis
No other comments
This is the format I am supposed to complete for my completion dates:
A minimum of 2 total pages due:
Monday, March 15, 2010
At least 2 additional pages (minimum of 4 pages total) due:
Friday, March 16, 2010
At least 2 additional pages (minimum of 6 pages total) due:
Monday, March 17, 2010
At least 2 additional pages (minimum of 8 pages total) due:
Friday, March 19, 2010
A minimum of 2 total pages due:
day of week, March 15, 2010
Impossible means not possible; unable to be, exist, happen, etc or unable to be done, performed, effected. Impossible is an adjective and it is a word which is use by many doubters. Yet, this is the one word that should be permanently removed. Impossible is one of the most misused words in the dictionary. Why, because nothing is ever impossible. Many once thought the Wright Brothers were will never be able to take flight. Look at the world now, planes are one of the main source of traveling from one end of the Earth to the other. Before 1969, going to the moon was looked at as an impossible task. Was it? No, Neil Armstrong was the first human to go to the moon and landed back on earth successfully. The English Channel Tunnel, to many it only seemed like an unreachable dream. During the 1994, the English Channel Tunnel was finally open, linking England and France (Channel Tunnel). The list continues on and on but, in every situation, the impossible was made possible. The Transatlantic Tunnel is only a dream as of now, a dream to link New York to London to Paris. Dreams are made to come true. The Transatlantic Tunnel is a plausible project because with every obstacle, there are ways to overcome them and when this is built, life around the world will change.
Every year, about 16 million people cross the Atlantic Ocean, most which is by plane (Extreme Engineering). The current average flight time from JFK Airport (New York City) to LHR Airport (London) is about 7 hours (Orbit). Within that time many things can be done and that is excluding the time spent in the Airport if there is a delay due to weather issues. Time is the one thing that money cannot buy because time doesn’t wait for no one. The Transatlantic Tunnel will enable people to leave in New York City and arrive in London in about fifty four minutes (Extreme Engineering). Travel time will be greatly reduced, allowing people to live on one end of the Atlantic Ocean and working in the other. Also one can have dinner in New York and have dessert in Paris. This idea sounds great and it had been dreamt by others as well.
People have had visionary of the Transatlantic Tunnel for more than a century. During 1935, the film, Transatlantic Tunnel, had a close and similar approach to how to build the Transatlantic Tunnel as engineers of today (TRANSATLANTIC TUNNEL – Looking Back Toward the Future). Also Harry Harrison, science fiction writer during the 1970s envisioned a Transatlantic Tunnel that will be supported by numerous number of sea bridges (Under sea- WORMHOLE 'TRANSATLANTIC TUNNEL). Although many people thought about a Transatlantic Tunnel, some people put this thought aside because they felt as if this will be too difficult of a task. But with everything, there are problems and with everything there are ways to find solutions.
The Transatlantic Tunnel will be the world’s longest tunnel in the world, stretching 3100 miles across the Atlantic Ocean (Transatlantic Tunnel). A tunnel this long requires a billion tunnel of steel to complete it from point A to point B. In order to output this much steel, it would take about one year if the entire steel mill factories combine their production together (Extreme Engineering). Along with this the price will reach a whooping 12 trillion dollars and over a century to complete. These are only the easier problems to solve.
First thing that must be done when building a tunnel, is to map out the route. Originally, engineers decided that a northern route would be best because it is also the shortest route, cutting half the distance of a submerge tunnel (Under sea- WORMHOLE 'TRANSATLANTIC TUNNEL). The shortest route seemed most efficient because that also means that it will be the shortest amount of construction time. Along with that, the cost of underwater tunnel can cost up to about 4 billion dollars per mile so mapping out the shortest route seemed to be the best idea (Transatlantic Tunnel). The northern route will begin at the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, crossing over Greenland and Iceland, then splitting right before the tunnel reaches Scotland and Norway. The tunnel crossing across the northern Atlantic Ocean meets no problems (Extreme Engineering). Eventually though, engineers soon realize that building a tunnel over Greenland will cause many problems during their brutal winter, slowing traffic due to high winds and ice (Extreme Engineering). Instead, they now agree that it would be best to build a tunnel leaving straight off of the coast of New York City to London to Paris. After the route was chosen, the next step is to figure out how to build it. The most common way when it comes to building tunnels is to simply drill a hole which is done by a tunnel boring machine(Channel Tunnel The North of France).
