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Anatoly Yunitskiy: I was engaged with transport, when Elon Musk was not born yet

"Elon Musk would not have done anything here. Most probably, he would have been jailed." says the General designer of SkyWay transport about his American "competitor". Evidently, no major event with the participation of the SkyWay creator passes without a question about his foreign antipode. It was also asked at the "open mike" session at EcoFest-2017, videos from which we have already started to post on website.

Why do American dealers present under the guise of their developments the idea that was invented by Russian scientists over a hundred years ago, and the entire planet is listening to these theories open-mouthed? School problems from Soviet textbooks or explosive American PR - what is valuable? Who will emerge victorious from this battle? Vacuum tube in the Middle East - can Arabs count money and whose project will they prefer in the end?

We offer to your attention the second release of the chronicles from the "open mike" session:

Translation of the video:

Participant: Good afternoon, Anatoly! My name is Nikolai, I am from Cherkassy. I have a question. You spoke about super-speeds that will be above 1,000 km/h. Will you build such demonstration track here or in some other country? And another question. Elon Musk also begins to develop this trend. Do you have any intentions to cooperate with him scientifically in this respect?

Anatoly Yunitskiy: I will start from the end. In fact, Elon Musk is promoting the thing that has been invented in Russia 100 years ago. It is a vacuum tube, no secret in it. I remember solving such problems even at school, when the earth globe has a vacuum tunnel in such a way, like a bisecant. Gravity accelerates a vehicle. Then gravity slows it down. Actually, the idea of a sagging structure came to my mind at that time. Well, I was engaged with vacuum tubes at the time, when Elon Musk was not born yet. If we take my monograph written by me 30 years ago, you will see everything that Elon Musk says described in it. With illustrations. Therefore, we have no reason to cooperate scientifically. They have only nice pictures. And we have worked out the engineering and scientific aspects. Naturally, we shall develop it ourselves. Simply they can hype themselves, they are Americans. We cannot do it. We have a different situation. If you get up a bit, you should be pressed down. If you venture up a bit, you should be put down to your place. Elon Musk would not have done anything here. Most probably, he would have been jailed. And I am alive and healthy, though several criminal cases were opened on me. Therefore, I have other tactics and strategy here. This work goes on. Not vacuum, but forevacuum is needed for it. It is easier to make it. In fact, deep vacuum is not needed. Elon Musk has back-pedaled from that idea. Several Companies are working with it. As a clever manager, he understands that if it fails, he will say he has nothing to do with it. If it works, he will say it was his invention. When we researched it, we made a computer simulation of wind-tunnel testing including that in vacuum. When we blew down in a vacuum tube the module that Hyperloop and Elon Musk show, it turned out it had a huge aerodynamic drag in vacuum. And the temperature in places with condensed air is about 1,000 °C. The system they present was drawn up by designers. It is not viable. They have nothing except nice pictures. That's why Elon Musk says, "Let us dig tunnels underground." They say they will dig tunnels in Los Angeles, where cars will go. It will be a tunnel for cars. When I was in the Emirates, I had some meetings late last year. I knew that Elon Musk came there, too, trying to promote his Hyperloop project in the Emirates. In particular, the project Dubai - Abu Dhabi. I had to spend several hours in the airport there and I have made calculations on two systems: SkyWay and Hyperloop vacuum tube for the route. When they asked me about it, I said, "Of course, you can build a vacuum tube that will cost at least USD 20 billion. And you can build SkyWay that will cost maximum USD 500 million. In addition, you will travel by SkyWay from Dubai to Abu Dhabi by 7 minutes faster. They said "How? Hyperloop has 1,200 km/h speed and you say you have 450 km/h operating speed". I said, "Let us see. In SkyWay you will sit down and ride after closing the door. And in Hyperloop you will sit down and the door should be closed like in an airplane. It should be hermetically sealed. Then the air lock chamber should be closed and air should be pumped out from it to get vacuum. Then you will have to open the air lock chamber. Then the module will go into the tube and start to speed up. At the destination point, you will have to do the same procedure in reverse order. God save you, if the module loses hermetic tightness. Everybody will die in several seconds. Therefore, choose yourselves." They say, "OK, but you also have high-speed projects like that of Hyperloop." I say, "Yes, we have. A forevacuum tube, where everything is worked out from the engineering point of view. However, to build a testing route, we need a distance of at least 60 km. And it would cost about USD 800 million." We shall not be able to build it in EcoTechnoPark. Suppose they allocate for us 60 km distance, we shall make a route in the air or underground. If we manage to find the investment of 800 million dollars, we shall be able to make it here in Belarus. A super-speed line on the ground with 1,250 km/h speed.