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"In my mind I have gone all over the universe, which may make it less important for me to make piddling little trips... I did enjoy seeing Stonehenge. It looked exactly the way I thought it would look."
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![]() This is a very futuristic scenario - or it was in the 1950's. Some thought has been given to underground trains that would make use of partially evacuated tunnels to reduce air resistance.
However, I once worked in the "tube room" of a large hospital that used pneumatic tubes to deliver paperwork throughout the large building. What Heinlein has created here is effectively a tube system for people.
In 1870, Alfred Ely Beach, tried to construct a prototype pneumatic train subway in New York City. The city fathers were not impressed and decided on the elevated train concept instead.
If you want to check out what a factory conveyor belt system for a country would look like, see the entry for rolling roads, from The Roads Must Roll, also by Heinlein.
Also, take a look at a "vacutube" that operates in the vertical dimension for one passenger at a time; see bounce tube, also by Robert Heinlein.
Compare to the single vehicle tunnel from Foundation (1951) by Isaac Asimov, the
pneumatic tube station from Exiles of the Moon (1931) by Schachner and Zagat, the
submarine tube from An Express of the Future (1895) by Jules Verne, the
sub-Atlantic tube from Ralph 124c 41 + (1911) by Hugo Gernsback and the public tubes from The Houses of Iszm (1954) by Jack Vance. Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
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Science Fiction
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'Courier Commons' By Tomorrow Lab, From Karl Schroeder (and Bruce Sterling?)
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Jetson-Style Clockwork Robot Nail Salon Coming To Target Near You
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'Pina2bo would have to operate full blast for many years to put as much SO2 into the stratosphere as its namesake had done in a few minutes.'
Hotels Turn To Robots As Human Workers Regroup
'Chain of hotels that specialized in non-human service.'
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'But then... not every bulldozer operator works on the Moon.'
Tongue-Controlled Tong Wearable Mouth Computer
'Griff found the white and pink map distracting and switched it off using his tongue mouse.'
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