[Vo]:Future transportation with cold fusion and robots
I covered this subject in the book. Here are some updated thoughts about various systems. *Telecommuting* Still the best answer for most work-related transportation needs. I predict this will be the best solution forever. At least on one planet. Obviously would not work well between the Earth and Mars. It would be difficult from the Earth to the Moon because of the time delay. I recommend small satellite offices rather than working from home. *Automobiles* Progress in self driving automobiles is occurring much faster than I imagined it would. I think it is essential to have self driving automobiles as soon as possible. This will greatly reduce the number of accidents and it will improve the flow of traffic. People do not realize the potential for the latter. The thing is, fully computerized cars will cooperate with one another better than human drivers ever could. They will know the intentions of all other cars. Thus, for example, you could eliminate many traffic lights and replace them with stop signs. A car approaching an intersection would receive a signal from an oncoming car warning at that the oncoming car intends to turn in front. Or he would receive a signal saying that the car intends to stop and wait for another car to cross. Where there are still traffic signals, all of the vehicles could communicate with a traffic signal to arrange optimum wait times. I predict that the bulk of transportation will be met with automobiles far into the future. That is, individual, ground-based wheeled-vehicles that transport people or freight from door to door. Some of the may be much smaller than today's automobiles. For example vehicles that deliver groceries or mail may be the size of a shopping cart. I predict that taxies will become much more popular than they are today in many places including suburbs. They will resemble today's Zip cars more than what you think of as a taxi now. That is, you will call one on your cell phone or computer and it will show up at the door when you need it. The problems with today's taxies are: They have human drivers so they are expensive. The drivers are often surly or they drive like kamikaze pilots. Robot vehicles will eliminate this. Taxies are often late coming. This is partly because traffic is so unpredictable today. Future traffic control systems, underground roads, and robot drivers will reduce this problem. Taxies are often dirty, or poorly maintained. In the future they will be cleaned up after every passenger by a robot, and thoroughly cleaned at the end of each day. They will be kept in perfect operating condition by robot labor. I expect that many other machines, houses, and infrastructure will also be kept in better condition than today. The advantages of using taxies in the future will be: This reduces the parking problem. The taxi takes you to your destination and then drives a way to pick up some other person. It is not left downtown all day long taking up space. This problem can also be reduced by having self driving cars drop you off at your destination and then drive a considerable distance to an underground parking lot, or even back to your house until you are ready to go home. It reduces cost of ownership. It spreads the cost among many people. The cost of ownership of automobiles will also be greatly reduced because automobile accident insurance will not be needed. Robot vehicle accidents will be extremely rare. Probably about as rare as today's commercial aircraft accidents. When robot vehicles have accidents it will probably be front page news. The cost of such accidents will be covered by society as a whole. They will be so rare it will not be worth bothering with individual insurance policies. This is how air travel works today. Every ticket comes with built-in insurance, which probably costs a few cents. This also reduces the hassles of owning a vehicle. Many of these hassles will be reduced anyway, because the vehicle will largely maintain itself. When it is time for routine maintenance, the vehicle will drive itself to the dealership in the middle of the night. Robots will test it, change the lubrication, rotate the tires and so on. The car will be back at your house before morning. By the way, I do not expect tires will be pneumatic. If they are they will have permanent pockets of air like a sponge. *Air cars and VTOL aircraft* I stick to the predictions I made in my book. Small VTOL air cars I do not think these will be as popular as some people predict, because they will be disruptive. I do not want to see cities and towns with many vehicles cluttering up the airspace everywhere you look. I predict the things will only be used at a few places around cities. Perhaps where we now have shopping malls. A stream of vehicles go up and down in five or 10 locations in a major city would not be so bad. Having vehicles take off and land in any neighborhood anywhere in the city would be disruptive. VTOL aircraft may be quiet in the
Re: [Vo]:Future transportation with cold fusion and robots
They have human drivers so they are expensive. The drivers are often surly... A slur such as 'surly' surely does not apply to the great majority of drivers.
