DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE

25years ago, a Concorde jet leaving Paris for New York suffered a catastrophic fire on take-off which contributed to the aircraft crashing moments later, killing all 109 passengers and crew on board, along with four people on the ground. Shocking the world, the tragedy was arguably the final nail in the coffin of what was once perhaps the most prestigious and exclusive form of travel on the planet.

Its maiden flight in 1969, Concorde entered the aerospace as the first (and still, only) commercially viable supersonic passenger jet in 1976, achieving “Mach 2” speeds twice that of sound and roughly 100 times that of National Rail. Travelling on the edge of space, London to New York took just 3.5 hours, meaning you could eat Eggs Benedict in Mayfair for breakfast and still get mugged in Harlem before lunch.

Concorde was a status symbol par excellence, its pre-selfie, but still very “look-at-me” clientele consisting mainly of business moguls, celebs and even royalty. Nevertheless, the high operational costs, environmental impact, limited seating and ever-so-bloody-noisy sonic booms meant the service was restricted and the business model was floundering long before Air France Flight 4590 met its unfortunate end. Despite its once iconic status, Concorde joined rock’s tragically infamous “27 Club” (Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain, Brian Jones...) flying its last after 27 years, the ageing fleet retired in 2003. It’s yet to be replaced with a supersonic equivalent, though if one comes, some think it will be travelling through that other great blue expanse; the Atlantic Ocean.

“RECENT BUZZY REPORTS OF THE POSSIBILITY OF A TRANSATLANTIC HYPERLOOP HAVE IT ACHIEVING SPEEDS IN EXCESS OF 3000 MILES PER HOUR, HITTING THE BIG APPLE FROM THE BIG SMOKE IN UNDER AN HOUR.”

The idea of an underwater tunnel across the globe has been floating about for over a century, although remaining nothing more than an extravagant pipe dream. The mother of all pipe dreams perhaps. Certainly the mother of all pipes; some 3500 miles long. With constant advancements in tech though comes renewed interest in the project and a 2013 white paper by the once-brilliant, now bonkers Elon Musk into “Hyperloop” technology could hold the key to its eventual realisation. A hyperloop is a proposed closed circuit, low pressure tube system, which enables passenger or cargo pods operating under the influence of magnetic levitation to travel at great speeds, free from friction and weight considerations which typically affect other transport options. A “maglev” vehicle would not require wheels, heavy brake components or an unwieldy internal combustion engine, likely running on electric motors fitted along the deceptively simplistic pods. You know those clear tubes that messages in capsules whizz down in films where 80s bosses are shouting at someone??

Well, a bit like that but with lots of people in. The Chinese have already claimed a maglev hyperloop speed record of 387 mph whilst testing their T-Flighttrain and are confident they can more than triple that figure to 1240 mph, significantly outpacing all passenger jets. Recent buzzy reports of the possibility of a transatlantic hyperloop have it achieving speeds in excess of 3000 miles per hour, hitting the big apple from the big smoke in under an hour. I’m unsure how we leap from 387 to 1240 to 3000 mph, but perhaps that’s best left to the boffins / fantasists.Whilst the maglev concept itself sounds intuitively simple enough (by incredibly advanced tech standards at least!), the logistics of applying it to a problem like the Atlantic Ocean are enough to bring most engineers out in cold sweats.

Factor in potentially having to work with King DOGE himself or his pet president, Trump, and it’s hardly the most enticing prospect for serious scientists. Recently reported estimates put the predicted cost of a such a project at a cool £15 TRILLION but anyone who’s ever watched Grand Designs knows you might as well double the budget and triple the time frame. Whether you’re suspending the tunnel in the water or burying it deep beneath the seabed, critical issues of immense water pressures, extreme working conditions and maintenance nightmares push the project further into the realms of science fiction.

Supposing its on-budget realisation is achievable for FIFTEEN THOUSAND BILLION squids (money, not displaced cephalopods, though there’d be a few of those too...), we’re still talking a price-tag which eclipses the GDP of every country except the USA (Give Trump a couple more years in the White House...) at a time of great economic and political instability, not to mention climate concerns. Whilst a near frictionless, clean electricity transatlantic system would surely be more environmentally friendly than burning jet fuel, the ecological impact of installing the hyperloop infrastructure for thousands of miles at dizzying depths would undoubtedly be catastrophic.

Most think cleaner aviation fuel, space travel and even electric planes are more viable options going forward.

And do any of us actually need to get from England to America in 54 minutes?

The proliferation of reliable live messaging apps and the correlative increase in remote working have surely removed many of the business scenarios necessitating intercontinental travel.

That still leaves the luxury and prestige cases, but are the types of people able to afford such a presumably extortionate means of transport really going to choose a pressurised container in the darkest depths of the ocean over a private jet with a minibar, hot tub and killer views? Such an ambitious project would also involve a level of transatlantic cooperation and joint funding which seems highly unlikely given at present we can’t seem to agree with our once great friend across the pond who’s at fault when Russia invades a European ally. Buoyed by boundless international goodwill, The Channel Tunnel took 13,000 workers six years to complete. The transatlantic, hype rloop equivalent would need to be more than 100 times its length and constructed to run at vastly greater depths… Don’t hold your breath.