h a l f b a k e r yA riddle wrapped in a mystery inside a rich, flaky crust
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Space Train
A train that travels in a sraight line on a track built level against the curve of the Earth. | |
Space Train is constructed of a seemingly endless series of cars
that are unbending at their conjunctions, so that the train can
only travel in a straight line. The track is electrically charged
and
the cars are powered like subway cars. The cars are very light,
but very rigid, however the
entire train is so long the overall
mass
is extremely great.
The train moves at an incredible rate of
speed. The track is so long and straight that as the Earth curves
the track must be elevated by support structures to keep it
straight. The cars contain jet fuel and each car has jet
propulsion.
The support structure of the track is such a feat of engineering
that the Earth appears shaped like a teardrop in two
dimensional
images from space.
The Space Train therefore has the first ever
horizontal-vertical launch. Although the launch is technically
horizontal it appears vertical depending where one is watching
from on Earth. In fact two tracks intersecting at the point of
the teardrop can launch Space Trains from two adjacent sides of
the Earth.
Calculating distance to the horizon
http://www.ringbell.co.uk/info/hdist.htm
Useful for this Idea; plug in 10000m height, see how long the straight track would be. [Vernon, Feb 16 2013]
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It's hard to know where to begin with this. |
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You could start with some paragraph breaks. I want to like it, but it's going to take me a while to find a station to get on at. |
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Knowing nothing about space, I can only analyze the train-
related aspects of this idea. |
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The only flaws are the physics and engineering. It's
inconceivable that this should not fail to work. |
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// a track built level against the curve of the Earth //
All the railways follow the Earth curvature at ground level .
Why do this one need to reach space level ? |
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[MB] One day a train will be conducted straight into
space
and
hats will be served in the dining car. |
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[Piluso] the track cannot follow the curvature of the
Earth
because the train must escape the pull of gravity and
travel into space. |
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Based on the drawing I have made using a ruler and a
compass, the train will not be travelling vertically and
linearly from the centre of the Earth, but tangentally
from the curve so the train given certain altitudinal loft
will begin to descend orbitally towards the surface of
the Earth. However, given enough escape velocity from
accelerated mass and jet engines, Space Train will not
descend into a catastrophic fiery wreck. |
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Per the link and the calculator, a track 357.3 kilometers long, and perfectly straight, would have one end at the surface of the Earth and the other end 10,000 meters in the air. This is the altitude at which passenger jets routinely fly a little less than the speed of sound. That means you have all those kilometers to get your train up to that speed. Of course, if you want your train to go into orbit, you will need an even longer track. |
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The calculator says that for a 100 kilometer height, a conventional measure for "where the atmosphere ends and Space begins", the length of the perfectly straight track is 1133.9 kilometers. You will want your train to be traveling something like 29,000 kph to get into orbit, by the time it reaches the end of that track. Good luck! |
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Knowing nothing about space, or trains..oh. |
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Suspect you could meaningfully turn that "going up into space" part of the track as a spiral, and try and re-use the energy from the coming-down train to help raise the going-up one. |
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I suggest the whole thing can be easily powered by a cat-o-tron. |
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Briefly, the inner ring is a lined with buttered toast, butter outmost, and the outer ring has many cats strapped to it, feet innermost. |
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When the Space Train is close for maintenance, will there
be a Space Train Replacement Bus Service? |
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This idea is presented more of a thought experiment than a serious proposal. I'm trying to visualize what the experience would be for a passenger on the Space Train. The trip would undoubtedly start off horizontal, but given a track that remains level despite the curve of the Earth, would at one point passengers experience vertical ascent? My visualization is that it wouldn't, but given that from another point of observation on Earth the ascent would be vertical that conclusion might be incorrect. |
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If the space train were circumnavigating the Earth really,
really fast, like mathlessly fast, and the train remained
pefectly 'level' (by which I'm assuming you mean 'upright'),
logic dictates (to me) that at some point the passengers
would experience weightlessness. It would be right about
then that you'd fire off your lift rockets and the train
would vector away from the planet, so it might be a good
idea to have everyone remain seated, or to do a couple of
zero-gravity playtime laps to let everyone get it out of
their systems. |
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Don't worry, that happens to everyone at some point. You
know you've achieved critical mass when [beanangel] starts
making sense. |
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//mathlessly fast// [Marked-for-tagline] |
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There are three extreme options. |
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Option 1 - the track (and hence train) goes
straight up (ie, the track is perpendicular to the
Earth's surface). Unfeasible at present and, in any
case, if you stepped off the train when it stopped
at the top, you'd fall right back down again.
