Say you want to send a birthday present to your friend in Beijing. Information can travel across in the world in a split second—so why can’t packages? Better yet, why can’t you zip over there and give it to him yourself? To keep up with increasing demands for cargo and human transportation, the world clearly needs a much faster way to travel.
The Evacuated Tube Transporter (ETT). It sounds like something from a science fiction novel, but it’s well on the way to becoming reality. It will be possible to send cargo from Los Angeles to New York in 45 minutes, and Washington D.C. to Beijing in 2 hours. Human travel is the next step. George Agoki, associate professor of engineering and department chair, is a member of an international team of researchers working to make the ETT a household name.
The ideas behind the ETT already exist. The problem is figuring out how to put them all together. ETT capsules travel in vacuum tubes on frictionless maglev, already found in “bullet trains.” Electric motors accelerate the capsules and can use energy from renewable sources. For the same amount of energy, ETT can provide 50 times more transportation than electric cars or trains.