At least 2 additional pages (minimum of 4 pages total) due:
day of week, March 16, 2010
The English Channel Tunnel was built by having a tunnel boring machine on both ends of the tunnel and eventually the hole was completed. Yet, scientist says that it will be near impossible to drill a straight hole all the way across the Atlantic Ocean. In comparison to the English Channel Tunnel, the Transatlantic Tunnel will take over three centuries to complete therefore drilling will not be one of the most efficient way (Extreme Engineering). In addition to that, the English Channel Tunnel is only about 300 feet below sea level at its deepest point, whereas, the Transatlantic Tunnel will have to sit five miles below sea level (The World Factbook). This far down the ocean the pressure is almost 500 times greater than the surface, so drilling a tunnel here is only going to become a big disappointment (Extreme Engineering). A tunnel five miles below sea level just would not be survivable for people or the tunnel itself. Another method that engineers thought of is using an immerse tunnel. An immerse tunnel is where sections of the tunnel are fabricated on land. After sections of the tunnel are completed, they will be ship out to sea and then put together there. Engineers says that building an immerse tunnel will be much safer than to just simply boring a hole through the Earth (Extreme Engineering). Building a Transatlantic Tunnel using this method would require about 54,000 of these prefabricated sections. In order to produce this large amount of tunnel sections, it will take 20 years if, 225 factories are continuously working around the clock and every single one of the tunnel sections are put towards this project (Extreme Engineering). Creating the tunnel is only the first step of this process. After all 54,000 of the tunnel sections are completely, they will then need to be towed out to sea. The distance the tunnel will have to travel may be right off the shore to as far out as 1500 miles. When the sections reach their destination point, this is where the work will start to become difficult. The sections lower down by immersion pontoon. Divers working beneath the water will have to work in almost totally darkness and are only able to depend on the global positioning system, allowing them to position the tunnel section to exactly the right spot (Extreme Engineering). Divers must remain cautions at all time because the tunnel sections could pinch a diver’s air hose and evidently suffocating to death. But since the immerse tunnels also sit at the bottom of the ocean, it will lead to total failure for a Transatlantic Tunnel because it will have to sit too deep. Also once again, enormous pressure, about 12million pounds per square inch at the deepest part of the ocean, the tunnel will be crushed to death (Under sea- WORMHOLE 'TRANSATLANTIC TUNNEL).
At least 2 additional pages (minimum of 6 pages total) due:
day of week, March 17, 2010
With these two ideas crushed and tossed in the trash can, there is left only one idea, building a submerged floating tunnel (Transatlantic Tunnel). Now this is a fairly new idea and has never been tried before but some engineers are confident that this will work. Chief engineer of Norway Roads Administrations, Håvard Østlid says, “The submerged floating tunnel and the immerse tunnel are very similar. But the immerse tunnel is resting in the trench on the bottom of the river, of the crossing. The submerged floating tunnel is suspended in water and has water all around it” (Extreme Engineering). To have a submerged tunnel work, there need to be the perfect balance of air and ballast to allow the tunnel to float at the particular depth. How the way the submerged floating tunnel needs to be balance work exactly the same as a submarine (Extreme Engineering). The main concern for a submerged floating tunnel is that it may very well, float away.
At the very beginning of the tunnel, it is possible to build large piers sitting under the tunnel, supporting them similar to bridges (Transatlantic Tunnel). Continuing the piers throughout the whole 3,100 miles will be very difficult to do. The piers will be like their own project. With depth reaching up to five miles deep, this method will be not one of the best options to support the submerged floating tunnel for the Transatlantic Tunnel.
Engineers have also come up with another option that engineers that may support the tunnel from above the water. To do so, the Transatlantic Tunnel will have large pontoons possibly holding the tunnel in place (Extreme Engineering). Yet, with the strong wind and powerful currents of the Atlantic Ocean, the tunnel will easier be tossed around like a rag doll.
