Because there are many ways to overcome the “impossible” of every obstacle, the Transatlantic Tunnel is a plausible project
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| Imagine having dinner in New York and then having dessert in Paris all in the same night. Well, the Transatlantic Tunnel could make this more than possible, although there are some people who say this could never happen; they say it is impossible. “Impossible” means unable to happen or unable to be done. “Impossible” is an adjective and a word, which is use by many doubters. Yet in this world, almost nothing is impossible. Before 1969, people thought a trip to the moon was impossible, but was it? The answer is no. Neil Armstrong was the first human to fly to the moon and touch back down on earth successfully. The English Channel Tunnel seemed like an unreachable dream to many, because some people never thought it could be built. In 1994, the English Channel Tunnel was opened, linking England and France (“Channel Tunnel”). The list continues on and on, but in every situation the “impossible” was made possible. The Transatlantic Tunnel, as of now, is only a dream to many, a dream to link New York, London and Paris. Dreams are created to come true. Because there are many ways to overcome the “impossible” of every obstacle, the Transatlantic Tunnel is a plausible project.
Every year, about 16 million people fly across the Atlantic Ocean (Extreme Engineering). The current average flight time from JFK Airport (New York City) to LHR Airport (London) is about seven hours (Orbit). Within the seven hour time frame, excluding the time spent in the airport if there are any weather issues, many things can be done. Time is the valuable and cannot be bought, because time does not wait for anyone. The Transatlantic Tunnel would enable people to leave New York City and arrive in London in about fifty-four minutes (Extreme Engineering). Travel time will be greatly reduced, allowing people to live on one end of the Atlantic Ocean and work on the other. People have envisioned the Transatlantic Tunnel for more than a century. In 1935, the film, Transatlantic Tunnel, had an approach towards the construction of the Transatlantic Tunnel similar to today’s designs (Morlock). Also, Harry Harrison, science fiction writer during the 1970s, imagined a Transatlantic Tunnel that would be supported by numerous sea bridges (“Under sea- WORMHOLE 'TRANSATLANTIC TUNNEL”). Although many people fantasized about a Transatlantic Tunnel, some people put this fantasy aside, because they felt this would be too difficult of a task. But as usual, problems arise, and with problems come solutions. The Transatlantic Tunnel would be the world’s longest tunnel, stretching 3100 miles across the Atlantic Ocean (“Transatlantic Tunnel”). A tunnel, from New York to London, to Paris, requires a billion ton of steel to complete. In order to produce this much steel, it would take about one year if all the steel mill factories combined their production (Extreme Engineering). Completing this project will cost about twelve trillion dollars and over a century to build. The twelve trillion dollars would be split between England and the United States of America. Also, taking over a century on a project this complex is understandable, because people do not work like robots. Every minute spent is needed in order to properly build each part of the tunnel. These are only the easier problems to solve. The first thing that must be done when building a tunnel is to map out the route. Originally, engineers decided that a northern route would be best, because it was the shortest route, cutting half the distance of the tunnel (“Under sea- WORMHOLE 'TRANSATLANTIC TUNNEL”). The shortest route seemed most efficient because construction time would decrease. Another thing to consider is the cost of an underwater tunnel, about four billion dollars per mile, so mapping out the shortest route seemed to be the ideal (“Transatlantic Tunnel”). The northern route would begin at the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, crossing over Greenland and Iceland, then splitting right before the tunnel reached Scotland and Norway. The tunnel crossing across the northern Atlantic Ocean meets no problems (Extreme Engineering). Eventually though, engineers would soon realize that building a tunnel over Greenland would cause many problems, due to the brutal winters’ high winds and ice that would slow traffic (Extreme Engineering). Instead, engineers agreed that it would be best to build a tunnel leaving straight off of the coast of New York City to London to Paris. After the route is chosen, the next step would be to figure out how to begin construction. The most common way when it comes to building tunnels, is to simply drill a hole, which is done by a tunnel boring machine (“Channel Tunnel”). The English Channel Tunnel was built by having a tunnel boring machine on both ends, one starting in England and another starting in France, drilling directly at one another. Eventually, the hole was completed when France and England drilled into each other, creating a complete tunnel. However, scientists say that it would be near impossible to drill a straight hole under the Atlantic Ocean. In comparison to the English Channel Tunnel, the Transatlantic Tunnel would take over three centuries to complete if engineers decided to go with the drilling method. Therefore, drilling would not be an efficient method (Extreme Engineering). In addition to that, the English Channel Tunnel is only about 300 feet below sea level at its deepest point, whereas, the Transatlantic Tunnel would have to sit five miles below sea level (“The World Factbook). The