Re: [Vo]:Future transportation with cold fusion and robots
I know I've already mentioned Evacuated Tube Transports in another topic (similar to SwissMetro), but I feel the benefits of such a system have not been fully realized. ETT could easily be built with current existing technologies, its just a matter of engineering, and gathering resources (expensive). -Assuming a straight global backbone ET3 track, the speeds could reach up to 2000mph, offering faster travel than aircraft or any other method. -Extremely energy/resource efficient -High density computer automated traffic I would imagine it would be more economical to build above ground, and its only a 5ft diameter tube, comparable to building an oil pipeline. Global shipping trade and traveling could be largely reduced with distributed hubs across the world, and as Jed said autonomous cars/taxis for local travel. http://www.et3.com/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03kVU2FYl6U (Highly recommend) I would like to see more educated debates about this technology, weighing in on the pros and cons of adopting such a system.
Re: [Vo]:Future transportation with cold fusion and robots
Vorl Bek vorl@antichef.com wrote: A slur such as 'surly' surely does not apply to the great majority of drivers. Perhaps you have not taken many taxies in Atlanta or New York City. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Future transportation with cold fusion and robots
Drowning Trout drowningtro...@gmail.com wrote: -Assuming a straight global backbone ET3 track, the speeds could reach up to 2000mph . . . I think that is a really, really bad idea. If something goes wrong with the control system for few milliseconds, the train would collide with the wall and both the train and the tunnel would be vaporized. It might take weeks or months to repair. If the tunnel was underwater (as some proposed systems would be) the entire tunnel would fill with water. You cannot have emergency airlocks or compartments with trains going through that fast. A disaster with an airplane kills only the passengers and crew. It does not disable the whole transportation system. , offering faster travel than aircraft or any other method. That is Mach 4. There have been military airplanes faster than that. There is no reason why commercial aircraft cannot be made that fast, especially when cold fusion makes the cost of fuel negligible. -Extremely energy/resource efficient This would make no difference with cold fusion. It would save a few dollars in fuel every year. -High density computer automated traffic VTOL aircraft traffic can be high density and eventually it will be fully automated. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Future transportation with cold fusion and robots
Von: Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com An: vortex-l@eskimo.com Gesendet: 22:48 Freitag, 6.April 2012 Betreff: Re: [Vo]:Future transportation with cold fusion and robots I think that is a really, really bad idea. The reason I'm not very sympathetic to LENR or any 'infinite energy' ideas, is that too many idiots out there would be doing the wrong things. (what is 'wrong'?, You could ask. but the answer to this question is quite easy /to me at least.) So I positively hope that this whole LENR thing is complete bogus. The reason, why I'm engaged in this, is that I/my group does not want to be in the backseat, if this turns out to be real, and finally the idiots take over, and ultimately ruin the planet. This would be the absolute worst case! Hans im Glueck. You know. All told already 200years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_in_Luck; Guenter.
Re: [Vo]:Future transportation with cold fusion and robots
I wrote: VTOL aircraft traffic can be high density and eventually it will be fully automated. Conventional fossil fuel VTOL can have higher traffic density than regular aircraft because the aircraft can slow down or hover before landing, whereas regular airplanes have to keep moving in a holding pattern. I think airplanes in a holding pattern are at least 5 km apart. (3 nautical miles?) Cold fusion VTOL can have higher density than fossil fuel ones because they could hover indefinitely. For example, when bad weather backs up traffic over an airport, incoming aircraft could hover above the rain clouds, in static horizontal arrays with the aircraft much closer together than today's airplanes flying a holding pattern. You would not want them in a vertical array. Traffic density would also be higher because VTOL do not have to move horizontally before reaching cruising altitude. They would go straight up. Some of them do not do this nowadays because it wastes fuel. They transition to horizontal flight as soon as they are clear of the ground, instead of going straight up. Suppose there were 10 aircraft taking off in one timeslot, all heading in different directions. They could all rise from the tarmac at the same time, as long as they rose from widely separated gates. After they reach cruising altitude they would fan out in different directions. The trick would be to have a westbound flight take off from the west side of the airport, so it does not have to cross paths with an eastbound flight. They would both rise straight up, then head away from the airport in opposite directions. Airplanes would take off an land a few hundred meters from the terminal gates they use. They would not need runways. The runway is the worst bottleneck. - Jed