Another method is to have a number of long cables that are connect to the tunnel. Then the pipes will be attached to the sea floor by suction anchor (Extreme Engineering). The way this will work is that while the anchors are driving into the sea floor, water will be forced out creating a tight vacuum seal. This method is already in use today except instead of cables, long steel pipes were in use. Some off-shore oil platform uses this method to keep their 3,060 ton platforms in place and stayed in place for more than a decade (Extreme Engineering).
When using this idea for the Transatlantic Tunnel, the cable will be holding it down. Working just opposite of what suspension bridges do. The advantage in using cables to hold down the tunnel is that the cables are certainly strong enough, yet it is not 100 percent rigid (Extreme Engineering). This will allow the tunnel to sway just a little bit with the underwater current.
At least 2 additional pages (minimum of 8 pages total) due:
day of week, March 19, 2010
The design of the tunnel gives some engineers hope that the Transatlantic Tunnel could one day happen. Yet, another question then comes to mind. Could a train possibly travel at the speed of 5,000 miles per hour? Diesel train will definitely not be an option, because there would be no way to vent out the exhaust. Therefore, engineers rely on an electric maglev or magnetic levitation train. The fastest train today is the bullet train, traveling at speed greater than 200 miles per hour (Briney, Amanda). Bob Budell, a project engineer says, “In theory there are no limit to how fast a maglev train can go. There are obviously practical limits, there are also economical limit. But the technology itself is capable of much higher speed” (Extreme Engineering). What makes maglev trains so special is their ability to hover on the track, rather than using wheels and rails that create friction. (Hoffman). 200 miles per hour is fast but nowhere near the speed needed for a Transatlantic Tunnel. With track friction eliminated, there is still air resistance to take into consideration. The greater speed of a moving object, the greater the air resistance is, requiring that object to work harder to either keep or increase its speed. To do away with this air resistance, the Transatlantic Tunnel needs to be 100 percent airless. This can be easily done by simply pumping out all the air of the tunnel (Extreme Engineering). Without the presence of air, the maglev train will act as if it was freefalling. There have been experiments done at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a train falling through a tube, one with air and one without. The speed of the train in the vacuum is far greater than the one with air. Robert Childs, a vacuum engineer at MIT says in order to pump out all the air in the Transatlantic Tunnel it would take a couple months at pumping speed of millions and millions of cubic feet per hour (Extreme Engineer). It is plausible for the Transatlantic Tunnel to become a vacuum, only time is really required.
When everything seems to be falling into place, another problem arises. The force of acceleration would not comfortable for passenger or any human if the train is trying to reach 5,000 miles per hour at the instance of departure. When fighter pilots are undergoing a diving simulation, they have to experience g-forces reaching up to nine g. Whatever that certain fighter pilot weighs, they feel as if they weigh nine times as much (Transatlantic Tunnel). When reaching g-forces this large, the fighter pilot could potentially blackout due to the lack of blood in their brain. If this was the condition on the Transatlantic Tunnel train, the ride would be highly uncomfortable.
The solution to this problem is to have a gradual acceleration allowing the passengers to have a smooth and comfortable ride. In order to do so, the tunnel would have three different parts or three different legs. When people first board the train, the train will travel through the first leg, a 750 miles tunnel taking 18 minutes to reach its top speed. Then the train will cruise for the next 18 minutes at its top speed of 5,000 miles per hour covering 1,600 miles through the second leg (Under sea- WORMHOLE 'TRANSATLANTIC TUNNEL). During the last 18 minutes, the train will be traveling through its third leg, where the train’s speed would gradually deceleration, in order to come to a stop at the destination.
To increase comfort for the passengers, they would sit on rotating and slightly rocking seats to greater eliminate the feeling of the g-force. Also, since it is a maglev train, the passengers will feel almost no shaking or movement of the train. Each car would have their own pressurize air system working the same way as one inside a space shuttle. Passengers would experience a quick and pleasurable 54 minute ride. The tunnel will be separated into three sections, a top, middle, and bottom. The middle of the tunnel would be for the trains, east bound, west bound, and a middle track use for emergency purposes. Above and below the section where the trains will be running, there will be a service tube for maintenance, providing communication and access for repairs (Extreme Engineering). Those sections would also contain substation to power the maglev trains. The two main stations (boarding and exiting), would generate the power and then transfer it to the substations (Under sea- WORMHOLE 'TRANSATLANTIC TUNNEL). This way if there were any mechanics issues engineers and construction can easily access the area where something is dysfunctional.
