How Humans Built The Biggest Modes Of Transportation | Supersized Structures | Spark

paper was light gold in medieval times [Music] oh no tobacco sugar [Music] that everything we thought we knew about the world might turn out to be completely wrong from the ancient world to the modern history tells the story of our ever-growing need to be ever-growing the story of how some people will go to extraordinary lengths to expand create to advance to push the realm of possibility to prove that size matters this series will explore larger than life creations that have influenced every facet of our society the way we live work and travel [Applause] the way we build empires and the way we dream we look back at the ways we've strived to make the biggest heaviest tallest the best [Music] we hear from experts about the technology that made these feats possible the challenges that were faced and the problems that were solved some of these inventions have changed the world and our way of life others not so much [Music] whether a success or a failure these giants have demonstrated mankind's need to build big the human race is constantly looking for a better way to get from point a to point b [Music] from tall ships to the invention of the automobile travel has always been a necessity and we have always relied on increasingly mammoth methods of transportation planes trains and ships and everything in between human beings by nature want to do things bigger faster beat the next person it's part of our dna this is the story of how we learned to travel big the fastest and most efficient method of travel available to us today is of course air travel there is an enormous demand at chicago o'hare international airport for example an aircraft takes off or lands every 37 seconds [Music] so it comes as no surprise that with such huge demand for air travel aircraft manufacturers had to upscale on may 1 1996 airbus industry created its large aircraft division charged with developing plans for an airbus that would dominate the large commercial jet market [Music] on december 19 2000 the jumbo jet that airbus dubbed the flagship of the 21st century was launched commercially this is the airbus a380 it is currently the biggest passenger aircraft in the world and has the stats to prove it with an overall length of 72.7 meters the double-decker aircraft is so vast 3 600 liters of paint are needed to paint its exterior at 24.1 meters high the tail of the plane is as tall as a 10 story building and its hefty weight of 580 tons is equivalent to 165 elephants but of course creating an aircraft of this size was no easy feat airbus encountered significant delivery delays thanks to the bottlenecks in the definition manufacturing and installation of the a380s electrical systems and the more than 500 kilometers of internal wiring in the plant this combined with the customization of aircraft to customer specifications led airbus to devise new processors for the outfitting of the a380 fuselage sections and a revised pacing for their final assembly line this marvel of engineering is enormous and it has taken its place in the ongoing revolution in the way we travel a revolution that started with humble beginnings and along the way produced some predecessors of the a380 that were not entirely successful the graf zeppelin proved that long-range travel by airship was possible completed with the help of the nazi government the hindenburg's first flight took place on march the 4th 1936 [Music] it was a 245 meter long beast but it had a fatal flaw in that it was filled with hydrogen rather than an inert gas like helium which is what you would use today [Music] the zeppelin company designed the hindenburg to be a helium airship but at the time helium was only available as a byproduct of american industry and the usa banned its export and hydrogen courses highly flammable the hindenburg was the first airliner to provide a regularly scheduled service between europe and north america [Music] the airship was the fastest and most luxurious way to cross the atlantic they ate in an elegant dining room listened to the piano on the lounge and enjoyed cigars in the ship's smoking room lingering long enough to drop election pamphlets on the big-eyed crowds belief the airship sailed onto cologne where they circle the famous cathedral then famously on may 6 1937 the hindenburg burst into flames while tethering at the end of an atlantic crossing 62 of the 97 passengers survived but this after 35 years of accidents and disasters signified the end of the airship era but it made people think well if an airship can do it perhaps we can start looking at conventional aircraft that can do it [Music] some aircraft have even shorter careers than the airship though admittedly they were less hazardous [Music] in 1944 britain's bristol aeroplane company unveiled the bristol brabazon it was a very simple ceremony for such a spectacular machine as the brevison which is bigger than any aircraft in the world that has yet flown [Music] it weighed about the same as the space shuttle at over 68 tons and it was a sight to behold when they built the rabbison the factory at filton in england where it was built they had to extend the runway to accommodate it when the plane first took to the air pilot bill pegg is claimed to have said good god it works the crowd below cheered and the story was transmitted around the world on what was one of the first uses of live outside broadcasting after the war it was intended to fly between new york and london basically carrying 100 passengers the brabazon paved the way for all those that came after it it is still the biggest aircraft to have been built in britain and had a longer wingspan than any modern airliner except the a380 its power came from eight paired engines that could propel it to 480 kilometers an hour and would have sent it across the atlantic in 12 hours [Music] it flew magnificently it did everything expected of it and no one bought it with