Trans-Atlantic tunnel is a theoretical tunnel under the Atlantic between Europe (London) and North America (New York), so the two continents together to connect. The tunnel would use magnetic levitation trains. With advanced technologies, it speeds will be from 500 to 8.000 km/h.
Plans for a tunnel as they are never touched the conceptual phase, and no one currently pursues this project. The most common route is that between the United States and the United Kingdom, or, more specifically, New York and London. The main obstacles to building such a tunnel are the costs – possibly $12 trillion – and the limits of current knowledge of materials. Even if existing large tunnels, such as the Channel Tunnel and Seikantunnel, less advanced technology than any trans-Atlantic tunnel. The price remains the biggest breaker. A trans-Atlantic tunnel is about 200 times longer than the longest current tunnel and would be 3000 times as much as costs.
In 2003, Discovery Channel in the TV program Extreme Engineering a report entitled “Transatlantic Tunnel”, where the proposed tunnel is discussed in detail.
Suggestions for a tunnel as they go back to Jules Verne who wrote it in 1895. In 1913, the novel Der Tunnel, published by the German author Bernhard Kellerman. This novel inspired four films with the same name: one in 1914 by William Wauer, and separate German, French and English versions came out in 1933 and 1935. The German and French versions were written by Curtis Bernhardt and the English version was partly written by SF writer Curt Siodmak. An original writer for the English version was valued at more than $2000 at the Heritage Auction Galleries in Dallas in the summer of 2006, which suggests a contemporary interest.
Robert H. Goddard, the father of rocket technology, had two of his 214 patents on the idea. Arthur C. Clarke mentioned intercontinental tunnels in his 1956 novel, The City and the Stars (City under the stars). The 1975 novel A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!, Describes a vacuum / maglev system on the bottom of the ocean. An edition of Popular Science suggests that a trans-Atlantic tunnel is easier than first thought and without extraordinary engineering challenges. It draws a favorable comparison with the establishment of trans-Atlantic cables and pipes, but with a price of 88 to 175 billion dollars.
There are many different variants of the concept, including a tube above the seabed, a tunnel under the seabed, or a combination of the two.
A proposal from the 60s has a 5000-kilometer-long vacuum tube, a theoretical type magnetic levitation train that could travel at speeds to 8,000 km / h. With this speed, the travel time between New York and London less than an hour. Another modern variation intended to reduce costs is an underwater tunnel which is about fifteen floors below the surface floats.