I do realize there has been a lack of posting on my blog. This originally started as a project to keep me occupied while I was looking for work, slowly some work has started to build up and I am finding myself with a lack of time to complete my articles. I aim to rectify this as I have three article currently near completion. I like to have all my articles 100% accurate with information rounded up from multiple reliable sources to verify them, as well as an interactive feature relating to the article subject, this can take some time as some of the articles I post relate to topics I am currently researching into. Therefore even simple information has to be cross checked to make sure it is accurate. Also I don't want my articles to be mind numbingly boring for you while I find them interesting so I read them over carefully.
Hopefully in the coming weeks, I'll have articles posted regarding Fuel Cells, and whether they will be the next alternative power source, as well as the Jupiter moon Europa, and its importance in the future of planetary exploration. I appreciate everyone who's looked at my blog. Thank you.
If you're into business and economical issues you can check out a great friend of mines blog here http://economicfollowing.blogspot.com/
Monday 6 June 2011
Tuesday 24 May 2011
Transatlantic Tunnel: A never ending pipe dream
There are many challenges in engineering, some where the boundaries are lack of money and investment, others where technology hasn't caught up enough to make the idea plausible. The challenge to build a tunnel that stretches across the Atlantic ocean has been an idea that has remained a pipe dream since the idea was first thought up. There has not been an idea that has gone passed the conceptual phase due to the sheer cost and time involved to construct them as well as the technology not being available. According to an article at t3.com though the technology has now caught up. [1]
Many ideas have been proposed but there is one, initially developed in the 1960s, that has had more thought put in than any opposing ideas. The distance from London to New York is over 3000 miles and a tunnel was proposed where the train would travel through a vacuum, so there would be no air resistance. It would be propelled using the same technology as maglev lines which use large magnets to lift the train off the track (so there is no friction) and which could propel the train up to speeds of 5000 miles an hour in the vacuum of the tunnel. This would make the journey time under an hour, though it would take nearly 20 minutes to comfortably reach the speed without feeling like your riding a roller coaster.
Bob Idell is quoted as saying “With today’s technology and costs, a fair guesstimate would be that we could probably tunnel a distance of 100m per week on average, at an approximate cost of £50m per km.”[1] To save you time on the maths, that would take roughly 1000 years to complete at a cost of $404.5billion (£250billion). Bob Idell is the chair of the British Tunnelling Society and while these figures are just a guess, it shows this megaproject would take a very long time and an awful lot of money to build.
The show Extreme Engineering on the Discovery Channel explained the proposal in more detail and provided an interactive feature at the link below.
Extreme Engineering: Transatlantic Tunnel Interactive Feature
This is just one idea of many but they all show we are a long way away from constructing a fast route directly across the Atlantic ocean. If it was ever to go ahead, by the time it had been constructed, the aerospace industry may have the ability to carry large amounts of passengers and cargo from Europe to America within an hour, using advanced technology such as Scramjets along with stronger, lighter more cost effective materials. Therefore would it be worth building the transatlantic tunnel at all?
Do you think the idea of a transatlantic tunnel is worth considering or is it worth the time and money it would cost to construct?
Regards,
Mark
There are a lot more advantages and disadvantages to the idea of a transatlantic tunnel, the discussion could go on for hours but I wanted to keep the article as short as I possibly could. Am very interested to hear your ideas and thoughts on the transatlantic tunnel as I think it could be an amazing and useful megastructure.
Sources:
[1] Article at t3 http://www.t3.com/feature/future-tech-transatlantic-tunnel-travel
Many ideas have been proposed but there is one, initially developed in the 1960s, that has had more thought put in than any opposing ideas. The distance from London to New York is over 3000 miles and a tunnel was proposed where the train would travel through a vacuum, so there would be no air resistance. It would be propelled using the same technology as maglev lines which use large magnets to lift the train off the track (so there is no friction) and which could propel the train up to speeds of 5000 miles an hour in the vacuum of the tunnel. This would make the journey time under an hour, though it would take nearly 20 minutes to comfortably reach the speed without feeling like your riding a roller coaster.
Bob Idell is quoted as saying “With today’s technology and costs, a fair guesstimate would be that we could probably tunnel a distance of 100m per week on average, at an approximate cost of £50m per km.”[1] To save you time on the maths, that would take roughly 1000 years to complete at a cost of $404.5billion (£250billion). Bob Idell is the chair of the British Tunnelling Society and while these figures are just a guess, it shows this megaproject would take a very long time and an awful lot of money to build.
The show Extreme Engineering on the Discovery Channel explained the proposal in more detail and provided an interactive feature at the link below.
Extreme Engineering: Transatlantic Tunnel Interactive Feature
This is just one idea of many but they all show we are a long way away from constructing a fast route directly across the Atlantic ocean. If it was ever to go ahead, by the time it had been constructed, the aerospace industry may have the ability to carry large amounts of passengers and cargo from Europe to America within an hour, using advanced technology such as Scramjets along with stronger, lighter more cost effective materials. Therefore would it be worth building the transatlantic tunnel at all?
Do you think the idea of a transatlantic tunnel is worth considering or is it worth the time and money it would cost to construct?
Regards,
Mark
There are a lot more advantages and disadvantages to the idea of a transatlantic tunnel, the discussion could go on for hours but I wanted to keep the article as short as I possibly could. Am very interested to hear your ideas and thoughts on the transatlantic tunnel as I think it could be an amazing and useful megastructure.
Sources:
[1] Article at t3 http://www.t3.com/feature/future-tech-transatlantic-tunnel-travel
Monday 16 May 2011
Endeavour: Final voyage into Space
The Space Shuttle Endeavour launched just under two hours ago from Kennedy Space Center at 8:56am EDT, that is 13:56pm BST for anyone in my home country. A launch was scheduled for 29th April 2011 but was delayed due to an electrical problem. In case you don't know about the purpose of this mission, here is some information about what the mission objective is and what the equipment being sent will be used for.
The mission objective is to deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 (AMS-02), the ExPRESS Logistics Carrier-3 (ELC3), a high pressure gas tank and various spares parts to the international space station. It is the last flight for the Endeavour shuttle and was initially the final mission of the space shuttle program, until information was released regarding an additional mission scheduled for launch in July.
The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 is a state of the art machine which has been in constant development since the initial concept was proposed in 1995. The prototype Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-01), was first sent into space on the Discovery in June 1998. The machine will be used to aid understanding of the universe and of the origins of the universe, it will be mounted externally and measure cosmic rays to try and detect dark matter and antimatter. Below is a NASA video overview of the machine.
The ExPRESS Logistics Carrier-3 is an unpressurized payload platform which is used to allow scientists to deploy experiments in the vacuum of space as well as providing electrical power and data handling services for these experiments. The ELC-3 will join the other three ExPRESS Logistic Carrier platforms already attached to the International Space Station.
This will be Endeavours final mission and after the scheduled mission in July will mean the decommission of the space shuttle program. The space shuttle will then be replaced with the Orion spacecraft which is currently being built and is planned to begin testing in 2013. For more information about the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-02 visit this site http://www.ams02.org/what-is-ams/
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