When building tunnels, tunnel engineers have two main fears, fire and collision. The fire can be put out, but it is really difficult to vent out all the smoke from the fire. So in case of a fire, engineers decide to install a large amount of fire suppression system in every single car (Extreme Engineering). If a collision were to occur somewhere in the Transatlantic Tunnel, it will be really difficult to move the wreckage and passengers elsewhere because of the great length of the tunnel. To try to prevent a collision, the tunnel will be closely monitored at all times (Extreme Engineering). Alarms would be quickly triggered if any failure, large or small, occurred. These are situations that people have some control over.
Some doubters argue that when the inevitable happens, such as when a large underwater animal hits the tunnel that the tunnel would not survive. As mentioned earlier, the Transatlantic Tunnel would be closely monitored at all time. Also, if a whale reaches within two miles of the tunnel, the tether cables will slacken just slightly (Extreme Engineering). Releasing some slack will prepare the tunnel for impact. If the tether cables release too much slack, then the maglev train could potentially wrap, leading to a devastating crash. At the speed the passengers are travel and the thickness of the tunnel, the passengers will feel almost nothing at the time of impact. Then divers would be sent out at where the tunnel was hit to fix any damage done if there were any.
“The Transatlantic Tunnel is not beyond the reach of technology today”, says Frank Davidson (Extreme Engineering). Frank Davidson is one of the engineers who helped designed the English Channel Tunnel. If the Transatlantic Tunnel is built, it will inspire engineers all over the world. Potentially in the future, the seven continents will be connected by submerged tunnels all over the five oceans. Building the Transatlantic Tunnel is not impossible; people need to strive for an unreachable dream and work to make it possible.
Tenijua Dix --> Jason Lee
A. More transition sentences
B. Works Cited needs a little work
C. Connect paragraphs
No other comments
Tyler Buckley --> Jason Lee
A. Introduction is too long
B. Concorde no longer flies (Information) remove it
C. Grammar
D. Change sentence opener
Charise Bailey --> Jason Lee
A. Need more of my own analysis
No other comments
This is the format I am supposed to complete for my completion dates:
A minimum of 2 total pages due:
Monday, March 15, 2010
At least 2 additional pages (minimum of 4 pages total) due:
Friday, March 16, 2010
At least 2 additional pages (minimum of 6 pages total) due:
Monday, March 17, 2010
At least 2 additional pages (minimum of 8 pages total) due:
Friday, March 19, 2010
A minimum of 2 total pages due:
day of week, March 15, 2010
Impossible means not possible; unable to be, exist, happen, etc or unable to be done, performed, effected. Impossible is an adjective and it is a word which is use by many doubters. Yet, this is the one word that should be permanently removed. Impossible is one of the most misused words in the dictionary. Why, because nothing is ever impossible. Many once thought the Wright Brothers were will never be able to take flight. Look at the world now, planes are one of the main source of traveling from one end of the Earth to the other. Before 1969, going to the moon was looked at as an impossible task. Was it? No, Neil Armstrong was the first human to go to the moon and landed back on earth successfully. The English Channel Tunnel, to many it only seemed like an unreachable dream. During the 1994, the English Channel Tunnel was finally open, linking England and France (Channel Tunnel). The list continues on and on but, in every situation, the impossible was made possible. The Transatlantic Tunnel is only a dream as of now, a dream to link New York to London to Paris. Dreams are made to come true. The Transatlantic Tunnel is a plausible project because with every obstacle, there are ways to overcome them and when this is built, life around the world will change.
Every year, about 16 million people cross the Atlantic Ocean, most which is by plane (Extreme Engineering). The current average flight time from JFK Airport (New York City) to LHR Airport (London) is about 7 hours (Orbit). Within that time many things can be done and that is excluding the time spent in the Airport if there is a delay due to weather issues. Time is the one thing that money cannot buy because time doesn’t wait for no one. The Transatlantic Tunnel will enable people to leave in New York City and arrive in London in about fifty four minutes (Extreme Engineering). Travel time will be greatly reduced, allowing people to live on one end of the Atlantic Ocean and working in the other. Also one can have dinner in New York and have dessert in Paris. This idea sounds great and it had been dreamt by others as well.
