The only thing your plan is missing is a tube that connects Earth to Mars. Then it would be perfect.

That was one of the most amusing threads ever. Much better than the single player campaign.

Air pressure system too hard to make and needs either mucho magnets or mucho oil.

Something else I remembered.

Turns out it's a solved problem.

Place timed explosive devices into containers.

You realize that's possible with the current USPS/UPS/Fedex system right? People put GPS trackers into packages all the time that are expensive.

Also since this was brought up in IRC the system is fully redundant allowing automatic rerouting passed damaged routers and networks.

It would be better with cube shaped capsules, they could go in tubes, or go in air or random big tunnel hanging from a wire. Cubes could be combined into bigger cubes (theres all sizes of cubes, you can have mini cubes and larger cubes to form a big cube for shipping on ships n stuff. like 8 normal cubes=1 bigger one, but 1 of the normal cubes could be made of 8 small ones.

Too complicated. Also PVC would the desirable choice for the transportation network of the smaller packages. PVC by itself lasts hundreds of years without problems. The whole concept behind cylindrical capsules is their their radius is easy to standardize and creating the track is simpler with a tighter seal.

Air pressure system too hard to make and needs either mucho magnets or mucho oil.

Air pressure systems are trivial to make and distribute. Have you ever purchased an electric air compressor or used a compressor fan? Very simple systems that are easy to maintain. Maintaining a magnet system is much more costly. The idea is to make the per meter cost as low as possible. Using air to propel capsules for large distance is drastically more efficient. Also and this point is often missed sending compressed gas miles and miles from a central station is a well understood idea. Look at natural gas compression pipelines for a good idea of how it can be done efficiently.

The biggest issue (to my mind) is that you have so little flexibility. A tube or container must be built for all sizes and weights of packages. The system would need protection for fragile objects. A small rural area would need to have tubes run out to it regardless of the volume of mail they use (provided that it's over zero).

The tube and capsule only need to support standard sizes for the needed areas. The main routers handle compressing smaller capsules into larger ones for certain network routes where using individual small capsules isn't supported.

Now regarding rural areas this is the same argument that's used falsely in America for why our Internet sucks. "It's too big to be good". You need to step back and look at large cities as their own countries and notice how the system can used locally. Having for instance every location in Chicago set up to receive capsule mail would be a giant financial cost to set up but utilizing a simple street level compression system would provide the necessary air to route capsules into people's apartments and houses. Sure it would take time and money but most systems to overhaul the transportation system do.

Vandalism could easily shut down a whole mail segment, requiring time and money to repair, and with millions of miles of tubes it would be very hard to prevent vandalism or other interference. There would be little safeguard against theft. And a natural disaster, even a minor one, could ruin huge swaths of the network.

Like the USPS boxes getting destroyed all the time with all the mail stolen or the fiber optic cables getting dug up and stolen in the oceans? (which does happen). I agree it's a serious problem which would need to be solved. However, there's really very little security in the current system. Also look at the most obvious security problem of the current mail system. Your mailbox. Do you realize how easy it is to drive behind a mail truck and steal mail the guy puts in the mailbox? People even flip up a little red thing to tell you there's mail in there. Needless to say anything is more secure than the current system.

CargoCap. Invented in 1938.

Also, see here.

Seen them. I hate rail systems and self-powered vehicle systems. The maintenance is costly. The whole idea behind the capsule system is that each capsule is relatively cheap compared to the goods it transports so keeping the cost of the last mile down (by resorting to a single power station for air pressure and such) is much more preferable. Ideally wireless control systems will further keep wiring down. I think research would need to be done if it's possible to efficiently push large amounts of weight with essentially a wind tunnel. (I'm fairly certain it works for smaller capsule sizes).

I'm coming to the same realization I had in the space tubes thread... You're serious about thinking this is a good idea?

You're serious about thinking this is a good idea?

After researching it for a bit and comparing it to the current systems in place. Yes. Once it's set up you don't need to have a delay in sending any object. UPS and FedEx have huge routing delays as they nagle packages at their hubs. A capsule routing system wouldn't suffer from this leading to greater efficiency.

Also imagine all the gas used to drive packages around and deliver them. Gas as we know is major dependency the US has on the outside world. Capsule systems draw their power needs from the grid. (It can be argued if this is a better system or not. I prefer centralized power systems since they can be upgraded without changing anything else. Like adding more solar, wind, nuclear, or more natural gas power sources).

One of the main ideas is a system that can run almost completely separate from human interaction. The current trucking and mail systems do not allow this. Over the long run from a capitalist standpoint it would save a lot of labor costs which make up a huge cost for transportation. This also has indirect benefits like removing wear from the road system caused by heavy trucking.

I can see why this seems unthinkable. I mean taking the ideas of Internet networking and applying them to transportation with private networks and such seems odd. I've just been doing a bunch of what-ifs to see this is a good system.

Easier to create an army of flying drones which can deliver packages using short hops from home node points. This has several advantages over the tubes, much cheaper to setup, more dynamic routing, can handle more variety of package sizes and types. I call it Short Hop Delivery Systems.

A drone can be electric powered, probably a range of 50 miles and carry a load of about 250 pounds, I'm thinking. It's about the size of a kiddie pool and just as low profile. Mail is stuff into standardized containers and attach to the drone through carry hooks. It hops to the nearest delivery station closest to the package destination. The last leg of the package is done a mail carrier or maybe a smaller drone. It also might be more efficient to ferry long haul packages by bulk transport like airship or truck, like how UPS does it, and then use the hop delivery service for the last 100 miles.