Unless, that is, the track reached geostationary
orbit, in which case you'd be weightless at the top
and in geostationary orbit. |
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Option 2 - the track starts off horizontal, and just
carries on dead straight, tangentially to the Earth's
surface. As you travelled, you'd initially feel as if
you were on a regular train (assuming the
acceleration was much less than 1G) but, as you
continued, you'd feel as if the train were tilting
upward. After many thousands of miles, you'd feel
as if the train were travelling straight up, with
gravity pulling you onto the seatback (if you're
facing forward). If you stepped off the train, you'd
again fall back down, unless you were at the point
of geostationary orbit. This would happen after
your total distance of travel was slightly more
than the radius of a geostationary orbit (you're
travelling along the hypoteneuse of a long thin
triangle; when the adjacent side of the triangle is
as long as the radius of geostationary orbit, you're
in geostationary orbit). |
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Option 3 - the track starts off horizontal, and
carries on like a normal railway track, following
the curvature of the earth in a great circle. In this
case, if you remain on the train long enough you
will come to Swindon, which is clearly not ideal.
However, if the train can reach a speed of
something like 8km/s, you will be in orbit, albeit
at ground level. Sadly, the atmospheric
compression will have long since melted the train.
If you had a super-super ceramic unmeltable train,
you would still have a problem because, if the
train relied on contact between conventional
wheels and the track for propulsion, it could never
accelerate beyond this very-very-low orbit. |
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Option 4 - the track starts out horizontal, then
curves toward the centre of the earth _but_ not
as strongly as the earth's surface. Thus, you take
a spiralling route outward. If the train can reach
sufficient speed by the end of the track, it will
continue in orbit. The bad news is that, unless
the train has rockets that can change its velocity
after it leaves the end of the track, its orbit will
bring it right back to the end of the track and it
will crash into it. This is true regardless of the
train's speed as it leaves the track - a higher speed
just means that it makes a more elongated
elliptical orbit before returning to the end of the
track. |
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Those are very good, but unfortunately that's four and not
three options, therefore being unable to count to four
invalidates your assessment. Maybe someone with better
numeracy will give it a try. |
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[max] you could have a half-spiral inside Box Tunnel and the train could continue at more than 8km/s upside down. |
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[rcarty] there are 4 options; 3 extreme; therefore logically one must be realistic. Proved. Now to find out which one. |
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OK, here I am. I will fix it. Tracks held up above the surface of eath on struts or suspended by balloons seems wobbly, and that could be scary. Instead, the track begins at the surface but then allows the earth to curve up and over while it maintains a straight line. The depth of the tunnel at maximum will depend on how long of a track is necessary for the train to achieve escape velocity. Maximally long would go directly thru the earths center which would of course be unrealistic. Second longest would be one side of an equilateral triangle, the center of the triangle being the eath's core. Shorter tracks would be sides of increasingly sided polygons. After the use of math reveals how long the track must be, the appropriate polygon is selected and away you go! |
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That's the most ironic, counter-intuitive Space Train
because it travels undeground like a subway, but also
somehow to space. |
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//that's four and not three options// No, because
Option 1 is not feasible with current materials
and,
therefore, not an option. |
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// Second longest would be one side of an
equilateral triangle, the center of the triangle
being
the eath's core.// No, second longest would be
one
that just grazed the core. |
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However, I wonder if all this engineering is strictly
necessary. Much progress in psychiatry and
climatology has been made by understanding and
harnessing the placebo effect; perhaps it is time
for physics and engineering to adopt a similar
approach. |
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Here's another hypothetical thought experiment that
might satisfy those requirements: A
scientist has a ball and some means of throwing it any
speed and any trajectory. He knows the Earth is
travelling
through space rotationally at a certain speed and also
orbitally at a certain speed and trajectory. He wants to
throw the ball so the travel of the planet and the travel
of
the ball cancel the other out so the ball technically
remains stationary and therefore ends up in space as the
Earth continues on. The question: is it possible to
throw a ball in space if Earth (and everyone on it) isn't
going to be there. |
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Allow for the ball to be thrown from a train moving at
the exact speed of the Earth in the opposite direction. |
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Not possible. First, you need to define "stationary"
relative to something. So let's say relative to the
Sun (otherwise he will have also to allow for the
motion of the sun in our galaxy, the motion of our
galaxy in the universe, and... then there's nothing
relative to which to measure velocity). |
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If he throws the ball in such a way that it remains
stationary w.r.t. the Sun, it will simply fall directly
into the Sun. |
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What if the scientist reasons that something is to dark
matter as an anchor is to the ocean, and employs that
something to keep the ball stationary in space after
deploying it from a hot air balloon powered by his own
breath ? |
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That's all well and good, but what if he doesn't?
Answer me that. |
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Simple. He tidies up a little around the house, eats a light
supper, maybe reads a little and goes to bed. |
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[marked-for-deletion] bad science. |
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Yes, but it's _our_ bad science. |
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The only bit on a roller coaster that scares the crap out of me is the very beginning when the train is climbing that first hill at a painfully slow pace with attendant clanking and shaking. Just sayin'. |
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What happens if you have the Super Saver Space Train ticket and it turns out not to be valid because it's after 4pm on a Thursday in a month that has an "r" in it? |
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