Michael D. Grissom wrote:You would also have to move all of the air in the entire tube simultaneously with the person being transported. It would take a tremendous amount of energy to start and stop that huge volume of air. You can test this by blowing as hard as you can on one end of your garden hose (no kinks) and feel the output air at the other end. The garden hose will eat most of your energy input -- you'll feel very little at the other end. A transport tube would be at least a few thousand times bigger than your garden hose and would thus take a few thousand times more "blowing power" (energy).
Try to think of a way to accomplish your transporting in a tube while maintaining a constant air flow at your highest expected transport speed.
You can also search Popular Science issues from the 1960's era and find some great illustrations and articles about very similar tube transport systems predicted for the future. I remember them well.
There is a mini system on the market based on the same concept. It works like this.
The user calls up a capsule (About 4" dia and 6" or so long). This arrives at the caller's end of the tube. A trap door is opened in the tube, the capsule door is opened, the object deposited, every thing closed up and the send command given. Low pressure high volume blowers propel the capsulee to the central exchange (much like a telephone exchange), where the capsule is rerouted automatically to the destination tube section.
rishi