Transportation
After a long history of plodding along the surface of the earth, man suddenly can move at such accelerated speeds.
| Introduced | Method | MPH | Time to go 600 miles |
|---|---|---|---|
| Walking | 3 | 200 hrs (20 days) | |
| Running Sustained Sprint |
10 15 | 60 hrs (10 days) | |
| 1000-2000 BC | Horse | 4-20 | 30-150 hrs |
| ~1820 AD | Train Early Standard TGV |
30 60-100 300 |
20 hrs 6-10 hrs 2 hrs |
| ~1900 AD | Car | 60 | 10 hrs |
| ~1903 | Plane Prop Jet |
100-200 400-600 |
3-6 hrs 1-1.5 hrs |
| ~1955 | Rocket Orbital vel. Escape vel. |
18,000 >24,000 |
12 minutes <= 1.5 minutes |
As a general rule, assuming good roads and a good car, a car goes as far in a ten-hour day (600 miles) as a commercial airliner flies in an hour. So if you are in the mood to travel ten hours a day you can readily estimate driving time by referring to an airline schedule and multiplying its hours by days for the car. A three-hour flight from Chicago to San Francisco is a three-day drive. Basically, ten times airliner hours equals car hours.
We use an airplane for three basic activities: getting there faster, looking at the two-dimensional world from above, and playing in the third dimension. The latter two interest me more than the first. My car usually can get me there fast enough. But it cannot provide me with these other two fascinating functions. Several other uses really belong to these three basic activities.
| Activity | Transport | Observation | Playing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moving people/goods | x | ||
| Observation platform | x | ||
| Recreation | x | ||
| Weapons system | x | x | |
| A Crane | x | ||
| A Water Bucket | x | ||
| An Advertising platform | x (looking up) |