-ddn

You have one serious problem: the vacuum/compression tubes used in bank drive-ins are not scalable.

Think about what it would take to extend a bank-sized tube one mile. Just one mile. This is a trivial distance; in much of the world you'd need to go dozens or hundreds of miles between "routing stations."

Now, think about the volume of air that a cylinder 4 inches wide by 1 mile long represents. Think about the mass of this air. Think about the force it would take to evacuate the tube so you could shoot stuff through it. Think about the negative pressure inside the tube and how difficult it would be to build a rigid tube a mile long that could sustain constant negative pressure of that magnitude. (Hint: next time you drive in at your bank, look at how thick the walls of the tube are. And that's to go ~50 feet, tops.) Think about the force it would take to propel a canister through that tube from one end to the other, then re-evacuate the tube so you can shoot something the opposite direction.

This stuff works in banks because the distances (and columns of air involved) are small. Once you've committed to moving several tons of gas, you're talking about a qualitatively different type of system. You can't just take the bank mechanism and make it longer.


Here's a fun experiment if you don't believe me. Buy a box of drinking straws. Cut one of them down to about an inch long, and breathe through it exclusively for five minutes. Then, tape (and seal) fifteen straws together, into a giant single tube. (Bendy straws are acceptable if you want to make it more compact.) Now breathe through that tube for five minutes.

If you don't pass out, you'll learn something very important about the way gasses move in long tubes.

Here's a fun experiment if you don't believe me. Buy a box of drinking straws. Cut one of them down to about an inch long, and breathe through it exclusively for five minutes. Then, tape (and seal) fifteen straws together, into a giant single tube. (Bendy straws are acceptable if you want to make it more compact.) Now breathe through that tube for five minutes.

If you don't pass out, you'll learn something very important about the way gasses move in long tubes.

ah I was wondering where you were getting your logic. You're thinking of sucking on a straw to generate a vacuum to lift water up against gravity. This property of fluid dynamics doesn't apply to increased fluid pressure. The idea with using a vacuum is to pull the air from the front merely so it doesn't slow down the capsule. The real pressure in the system is pushing from behind which can be an arbitrary amount. Interestingly when you use water in this experiment and decompress it to a vacuum it boils.

The reason banks use push and pull method is because they have only one pump. It's possible to use thin PVC and just use two pumps or use one pump and redirect the pressure to push which is far easier than sucking.

Easier to create an army of flying drones which can deliver packages using short hops from home node points. This has several advantages over the tubes, much cheaper to setup, more dynamic routing, can handle more variety of package sizes and types. I call it Short Hop Delivery Systems.

A drone can be electric powered, probably a range of 50 miles and carry a load of about 250 pounds, I'm thinking. It's about the size of a kiddie pool and just as low profile. Mail is stuff into standardized containers and attach to the drone through carry hooks. It hops to the nearest delivery station closest to the package destination. The last leg of the package is done a mail carrier or maybe a smaller drone. It also might be more efficient to ferry long haul packages by bulk transport like airship or truck, like how UPS does it, and then use the hop delivery service for the last 100 miles.

heh I was discussing this a month ago on IRC when there was some new quadrocopter videos. Flying drones can't get the items into a city or into an apartment. They're also extremely dangerous. 50 miles is optimistic even using a lot of gas. You cannot power a UAV for very long using electricity. Not to mention the maintenance of such a system and how undeterministic it is. Heavy winds, rain, snow. It would fail quickly.

This is turning out to be a fun conversation for myself. Keep the what-ifs coming.

heh I was discussing this a month ago on IRC when there was some new quadrocopter videos. Flying drones can't get the items into a city or into an apartment. They're also extremely dangerous. 50 miles is optimistic even using a lot of gas. You cannot power a UAV for very long using electricity. Not to mention the maintenance of such a system and how undeterministic it is. Heavy winds, rain, snow. It would fail quickly.

This is turning out to be a fun conversation for myself. Keep the what-ifs coming.

Sure you can, attach a ballon to the drone and it's lift capacity is greatly increase with minimal fuel consumption, added benefit it has 2ndary safety protocol of built in parachute allowing it to safely descend. With a neutral buoyant drone you have indefinite flight durations.. The engines are for maneuvering and landing mostly. The Army is investing in recon blimps which stay afloat for months at a time tethered, this would be no different.

As for maintenance, that's an engineering problem. I'm sure you can engineer a highly reliable, long duration drone with multiple built in fail safes so it has a controlled descent. That's well within our capabilities today.. High winds shouldn't be an issue for such a small streamlined drone with multiple control sufaces and active stabilization, it isn't the Hindenburg..

-ddn

ah I was wondering where you were getting your logic. You're thinking of sucking on a straw to generate a vacuum to lift water up against gravity. This property of fluid dynamics doesn't apply to increased fluid pressure. The idea with using a vacuum is to pull the air from the front merely so it doesn't slow down the capsule. The real pressure in the system is pushing from behind which can be an arbitrary amount. Interestingly when you use water in this experiment and decompress it to a vacuum it boils.

The reason banks use push and pull method is because they have only one pump. It's possible to use thin PVC and just use two pumps or use one pump and redirect the pressure to push which is far easier than sucking.

You're simply wrong. It takes the same amount of air displacement to push as it does to pull something through a tube. Your idea is unfeasible and far less practical than having a couple hundred thousand people delivering mail by hand. I also think you're dramatically underestimating the amount of energy necessary to push all these items through their tubes, especially when you have items stack up in a single tube. That is, unless you have a solution for friction as well.