[Orbiter]

What if a plane crashes into the chute?

[cactmh]

Good Lord! This dude took quite a bit of time to work on this, didn't he?

[nunya bidness]

A crude version of this system already exists in some buildings in Baltimore. The slide is concentric and a hoot to ride if you catch it from the top floor. There's even a sign that warns the user not to take an umbrella.

[dead]

If they put one of those in my building, I'd never get any work done. Weeeeeeeeeee!

[Senator Pardek]

otherwise the skirt or dress will be blown over their heads and they may arrive "buck naked" in the end room.

Back in my day, women wore panties and bras under their dresses.

[ExpatCanuck]

Perhaps I missed this and you addressed this, but what happens if I'm going into the tube from the 30th floor and someone coming down from the 100th floor hits me at 150 miles an hour just as I enter???

[Alex Murphy]

My only problem with this is that there's no plan to "unclog" the chute when someone gets stuck half-way down. Worse yet, what happens when the next guy comes roaring down the chute from 20 floors up, and impacts the stuck-ee?

[July 4th]

If you happen to not have one of those chutes, as soon as you start to curve, your clothes or skin will start to slow you down...and you're going to crumple yourself to death at 100 miles an hour. Then the guy who jumped in behind you is going to pummel you from behind as his legs are impacted past his head.

[Lowcountry]

160 floors X 4 chutes for each floor = 640 chutes. Thats a lot of chutes. Are you thinking that people on fire will wait for those on another floor to escape before jumping in?

[MissAmericanPie]

It's a good idea, like they say if no one gets stuck that is. If I worked in a building that tall I would have a parachute stuck in the office closet, just in case.

[VMI70]

You are on the 100th floor. How do you get in the chute when the folks from the 101st through the 220th are careening down? Sounss like a recipe for disaster. Did I mess something?

FReegards,

[GnL]

"Women with skirts should reach between their legs and pull the back of their skirt up to the front and hold it ... otherwise the skirt or dress will be blown over their heads and they may arrive "buck naked" in the end room."

Hmmm. 16,000 buck naked women coming down a metal chute into a drop room... Reminds me of a joke I once heard.

[RightWhale]

Survival of a 2000 foot fall should be much simpler. Giant, inflatable pillows around the base of the building.

[lafroste]

I like it. Those who worry about someone from above hitting them haven't read it though. I would be worried however about neck injuries. You may want to redesign for a feet first egress (though head first is certainly more dramatic). What about insulation? What if the floors below you are engulfed in flames? I think that could be handled though.

[Uncle Fud]

The four word reason why this could never be built (workable or not) in 2001 America: "Americans with Disabilities Act"

Thanks for nothing, GWB Sr!

[Fiddlstix]

Bump

[E=MC²]

Some obvious objections: Four (or even two) chutes PER FLOOR will make buildings look like hell, not to mention the square footage needed around the base of a building to handle all those tubes (tall buildings are built in the first place to conserve land use...if this much land is needed, then tall building is not economically viable). For safety reasons, no one should be allowed to enter a tube until the prior jumper has exited. Big problem for people with claustrophobia. Shooting down an attacking plane over an urban area is not a good idea...the wreckage doesn't vaporize, it just splatters over a larger area.

[Semper911]

This guy has way too much time on his hands. The scary thing is that he is evidently serious.

I don't have the time to figure out the physics, but a body falling from, say, the 110th floor through the dead drop would be hamburger as soon as the chute began to curve. (Sorry, no disrespect to those who jumped or fell to their deaths.)

The only way it would work would be if the chute was at an angle all the way, which of course is hardly practical.

[copycat]

I once imagined a system to escape tall buildings. It consisted of a flat hose wrapped like a fire hose around a spool. In an emergency, the spool would unwind the hose all the way to the ground. The hose would be big enough to fit a person, who could control his drop simply by pushing outwards on the hose. One could almost climb down through the hose.

I later thought of the problems with air supply, and how strong such a hose would have to be to support dozens of people. I also realized that parachutes were much more practical.

To those who say it would be hard to land a chute drop in a city, or that you wouldn't have the nerve to jump, ask yourself what any one of those who fell from the WTC what they would have given for a parachute and a fighting chance.

[brityank]

Animals will arrive with their own excrement. Send them last.

I'm sure some of the humans will too!! LOVL!!

Interesting concept.

[3Spinner]

""all 32,000 at or below ground level and 200 yards away in less than 3 minutes."" It just isn't possible. The logistics alone are plain silly. Did you ever see the start of a marathon? They don't have to fall anywhere and they aren't battered and beaten at the start but they still tens of thousands of people can't get 600 feet in seconds. And aren't these office workers we're talking about here? Not exactly have reputed as being all in their early twenties and ten pounds underweight, do they? If you go back to the free fall part of it you're really losing it. Understand that every body is not going to be spaced exactly three seconds apart and if the 'air pressure' is going to slow them signifcantly, which it must if they are to survive, then the largest persons are going to be slowed much more than any smaller person. One average sized person followed by two thin ones will immediately have the two thinner persons compacted against the normal sized one creating an even larger mass which, by these calculations, this mass will be slowed even more causing even more bodies to compact against it creating an even larger mass restricting the air flow even more .....