its small capacity thanks to its focus on luxury it ultimately proved too expensive it's interesting looking at it now typically 100 passengers for an airplane that big whereas today we'd have 400. [Music] it would be 20 years before another jumbo aircraft took to the skies but its designers would not make the same mistake the boeing 747 became the workhorse of the world's long-haul high-capacity fleet it revolutionized airline travel there is no doubt about that simply because of its size [Applause] first rolled out in september 1968 at boeing's everett plant in seattle fittingly itself the largest building in the world to date boeing has delivered 1365 747s [Music] by january 1989 boeing was rolling out a new 747 every six days millions of people who could not previously afford to fly internationally suddenly could so its contribution was enormous the boeing 747 has succeeded as a freighter a military airborne emergency command and control post the presidential air force one transport and 1747 was even used to transport the space shuttle powered by four turbo fans the boeing 747 is the world's fastest subsonic passenger jet and can travel the length of three football pitches in one second it has carried more than 3.5 billion passengers on 56 billion kilometers of service with 80 airlines there's still people in boeing who don't like it being called the jumbo jet but i don't think that's ever going to go away that night for all the success the 747 and the a380 have enjoyed there's now a new breed of aircraft being developed or rather an old one being reinvented and it's very big part plane and part airship the airlander 10 took off on its maiden flight from cardington airfield in bedfordshire in england on august 17 2016. [Music] officially named martha gwynne and unofficially named the flying bum it is about 15 meters longer than even the biggest passenger jets the airlander 10 is very very large it's as long as the football field it's over 90 meters long [Music] the airlander was first developed for the us government as a surveillance aircraft but the project was shelved due to defense cutbacks british firm hybrid air vehicles launched a campaign to return the airlander 10 to the skies in may 2015. the massive aircraft could be used for surveillance communications delivering aid and even passenger travel but the important thing and the interesting thing is it can stay airborne for many many days hybrid air vehicles hopes to deliver 10 airlanders a year by 2021 the airlander was launched from cardigan sheds a grade 2 listed relic of world war one which housed airships in the late 1920s a week later the airlander embarked on its second flight only to crash after clipping a telegraph pole while the crew suffered no injuries it just goes to show the road to success is always under construction at the end of the day if we don't support things that are a little bit advanced a little bit unusual we don't make any progress do we [Music] for all the comforts that can be sampled in the air air travel can't really compete with the grandeur luxury and elegance of ocean travel their ground ships and the feeling in the night with the sky of stars it's a feeling of stately power marvelous ships and one infamous ship more than any other has come to represent the golden age of the ocean liner a century has passed since the luxury steamship rms titanic met its catastrophic end in the north atlantic more than 1500 people lost their lives in the disaster [Music] it was on may 31 1911 that the titanic's immense hull at the time the largest movable man-made object in the world was launched [Music] now titanic had been built to the highest standards of the day in fact she exceeded the highest standards of the day in some ways the titanic featured a double bottom and 15 watertight bulkheads equipped with electric watertight doors which could be operated individually or simultaneously these bulkheads inspired shipbuilder magazine to pronounce it practically unsinkable however while the titanic's individual bulkheads were watertight water could still spill from one compartment into another another floor in the titanic's design was the number of lifeboats carried the boats could accommodate 1178 people but the titanic could carry more than 3 300 people at about 11 30 p.m on april 14 1912 an iceberg's underwater spur slashed a 90 meter gash in the titanic's water line only 705 people survived in many ways it was a turning point a shock for the travelling public and for everybody that's such a large ship could sink but any ship can sink [Music] ship safety regulations have improved since 1912 in part through lessons learned from the titanic's tragic loss so when between the wars and facing the threat from air travel the race was on to build bigger and better ships safety was not forgotten [Music] one of the shipbuilding triumphs of the period was the first of the great canadas to carry a queen's name [Music] she was 1019 feet long and about 81 000 tons gross three funnels a large elegant ship and the biggest liner in the world at the time the queen mary moves the rudder at her stern strikes the water and gracefully her long hull glides down the slipway [Applause] [Music] intended to rival the french normandy the queen mary at 81 000 tons three times the weight of the statue of liberty won the day queen mary was so big that when she was built it was thought that she would scarcely notice the sea it is said that they had decided not to put handrails down the main passageways through the accommodation because they wouldn't be needed well handrails were subsequently fitted because she too could roll on july 1 1936 the queen mary embarked on her maiden voyage and attempted to win the blue ribbond the accolade given to the fastest ship to cross the atlantic after failing on its first attempt due to poor weather it attempted the voyage again on august 31 reaching new york in three days 23 hours and 57 minutes the blue ribbond was hers the