Replies

Tunnels have been dynamited and bored for roadways much further than 2 miles.

33 posted on 09/09/2005 6:47:00 AM PDT by The Red Zone (Florida, the sun-shame state, and Illinois the chicken injun.)

I read an article in Discover a few months ago about space elevator plans. Very compelling if we can overcome materials restrictions. Once we get out of the Earth's Gravity well moving around gets a lot cheaper.

35 posted on 09/09/2005 6:52:49 AM PDT by smaug6 (We can't afford to be innocent!! Stand up and face the enemy.)

If you do the math, a rail gun would have to be well over 10 miles long to accelerate a vehicle to the required speed without exceeding 7 G's. The angle is going to have to be high if you are going to go "up", and it can't have much bend or lateral acceleration in the last few miles to prevent the same. This would lead to a very deep below ground requirement. Depth not distance being the problem for digging such a tunnel. We're talking much deeper than South African diamond mines.

Why would you want to do that, so that you could start from sea level?