At a seminar in December 2004, academic members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering discussed an idea that seems straight out of science fiction.
It's called the Evacuated Tube Transport, or ETT, and works like this: Instead of in the open, maglev tracks are enclosed in parallel tubes (one for each direction) from which all air is permanently pumped out (evacuated).
Pressurised passenger capsules, comparable to cabins of private business jets, hurtle through the tubes without any resistance, as if through space, at a minimum speed of 4,000 kph and using less than a tenth of the energy consumed by an aeroplane.
Crazy? Maybe to us, who think an 85 kph train is a Duranto. But the fact that ETT has already infiltrated the Chinese mind leaves no doubt about the direction they want to take and how far into the future they are prepared to look. - Thanks Rediff...
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