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- SUBTERRENE
-
- Robert Salter, of the RAND Corporation, has suggested building a
- subway from New York to Los Angeles magnetically levitated above
- the tracks. The trains would zip through the evacuated tunnels at
- speeds faster than an SST, crossing the country in less than one
- hour. Building such a train presents no special technological
- problems, but the cost of tunneling from coast to coast would. To
- be economically feasible, engineers would have to develop a new way
- to dig. The federal government's Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory,
- in New Mexico, however, may have an answer to this challenge.
-
- Called the Subterrene, the Los Almos machine looks like a vicious
- giant mole.
-
- The beauty of the Subterrene is that, as it burrows through the rock
- hundreds of feet below the surface, it heats whatever stone it
- encounters into molten rock, or magma, which cools after the
- Subterrene has moved on. The result is a tunnel with a smooth,
- glazed lining. For power, the Subterrene can use a built-in
- minature nuclear engine or even a conventional power plant.
-
- NOTE: I have seen this machine, and watched it in action. Normal
- rate of speed is approximitly six and one/half miles per hour
- depending on Type of rock, sand etc.................Col. Wilson