People have had visionary of the Transatlantic Tunnel for more than a century. During 1935, the film, Transatlantic Tunnel, had a close and similar approach to how to build the Transatlantic Tunnel as engineers of today (TRANSATLANTIC TUNNEL – Looking Back Toward the Future). Also Harry Harrison, science fiction writer during the 1970s envisioned a Transatlantic Tunnel that will be supported by numerous number of sea bridges (Under sea- WORMHOLE 'TRANSATLANTIC TUNNEL). Although many people thought about a Transatlantic Tunnel, some people put this thought aside because they felt as if this will be too difficult of a task. But with everything, there are problems and with everything there are ways to find solutions.
The Transatlantic Tunnel will be the world’s longest tunnel in the world, stretching 3100 miles across the Atlantic Ocean (Transatlantic Tunnel). A tunnel this long requires a billion tunnel of steel to complete it from point A to point B. In order to output this much steel, it would take about one year if the entire steel mill factories combine their production together (Extreme Engineering). Along with this the price will reach a whooping 12 trillion dollars and over a century to complete. These are only the easier problems to solve.
First thing that must be done when building a tunnel, is to map out the route. Originally, engineers decided that a northern route would be best because it is also the shortest route, cutting half the distance of a submerge tunnel (Under sea- WORMHOLE 'TRANSATLANTIC TUNNEL). The shortest route seemed most efficient because that also means that it will be the shortest amount of construction time. Along with that, the cost of underwater tunnel can cost up to about 4 billion dollars per mile so mapping out the shortest route seemed to be the best idea (Transatlantic Tunnel). The northern route will begin at the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, crossing over Greenland and Iceland, then splitting right before the tunnel reaches Scotland and Norway. The tunnel crossing across the northern Atlantic Ocean meets no problems (Extreme Engineering). Eventually though, engineers soon realize that building a tunnel over Greenland will cause many problems during their brutal winter, slowing traffic due to high winds and ice (Extreme Engineering). Instead, they now agree that it would be best to build a tunnel leaving straight off of the coast of New York City to London to Paris.
After the route was chosen, the next step is to figure out how to build it. The most common way when it comes to building tunnels is to simply drill a hole which is done by a tunnel boring machine(Channel Tunnel The North of France).
At least 2 additional pages (minimum of 4 pages total) due:
day of week, March 16, 2010
The English Channel Tunnel was built by having a tunnel boring machine on both ends of the tunnel and eventually the hole was completed. Yet, scientist says that it will be near impossible to drill a straight hole all the way across the Atlantic Ocean. In comparison to the English Channel Tunnel, the Transatlantic Tunnel will take over three centuries to complete therefore drilling will not be one of the most efficient way (Extreme Engineering). In addition to that, the English Channel Tunnel is only about 300 feet below sea level at its deepest point, whereas, the Transatlantic Tunnel will have to sit five miles below sea level (The World Factbook). This far down the ocean the pressure is almost 500 times greater than the surface, so drilling a tunnel here is only going to become a big disappointment (Extreme Engineering). A tunnel five miles below sea level just would not be survivable for people or the tunnel itself.
Another method that engineers thought of is using an immerse tunnel. An immerse tunnel is where sections of the tunnel are fabricated on land. After sections of the tunnel are completed, they will be ship out to sea and then put together there. Engineers says that building an immerse tunnel will be much safer than to just simply boring a hole through the Earth (Extreme Engineering). Building a Transatlantic Tunnel using this method would require about 54,000 of these prefabricated sections. In order to produce this large amount of tunnel sections, it will take 20 years if, 225 factories are continuously working around the clock and every single one of the tunnel sections are put towards this project (Extreme Engineering). Creating the tunnel is only the first step of this process. After all 54,000 of the tunnel sections are completely, they will then need to be towed out to sea. The distance the tunnel will have to travel may be right off the shore to as far out as 1500 miles. When the sections reach their destination point, this is where the work will start to become difficult. The sections lower down by immersion pontoon. Divers working beneath the water will have to work in almost totally darkness and are only able to depend on the global positioning system, allowing them to position the tunnel section to exactly the right spot (Extreme Engineering). Divers must remain cautions at all time because the tunnel sections could pinch a diver’s air hose and evidently suffocating to death. But since the immerse tunnels also sit at the bottom of the ocean, it will lead to total failure for a Transatlantic Tunnel because it will have to sit too deep. Also once again, enormous pressure, about 12million pounds per square inch at the deepest part of the ocean, the tunnel will be crushed to death (Under sea- WORMHOLE 'TRANSATLANTIC TUNNEL).
