Today, thanks to the development of various vehicles, it is possible to get to anywhere in the world. However, this takes a lot of time. It would be good to “cut off” this hook and make the path directly. But for this you will need to drill our planet ... through and through! Is it possible? Let's figure it out!
The most successful attempt
The largest well that we managed to drill on our planet is the famous Kola well, the depth of which is a little over 12 km . However, this construction, which is the most complicated by technological standards, cannot be closely correlated with what needs to be done to "pass through" the planet.
What obstacles await us?
Temperature
First you need to overcome almost 75 km of the continental crust . Then, in order to get to the mantle of the Earth, it will be necessary to overcome a distance of 3000 km . And as much to the core of the planet, which the planet almost entirely consists of liquid iron with a temperature of 5500 ° C.
Now multiply this by 2 - and in the end you need to overcome almost 13 thousand kilometers if we want to drill a straight tunnel inside the planet, and almost all the way will run through the red-hot metal and magma!
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Similar openings on the planet are quarries and mines where diamonds are mined.
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Windage
Do not forget about the air pressure , which increases with increasing depth. After 100 km, the tunnel will have a very strong pressure, which can only be compared with the pressure exerted by water at the bottom of the Mariana Trench (more than 11 kilometers deep).
Because of this, when flying through such a tunnel, a person will experience enormous overloads , as when taking off a rocket. By the way, it is precisely because of air friction that we still cannot create ultrafast trains.
Where to dig a tunnel?
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If you dig a through tunnel from Russia, then almost everywhere we will "go out" into the ocean ...
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As you know, most of the surface of the globe consists of water. It is quite possible to connect two points on land that can be connected using a through tunnel, but there will not be so many .
For example, if you start digging a tunnel in Argentina, then theoretically its output will be in China. A tunnel to be drilled in Portugal will lead to New Zealand.
But in Russia, the starting point for the tunnel is not so easy to find, only a small area, which is located near Lake Baikal, is suitable in order to start drilling through the tunnel. The end point will be on the Falkland Islands.
And if you do not dig through the tunnel?
Suppose we pumped all the air out of a tunnel and made a train resistant to high temperatures. What then?
In this case, it makes no sense to drill a tunnel across the entire planet, the residually simply connect two large cities. Then we can travel to any two points in the world connected by a tunnel inside the planet.
A similar concept is called the Gravity Train , and it would allow us to travel using the Earth’s gravity and spending a minimal amount of energy!
And if you drill the Earth exactly right through?
If you drill a tunnel exactly along the axis of the planet , then the traveler would start his movement at great speed: starting at 9.8 m / s, he would slow down, gradually approaching the center of the planet, and could even become almost weightless (in the center of an ideal ball is gravity acts on all sides and therefore all forces are balanced).
Having overcome the center of the Earth, the traveler will begin to accelerate and “fly out” with great speed at the other end of the tunnel. But if no one picks it up, it will begin to fall back and, as a result, will do this route again. And so it can be ad infinitum ...
Unfortunately, we have no opportunity to create such technologies . What a pity: we could greatly reduce the travel time and connect the planet with a network of tunnels!