pressure this far beneath the ocean is almost 500 times greater than the surface above sea level, so drilling a tunnel there would lead to a big disappointment (Extreme Engineering). A tunnel five miles below sea level just would not be adequate for the survival of people or the tunnel itself. Another method that engineers thought of was using an immersed tunnel. An immersed tunnel is when sections of the tunnel are fabricated on land. After sections of the tunnel are completed, sections would be shipped out to sea by boat and put together at the designated part of the sea. Engineers say that building an immersed tunnel would be safer than boring a hole through the Earth (Extreme Engineering). Building a Transatlantic Tunnel using this method would require about 54,000 of these pre-fabricated sections. In order to produce this large amount of tunnel sections, it would take twenty years if 225 factories continuously worked around the clock and every single one of the tunnel sections were put towards this project (Extreme Engineering). Creating the tunnel is only the first step of this process. After all 54,000 of the tunnel sections are completed, they would then need to be towed out to sea. The distance the tunnel would have to travel may be right off the shore to as far out as 1500 miles. When the sections reach their destination point, the work becomes more difficult. The sections are lowered down by immersion pontoons. Divers working beneath the water will have to work in almost total darkness and are only able to depend on the global positioning system, allowing them to position the tunnel sections to exactly the right spot (Extreme Engineering). Divers must remain cautious at all times, because the tunnel sections could pinch a diver’s air hose and suffocate him/her to death. But since the immersed tunnels sit at the bottom of the ocean, the Transatlantic Tunnel would fail. Once again, enormous pressure, about 12 million pounds per square inch at the deepest part of the ocean, would crush the tunnel. With these two ideas crushed and tossed in the trash can, only one idea is left, building a submerged floating tunnel (“Transatlantic Tunnel”). This is a fairly new idea and has never been tried before, but some engineers are confident that this will work. Chief engineer of Norway Roads Administrations, Håvard Østlid says, “The submerged floating tunnel and the immersed tunnel are very similar. But the immersed tunnel is resting in the trench on the bottom of the river, of the crossing. The submerged floating tunnel is suspended in water and has water all around it” (Extreme Engineering). To have a submerged tunnel work, there needs to be perfect balance of air and ballast, (heavy material to increase stability), to allow the tunnel to float at a particular depth. The way the submerged floating tunnel needs to be balanced, works exactly the same as a submarine (Extreme Engineering). The main concern for a submerged floating tunnel is that it may very well float away. At the very beginning of the tunnel, it is possible to build large piers sitting under the tunnel, supporting them similar to bridges (“Transatlantic Tunnel”). Continuing the piers throughout the whole 3,100 miles would be very difficult to do. Making the piers would be like a project of their own. With depth reaching up to five miles deep, this method would not be one of the best options to support the submerged floating tunnel for the Transatlantic Tunnel. Engineers have also come up with another option that may support the tunnel from above the water. To do so, the Transatlantic Tunnel will have large pontoons possibly holding the tunnel in place (Extreme Engineering). With the strong winds and powerful currents of the Atlantic Ocean, the tunnel would easily be tossed around like a rag doll. The best method is to attach the tunnel by a number of long tether cables. The cables would be attached to the sea floor by suction anchor (Extreme Engineering). The anchors would drive into the sea floor, while water is forced out, creating a tight vacuum seal. This method is already in use today, except instead of cables, long steel pipes are in use. Some off-shore oil platforms, whose 3600 ton platforms have been kept in place for more than a decade, use this method (Extreme Engineering). When using this idea for the Transatlantic Tunnel, the tether cables would be holding it down. Working just opposite of what suspension bridges do. The advantage in using cables to hold down the tunnel is that the cables are certainly strong enough, though it is not 100 percent rigid (Extreme Engineering). This will allow the tunnel to sway just a little bit with the underwater current so the cables would not break off due to the currents. This design of the tunnel gives some engineers hope that the Transatlantic Tunnel could one day happen. Nevertheless, another question then comes to mind. Could a train possibly travel at the speed of 5,000 miles per hour? Diesel train will definitely not be an option, because there would be no way to vent out the exhaust. Therefore, engineers rely on an electric maglev or magnetic levitation train. The fastest train today is the bullet train, traveling at speed greater than 200 miles per hour (Briney). Bob Budell, a project engineer says, “In theory there are no limit to how fast a maglev train can go. There are obviously practical limits, there are also economical limit. But the technology itself is capable of much higher speed” (Extreme Engineering). What makes maglev trains so special is their ability to hover on the track, rather than using wheels and rails that create friction. (Hoffman). 