Anybody else seen this show on the Discovery channel? The mega-projects that are being talked about for Japan are way cool! Why can’t we get something like those built here in the States?
Some of the disaster scenerios are pretty cheesy (and none so far have mentioned anything about hijacked planes crashing into them), but the CG is pretty to look at.
Still, I can’t help but doubt that any of these will get done. After all, Bucky Fuller talked about the benefits putting a dome over New York City, and totally rebuilding St. Louis, but none of these things have come to pass. It’s nice to dream, though.
I saw the episodes about the undersea train tunnel and the giant high-rise for Tokyo, but only caught the last few minutes of the pyramid city one. The tunnel seemed especially far-fetched, esp. since they haven’t used the technology even for short tunnels yet! And I can’t picture anyone willing to travel 5,000 MILES PER HOUR under the ocean!!
I too was surprised they didn’t mention a 9/11-type scenario for the tower, that’s certainly a major concern these days…
Last year they had a special called “Building the Impossible” which featured a bridge across the Gibraltar Strait, that one actually looked feasable with current technology.
The disaster for the undersea tunnel was VERY lame. Aging submarine that just happens to be at the exact same depth as the tunnel, is on a collision course with the tunnel, and lost all control? Don’t subs have nigh-perfect emergency sufacing methods? (or diving methods?) just flood a tank a bit! I’m guessing there are backup manual valves for this sort of thing.
The whole Trans-Atlantic Tunnel was lame, especially the wayward submarine. Well, I feel safer knowing that the hypothetical tunnel can withstand a sideswipe from a submarine.
Plus, whenever the trains went by, the whole tunnel would shake. I thought they were in a frictionless Maglev train in a vacumm. Why all the shaking?
The tunnel would take about 100 years to complete. Wouldn’t advances in aviation during that time likely substantially reduce the cost-effectiveness of a huge tunnel? This seems like a case of present-day futurists being limited in their vision by modern technology (e.g., the computer terminals on the original Star Trek and later on Battlestar Gallactica).
On the Bering Straight bridge… would there be enough traffic or strategic military value to warrant the cost of contruction and maintenance? Perhaps San Francisco’s Bay Bridge should take priority, or high speed rail between NorCal and SoCal, or a pipeline of fresh water from Alaska to California… etc.
Probably because your politicians are more sensible than ours. In Japan, politicians (at least the Liberal Democratic Party ones) still seem to think the way to stimulate the economy is through huge government spending, even if it means building bridges and roads nobody will ever use. I’ve seen to some very remote locations in Japan and am constantly amazed by how much construction is going on. The Akashi bridge, currently (or formerly?) the longest bridge in the world, was made to link two land masses which were already linked by two other bridge complexes, and far away from major cities. It just doesn’t make sense to build something of that magnitude in the hopes that it will create demand.
My brother and I caught the last half of the “Atlantic train” one last weekend. We’re both convinced that the ideas for this show were found by hiding a tape recorder in a bar by the engineering schools.
Engineer1: Y’know what we need? Another tunnel. Making tunnels is fun.
Engineer2: I like tunnels. Big tunnels.
Engineer3: Biggest -ing tunnel in the world!
E1: To England!
E3: That’s a big tunnel.
E2: You’d need gas stations.
E1: Nonono. No gas stations. No cars, see? Exhaust would kill everyone, it’d be a tube full of corpses, like that movie.
E2: No cars? Then what?
E3: Trains.
All: Trains! ::“clink” as they smash their glasses together::
::pause::
E2: That’s a long trip.
E3: Take a fast train.
E1: How fast?
E3: How long do we want the trip?
E2: How fast’s the Concorde?
E1: I dunno. Speed of sound, plus some. Thousand miles an hour?
E3: Pfft. -ing hell, that’s too slow.
E2: Yeah. Need to be, like, twice that. Two thousand.
E1: Ha! FIVE thousand miles an hour!
All: Whoooo! ::“clink”::
If this is the same show that featured the enormous cruise/apartment ship and the huge shopping/apartment complex in Hong Kong… it’s nice to imagine, but I just don’t think so.
I was really looking forward to the show too. I have seen Pyramid City, Tokyo Sky City, and Transatlantic Tunnel. I’m no engineer, but it seems to me that these projects are ALMOST as far-fetched as time travel.
Transatlantic Tunnel: in addition to costing trillions of dollars, the whole thing could be made useless by a crazed terrorist in a fishing boat with a few homemade depth charges. They could find it with an ordinary “fish finder” type radar. Depth charges are simple to make.
I can’t imagine this entire project ever being as cost effective as flight. In regards to security, an aircraft can be protected for its entire journey by speed, radar, and electronic coutermeasures. The tunnel is just a sitting duck.
Tokyo Sky City: IMHO, the least far-fetched project of the series. Something on that scale though…gee whiz. I thik it will be a long time before we see something like that. If we ever do, I doubt it will be a quantum leap in building technology and size. I think we would get there in steps.
Pyramid City: For a project of that size, it’s just too radical. I can’t see politicians anywhere voting to fund something that expensive with all its new technology and building techniques. Eh, maybe we’ll get there in baby steps.
Bering Straights Bridge. Why??? Does the Bering Straight have that much traffic already? I can’t see this one either. TOOO expensive. Maintenance would be constant, very dangerous, and once again, expensive. How would the road surface be kept clear of ice? Would it be heated? More complexity and cost there. What about a multi-vehicle accident? The road to Siberia is closed today, sorry.
Using cargo ships/ferries avoids ALL these problems; Maintenance is done by the owner/operator of the boat. Vehicles are parked, so surface ice is not a huge problem. It’s a lot easier to de-ice a ships deck than a 50-mile bridge. In the event of an accident on a boat, other boats can still make the trip.
I think the show should be called Extreme Daydreaming. Next episode: Sandra Bullock goes to bed with MEEEEEE!!!
I agree. I think the thing that makes the show less beleivable is the fact that they always talk about hte insane amount of materials that they need, and then tehy talk about how the required tools to build these project isn’t even close to existing yet. Like the Bering Strait one. They were like “Yeah, this giant crane, the only one in existence, would be needed to build a giant bridge. Except that for the Bering Strait bridge we need 5 of these things and they need to be 5 times as big as the one that exists now” Ok, so you need to not only design the bridge, but you also need to design the cranes to move the pieces?
I think the thing that will stop most all of these types of projects is the huge amounts of materials that they need to do them. That BS bridge needed like 50 pillars to hold it up with each being made out of 55K Tons of special concrete. And that building in China would use all the metal supplies in korea, japan and china for a year.
I don’t see these things happening. Though that may be why it is EXTREME!! GIMMIE A MTN DEW DOOD!