Prediction 1957: Pneumatic Tube Roadways

The proposed Hyperloop&#x27;s operation is quite different from a pneumatic tube, which forces objects through with air pressure. The design document explicitly describes the limitations of pneumatic tubes:<p>&quot;At one extreme of the potential solutions is some enlarged version of the old pneumatic tubes used to send mail and packages within and between buildings. You could, in principle, use very powerful fans to push air at high speed through a tube and propel people-sized pods all the way from LA to San Francisco. However, the friction of a 350 mile long column of air moving at anywhere near sonic velocity against the inside of the tube is so stupendously high that this is impossible for all practical purposes.&quot;

Predictions of technology from long ago just aren&#x27;t interesting, since it&#x27;s trivial to fantasize about technologies without having to think about implementation.<p>I can predict today of future flying cars, teleporters, mind-controlled interfaces, Turing-test AIs, electrically powered autonomous airplanes, giant tubes that go through the center of the Earth and take me directly to China, a massive spaceship that takes all of Earth&#x27;s 20 billion people to a new galaxy in the year 2380, etc. etc.<p>Doesn&#x27;t mean that I know anything.

The Victorians had pneumatic railways powered by power stations generating a vacuum. If it wasn&#x27;t for the perishability of leather we might still be using them:<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_railway" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Atmospheric_railway</a>

The original 1957 article referred to is available beginning at [1], with the drawing on the following page; the specific paragraph about pneumatic tubes is on p206 [2].<p>And two paragraphs later:<p><pre><code> Contents of the world&#x27;s greatest libraries and schools will be available to anyone over special television services. From an armchair, it will be possible to call for any information by coded request. </code></pre> [1] <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=JuEDAAAAMBAJ&amp;pg=PA100" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;books.google.com&#x2F;books?id=JuEDAAAAMBAJ&amp;pg=PA100</a> [2] <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=JuEDAAAAMBAJ&amp;pg=PA260" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;books.google.com&#x2F;books?id=JuEDAAAAMBAJ&amp;pg=PA260</a>

I&#x27;m guessing the department store vacuum tube systems used to send items to different areas of the store was the inspiration for this.

New York had it in 1873. Well, they <i>tried</i> to have it.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beach_Pneumatic_Transit" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Beach_Pneumatic_Transit</a>

What do you call predictions whose sum is not predictive?

Hyperloop simulates stratospheric flight.<p>But its electric jet engine doesn&#x27;t propel, but prevents syringe-like air build-up.

should I mention futurama?

With all due respect to Elon Musk (and he deserves a lot of respect) and acknowledging the truly positive and altruistic motivations (those I assume) -- his idea is good, but not new. It&#x27;s fine with me if he has resurrected the notion of a &quot;pneumatic&quot; vehicle. Perhaps it&#x27;s simply a fact that now is finally the time to do this.