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Re: 16 miles of hole - call NASA
Author: mook
Date: 10-26-2015 - 18:13
Yes.
That's why Big Projects like CAHSR can't be done any more. They're too big for people's imaginations to deal with, and they don't provide instant results. Now if NASA had some kind of super laser that could be easily set up and just vaporize the hole in the mountain, you might have something. But they don't. Sorry.
That's why Bob's schemes that don't involve huge, long tummels are probably worth considering.
And for reference, the St. Gotthard Base Tunnel that's nearing completion (opening scheduled for mid-2016) started construction in 1996 per Wikipedia [en.wikipedia.org]. That's for a pair of 35-mile tunnels, which is comparable to what's needed for CASHR though not (except for some Tejon Pass schemes) in one piece. Yes, it does take 10 years to build a long tunnel. And that's when you've already done the engineering work; apparently the funding was approved in 1992 and construction started in 1996, which means they were mostly ready to go when the funding was approved (and they knew how much it would really cost) when the election happened.
CAHSR was taken to the ballot by people who were not engineers, for a system that had not been planned or engineered by people who knew what they were doing, and for purposes other than building a HSR line. The voters (barely) approved that. Those who are truthful, and who voted for it, would admit that it was the transit-oriented spinoffs (a couple of billion) that made it worth something - HSR was certainly going to take an order of magnitude more to build than what was authorized. Given the nonexistent state of real planning and engineering, it's almost a miracle that in the U.S. political and economic system CAHSR actually is building anything, let alone the important and expensive parts of the line, by now.
BTW, the Moon Shot (multiple shots, actually, over about 10 years after the first one) wasn't free; in today's dollars, it would have been multiple $10 billions. And that's for something that we already knew how to do; just that we had to build the industrial complex to make it possible. Lots of people said it wasn't worth the investment, trickled in over the years (not in one load of cash). Enough others said it was.
CAHSR is, IMO, worth doing and worth paying for, $10B or so every 5-10 years, over the 20-30 years it will take to do it right. Just like the Interstate Highway System. Some of that will be private money; most won't, because frankly it will never (as understood in business - more than 30 years, probably closer to 50 or more) pay back its construction cost from operating revenue. And perhaps we can hope that some disruptive technology (Hyperloop? Transporter Beams?) will arrive before we've committed ALL of the money to big holes in the ground.
That's why Big Projects like CAHSR can't be done any more. They're too big for people's imaginations to deal with, and they don't provide instant results. Now if NASA had some kind of super laser that could be easily set up and just vaporize the hole in the mountain, you might have something. But they don't. Sorry.
That's why Bob's schemes that don't involve huge, long tummels are probably worth considering.
And for reference, the St. Gotthard Base Tunnel that's nearing completion (opening scheduled for mid-2016) started construction in 1996 per Wikipedia [en.wikipedia.org]. That's for a pair of 35-mile tunnels, which is comparable to what's needed for CASHR though not (except for some Tejon Pass schemes) in one piece. Yes, it does take 10 years to build a long tunnel. And that's when you've already done the engineering work; apparently the funding was approved in 1992 and construction started in 1996, which means they were mostly ready to go when the funding was approved (and they knew how much it would really cost) when the election happened.
CAHSR was taken to the ballot by people who were not engineers, for a system that had not been planned or engineered by people who knew what they were doing, and for purposes other than building a HSR line. The voters (barely) approved that. Those who are truthful, and who voted for it, would admit that it was the transit-oriented spinoffs (a couple of billion) that made it worth something - HSR was certainly going to take an order of magnitude more to build than what was authorized. Given the nonexistent state of real planning and engineering, it's almost a miracle that in the U.S. political and economic system CAHSR actually is building anything, let alone the important and expensive parts of the line, by now.
BTW, the Moon Shot (multiple shots, actually, over about 10 years after the first one) wasn't free; in today's dollars, it would have been multiple $10 billions. And that's for something that we already knew how to do; just that we had to build the industrial complex to make it possible. Lots of people said it wasn't worth the investment, trickled in over the years (not in one load of cash). Enough others said it was.
CAHSR is, IMO, worth doing and worth paying for, $10B or so every 5-10 years, over the 20-30 years it will take to do it right. Just like the Interstate Highway System. Some of that will be private money; most won't, because frankly it will never (as understood in business - more than 30 years, probably closer to 50 or more) pay back its construction cost from operating revenue. And perhaps we can hope that some disruptive technology (Hyperloop? Transporter Beams?) will arrive before we've committed ALL of the money to big holes in the ground.