200 miles per hour is fast, but nowhere near the speed needed for the Transatlantic Tunnel. With track friction eliminated, there is still air resistance to take into consideration. The greater speed of a moving object, the greater the air resistance is, requiring the object to work harder to either keep or increase its speed. To do away with this air resistance, the Transatlantic Tunnel needs to be 100 percent airless. This can be easily done by simply pumping out all the air of the tunnel (Extreme Engineering). Without the presence of air, the maglev train will act as if it was freefalling. There have been experiments done at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a train falling through a tube, one with air and one without. The speed of the train in the vacuum is far greater than the one with air. Robert Childs, a vacuum engineer at MIT, says in order to pump out all the air in the Transatlantic Tunnel it would take a couple months at pumping speed of millions and millions of cubic feet per hour (Extreme Engineer). It is plausible for the Transatlantic Tunnel to become a vacuum, only time is really required.When everything seems to be falling into place, another problem arises. The force of acceleration would not be comfortable for passenger or any human if the train is trying to reach 5,000 miles per hour at the instance of departure. When fighter pilots are undergoing a diving simulation, they have to experience g-forces reaching up to nine G’s. Whatever that certain fighter pilot weighs, they feel as if they weigh nine times as much (“Transatlantic Tunnel”). When reaching g-forces this large, the fighter pilot could potentially blackout due to the lack of blood in their brain. If this was the condition on the Transatlantic Tunnel train, the ride would be highly uncomfortable.The solution to this problem is to have a gradual acceleration allowing the passengers to have a smooth and comfortable ride. In order to do so, the tunnel would have three different parts or three different legs. When people first board the train, the train will travel through the first leg, a 750 miles tunnel taking 18 minutes to reach its top speed. Then the train will cruise for the next 18 minutes at its top speed of 5,000 miles per hour covering 1,600 miles through the second leg (“Under sea- WORMHOLE 'TRANSATLANTIC TUNNEL”). During the last 18 minutes, the train will be traveling through its third leg, where the train’s speed would gradually deceleration, in order to come to a stop at the destination.To increase comfort for the passengers, they would sit on rotating and slightly rocking seats to greater eliminate the feeling of the g-force. Also, since it is a maglev train, the passengers will feel almost no shaking or movement of the train. Each car would have their own pressurize air system working the same way as one inside a space shuttle. Passengers would experience a quick and pleasurable 54 minute ride.The tunnel will be separated into three sections, a top, middle, and bottom. The middle of the tunnel would be for the trains, east bound, west bound, and a middle track use for emergency purposes. Above and below the section where the trains will be running, there will be a service tube for maintenance, providing communication and access for repairs (Extreme Engineering). Those sections would also contain substation to power the maglev trains. The two main stations (boarding and exiting), would generate the power and then transfer it to the substations (“Under sea- WORMHOLE 'TRANSATLANTIC TUNNEL”). This way if there were any mechanical issues engineers and construction workers can easily access the area where something is dysfunctional.When building tunnels, tunnel engineers have two main fears, fire and collision. The fire can be put out, but it is really difficult to vent out all the smoke from the fire. So in case of a fire, engineers decide to install a large amount of fire suppression system in every single car (Extreme Engineering). If a collision were to occur somewhere in the Transatlantic Tunnel, it will be really difficult to move the wreckage and passengers elsewhere because of the great length of the tunnel. To try to prevent a collision, the tunnel will be closely monitored at all times (Extreme Engineering). Alarms would be quickly triggered if any failure, large or small, occurred. These are situations that people have some control over.People who doubt that this could ever be built argue that when the inevitable happens, such as when a large underwater animal hits the tunnel that the tunnel would not survive. As mentioned earlier, the Transatlantic Tunnel would be closely monitored at all time. Also, if a whale or other large creatures reaches within two miles of the tunnel, the tether cables will slacken just slightly (Extreme Engineering). Releasing some slack will prepare the tunnel for impact. If the tether cables release too much slack, then the maglev train could potentially wrap, leading to a devastating crash. At the speed the passengers are travel and the thickness of the tunnel, the passengers will feel almost nothing at the time of impact. Then divers would be sent out at where the tunnel was hit to fix any damage done if there were any.“The Transatlantic Tunnel is not beyond the reach of technology today”, says Frank Davidson (Extreme Engineering). Frank Davidson is one of the engineers who helped designed the English Channel Tunnel. If the Transatlantic Tunnel is built, it will inspire engineers all over the world. Potentially in the future, the seven continents will be connected by submerged tunnels all over the five oceans. Building the Transatlantic Tunnel is not impossible; people need to strive for an unreachable dream and work to make it possible. |