[HN Gopher] The US Army's earth-shaking, off-road land trains
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       The US Army's earth-shaking, off-road land trains
        
       Author : tomohawk
       Score  : 84 points
       Date   : 2020-05-25 20:46 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.thedrive.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.thedrive.com)
        
       | battery_cowboy wrote:
       | I wish we had a world with zepplins ferrying people around, land
       | trains with several gas turbine engines, and nuclear powered
       | aircraft. I'm bored of the same Material design web sites, phones
       | that look the same, every apartment is the same, etc. I want
       | imagination and crazy ideas to rule the world.
        
         | asadlionpk wrote:
         | Unfortunately, this happens because reaching a consensus helps
         | in scaling that product/tech/design which in turn means more of
         | that same thing.
        
         | teh_infallible wrote:
         | Hold my beer..
        
         | officemonkey wrote:
         | There used to be steam-powered and battery-powered cars in the
         | early 20th Century. There was an Edison-Westinghouse war in
         | electricity distribution.
         | 
         | Typically, a consensus is reached based on technical and
         | economic limitations.
         | 
         | For example, nuclear-powered aircraft? You need shielding to
         | protect the human crew. You also need a reactor that can
         | survive a crash. That's why they use nuclear fuel for unmanned
         | probes. There are no humans to protect, and it's a one-way
         | trip.
        
       | jldugger wrote:
       | > visible from space on Google Maps.
       | 
       | Note that google maps imagery is generally taken from airplanes
       | not satellites.
        
         | stonogo wrote:
         | Except the imagery they link to is actual satellite imagery
         | from Maxar, a space company that sells orbital Earth
         | observation imagery.
        
       | jiveturkey wrote:
       | WARNING: back button hijack. now on my blacklist.
       | 
       | non-user-hostile link: https://outline.com/PUh9a5
        
       | chkaloon wrote:
       | Cool. But I wonder about this stat: 63 manned stations, "would
       | need about 500 tons of materials to create all of these stations"
       | 
       | 500 tons seems WAY low.
        
         | jcranmer wrote:
         | I think they dropped a 1,000 from it, so it should have said
         | "need about 500,000 tons."
        
         | runarb wrote:
         | > 500 tons seems WAY low.
         | 
         | Yes, it sees "460,000 tons of materials were moved from the US
         | and southern Canada to the Arctic by air, land, and sea" at
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distant_Early_Warning_Line#Con...
        
       | chrisco255 wrote:
       | Article is worth it just to watch the video of the land-train on
       | the interstate in the 50s / early 60s, with all the classic cars
       | maneuvering around it.
        
       | lukejduncan wrote:
       | Pet Peeve: they break the back button on the browser
        
         | adrianpike wrote:
         | Not for me, Chrome 81.
        
       | rjrodger wrote:
       | I wonder did this somehow inspire The Amtrak Wars[0]?
       | 
       | (Probably not, but I'm loving the `strange(truth) >
       | strange(fiction)`)
       | 
       | [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amtrak_Wars
        
         | bwldrbst wrote:
         | First thing I thought of! Especially the picture in the header.
        
         | afterburner wrote:
         | Very possible!
         | 
         | https://i.imgur.com/Apnf1qN.png
        
       | afterburner wrote:
       | Oh, so I guess a real machine inspired this?
       | 
       | https://i.imgur.com/Apnf1qN.png
        
       | ChuckMcM wrote:
       | I remember seeing a documentary about this vehicle as a kid.
       | Everything about it just seemed so oversized. I had not realized
       | it was the heavy lift helicopters that eventually outmoded it.
       | Kind of sad, since it can be handy to have the logistic
       | capability to move thousands of tons when you can't fly.
       | 
       | It also got me wondering about what a Tesla version of this would
       | look like :-)
        
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       (page generated 2020-05-25 23:00 UTC)