At least 2 additional pages (minimum of 6 pages total) due:
day of week, March 17, 2010
With these two ideas crushed and tossed in the trash can, there is left only one idea, building a submerged floating tunnel (Transatlantic Tunnel). Now this is a fairly new idea and has never been tried before but some engineers are confident that this will work. Chief engineer of Norway Roads Administrations, Håvard Østlid says, “The submerged floating tunnel and the immerse tunnel are very similar. But the immerse tunnel is resting in the trench on the bottom of the river, of the crossing. The submerged floating tunnel is suspended in water and has water all around it” (Extreme Engineering). To have a submerged tunnel work, there need to be the perfect balance of air and ballast to allow the tunnel to float at the particular depth. How the way the submerged floating tunnel needs to be balance work exactly the same as a submarine (Extreme Engineering). The main concern for a submerged floating tunnel is that it may very well, float away.
At the very beginning of the tunnel, it is possible to build large piers sitting under the tunnel, supporting them similar to bridges (Transatlantic Tunnel). Continuing the piers throughout the whole 3,100 miles will be very difficult to do. The piers will be like their own project. With depth reaching up to five miles deep, this method will be not one of the best options to support the submerged floating tunnel for the Transatlantic Tunnel.
Engineers have also come up with another option that engineers that may support the tunnel from above the water. To do so, the Transatlantic Tunnel will have large pontoons possibly holding the tunnel in place (Extreme Engineering). Yet, with the strong wind and powerful currents of the Atlantic Ocean, the tunnel will easier be tossed around like a rag doll.
Another method is to have a number of long cables that are connect to the tunnel. Then the pipes will be attached to the sea floor by suction anchor (Extreme Engineering). The way this will work is that while the anchors are driving into the sea floor, water will be forced out creating a tight vacuum seal. This method is already in use today except instead of cables, long steel pipes were in use. Some off-shore oil platform uses this method to keep their 3,060 ton platforms in place and stayed in place for more than a decade (Extreme Engineering).
When using this idea for the Transatlantic Tunnel, the cable will be holding it down. Working just opposite of what suspension bridges do. The advantage in using cables to hold down the tunnel is that the cables are certainly strong enough, yet it is not 100 percent rigid (Extreme Engineering). This will allow the tunnel to sway just a little bit with the underwater current.
At least 2 additional pages (minimum of 8 pages total) due:
day of week, March 19, 2010
The design of the tunnel gives some engineers hope that the Transatlantic Tunnel could one day happen. Yet, another question then comes to mind. Could a train possibly travel at the speed of 5,000 miles per hour? Diesel train will definitely not be an option, because there would be no way to vent out the exhaust. Therefore, engineers rely on an electric maglev or magnetic levitation train. The fastest train today is the bullet train, traveling at speed greater than 200 miles per hour (Briney, Amanda). Bob Budell, a project engineer says, “In theory there are no limit to how fast a maglev train can go. There are obviously practical limits, there are also economical limit. But the technology itself is capable of much higher speed” (Extreme Engineering). What makes maglev trains so special is their ability to hover on the track, rather than using wheels and rails that create friction. (Hoffman). 200 miles per hour is fast but nowhere near the speed needed for a Transatlantic Tunnel.
With track friction eliminated, there is still air resistance to take into consideration. The greater speed of a moving object, the greater the air resistance is, requiring that object to work harder to either keep or increase its speed. To do away with this air resistance, the Transatlantic Tunnel needs to be 100 percent airless. This can be easily done by simply pumping out all the air of the tunnel (Extreme Engineering). Without the presence of air, the maglev train will act as if it was freefalling. There have been experiments done at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a train falling through a tube, one with air and one without. The speed of the train in the vacuum is far greater than the one with air. Robert Childs, a vacuum engineer at MIT says in order to pump out all the air in the Transatlantic Tunnel it would take a couple months at pumping speed of millions and millions of cubic feet per hour (Extreme Engineer). It is plausible for the Transatlantic Tunnel to become a vacuum, only time is really required.
When everything seems to be falling into place, another problem arises. The force of acceleration would not comfortable for passenger or any human if the train is trying to reach 5,000 miles per hour at the instance of departure. When fighter pilots are undergoing a diving simulation, they have to experience g-forces reaching up to nine g. Whatever that certain fighter pilot weighs, they feel as if they weigh nine times as much (Transatlantic Tunnel). When reaching g-forces this large, the fighter pilot could potentially blackout due to the lack of blood in their brain. If this was the condition on the Transatlantic Tunnel train, the ride would be highly uncomfortable.
The solution to this problem is to have a gradual acceleration allowing the passengers to have a smooth and comfortable ride. In order to do so, the tunnel would have three different parts or three different legs. When people first board the train, the train will travel through the first leg, a 750 miles tunnel taking 18 minutes to reach its top speed. Then the train will cruise for the next 18 minutes at its top speed of 5,000 miles per hour covering 1,600 miles through the second leg (Under sea- WORMHOLE 'TRANSATLANTIC TUNNEL). During the last 18 minutes, the train will be traveling through its third leg, where the train’s speed would gradually deceleration, in order to come to a stop at the destination.
To increase comfort for the passengers, they would sit on rotating and slightly rocking seats to greater eliminate the feeling of the g-force. Also, since it is a maglev train, the passengers will feel almost no shaking or movement of the train. Each car would have their own pressurize air system working the same way as one inside a space shuttle. Passengers would experience a quick and pleasurable 54 minute ride.
The tunnel will be separated into three sections, a top, middle, and bottom. The middle of the tunnel would be for the trains, east bound, west bound, and a middle track use for emergency purposes. Above and below the section where the trains will be running, there will be a service tube for maintenance, providing communication and access for repairs (Extreme Engineering). Those sections would also contain substation to power the maglev trains. The two main stations (boarding and exiting), would generate the power and then transfer it to the substations (Under sea- WORMHOLE 'TRANSATLANTIC TUNNEL). This way if there were any mechanics issues engineers and construction can easily access the area where something is dysfunctional.
When building tunnels, tunnel engineers have two main fears, fire and collision. The fire can be put out, but it is really difficult to vent out all the smoke from the fire. So in case of a fire, engineers decide to install a large amount of fire suppression system in every single car (Extreme Engineering). If a collision were to occur somewhere in the Transatlantic Tunnel, it will be really difficult to move the wreckage and passengers elsewhere because of the great length of the tunnel. To try to prevent a collision, the tunnel will be closely monitored at all times (Extreme Engineering). Alarms would be quickly triggered if any failure, large or small, occurred. These are situations that people have some control over.
Some doubters argue that when the inevitable happens, such as when a large underwater animal hits the tunnel that the tunnel would not survive. As mentioned earlier, the Transatlantic Tunnel would be closely monitored at all time. Also, if a whale reaches within two miles of the tunnel, the tether cables will slacken just slightly (Extreme Engineering). Releasing some slack will prepare the tunnel for impact. If the tether cables release too much slack, then the maglev train could potentially wrap, leading to a devastating crash. At the speed the passengers are travel and the thickness of the tunnel, the passengers will feel almost nothing at the time of impact. Then divers would be sent out at where the tunnel was hit to fix any damage done if there were any.
“The Transatlantic Tunnel is not beyond the reach of technology today”, says Frank Davidson (Extreme Engineering). Frank Davidson is one of the engineers who helped designed the English Channel Tunnel. If the Transatlantic Tunnel is built, it will inspire engineers all over the world. Potentially in the future, the seven continents will be connected by submerged tunnels all over the five oceans. Building the Transatlantic Tunnel is not impossible; people need to strive for an unreachable dream and work to make it possible.