queen mary does it again on the voyage hope having averaged 31.69 knots nearly half a lot more than the normandy's best she docks at southampton undisputed queen of the atlantic she had 24 boilers supplying the steam for her steam turbines this occupied an enormous proportion of her hull most of the volume of the ship really was taken up by the machinery to drive her across the north atlantic [Music] the queen mary was the transport of choice for many of the great and famous of the age [Music] by the late 1960s the market for mass transatlantic travel had been lost to the airlines the last of the great atlantic liners began disappearing one by one queen elizabeth 2 was launched by the queen on the afternoon of the 27th of september 1967 before an enormous crowd it was a very impressive day i was happy to be lucky enough to be there myself [Music] [Applause] described by princess margaret as the flagship for the nation she was the embodiment of british luxury at 294 metres long she was the length of 40 london buses end to end with a modest weight of 70 327 tons upon her arrival she received what was possibly the last gala welcome of a ship in new york harbor in 1975 cunard sent their flagship on her first world cruise this was a promise of things to come the queen elizabeth ii would survive even amidst the domination of air travel and is arguably the last of the true liners the cruise industry has exploded since those days one would not have imagined in the sixties in fifty years time that we would be building so many enormous large passenger ships simply to take people on a holiday but we do there are some ships so advanced and luxurious that what they offer is quite different from and cannot be compared to air travel consider the grand princess [Music] she measures 289 meters in length four times the wingspan of the 747 and 57 meters high a 1998 campaign read we believe this truth to be self-evident there's never been a bigger more expensive cruise ship they weren't joking at the time the grand princess was the largest and most expensive cruise ship ever built she cost about half a billion dollars to build and weighed over a hundred and seven thousand tons [Music] grand princess features thirteen hundred state rooms and suites accommodating 2592 passengers and 1 100 crew to manage the number of passengers grand princess was the first liner to assign passengers to numerous dining rooms grand princess owes much of her success to the innovative design and layout which has inspired her successes [Music] in a time dominated by air travel grand princess showed everyone how to travel in style [Music] but despite its enormity it has predictably been overtaken in the size department more than five times the size of the titanic the oasis of the seas features 2606 rooms that can accommodate a record-breaking 6296 passengers [Music] amongst the largest cruise ships in the world are the oasis class cruise ships which have recently been built and they're 225 000 gross tons which is a very large ship indeed accommodation includes loft suites massive two-story 139 square meter apartments with a master bedroom a private balcony and whirlpool some people view them as a an apartment block lying on its side the entire ship is so huge it is divided into seven neighborhoods the central park neighborhood includes shops restaurants and flower gardens the outdoor aqua theater seats 600 and features nightly shows with water acrobats and aerial performers the pool deck stretches over the entire length of the ship as the embodiment of extravagance containing anything you could ever and never need at sea the oasis of the seas is the crown jewel of cruise ships and was the world's largest passenger vehicle until the recent allure of the seas which has surpassed the oasis in size by a whopping five centimeters so ships and planes have carved out distinct and complementary markets another people mover seemed to be doomed by the rise in road transport but by building bigger better and most of all faster it has enjoyed an astonishing renaissance all over the world people are returning to the railways [Applause] there's about a million kilometers of railway line in the world [Music] the world's first commercial high-speed magnetically levitated train was built in shanghai china in 2004 while the third maglev line to be built shanghai has the only commercially operated high-speed maglev in the world [Music] maglev stands for magnetic levitation this was constructed a little bit of a showpiece it's almost a demonstrator they use electromagnets and like polarity they get the train to be repelled to cause the train to be held in the air by the magnets on the structure [Music] a top speed of 431 kilometers an hour means that the 30 kilometer trip takes less than eight minutes the train has operated every day and has accumulated over 16.7 million kilometers with an average on-time reliability of 99.98 [Music] and they also use a former electromagnetic propulsion too again it's attraction between magnets in the structure magnets on the train so they get very fast speeds out of it [Music] a much longer journey journeys through the middle of the world's driest inhabited continent in its way it is the past rather than the future of train travel but people love it for that and the train is always full it's called the gang when hauling its full complement of carriages the gann is the world's longest passenger train at 774 metres two and a half times longer than the queen elizabeth ii it was named again in honor of the afghan camel drivers who had been the means the only means of transport for a lot of the inland areas of australia the tracks were constantly being damaged by termites and fires and floods often washed away the track completely [Music] in 1980 the old gan rail track was abandoned in favor of a new standard gauge rail line built with termite proof concrete sleepers laid further to the west to avoid flooding [Music] the gan was always intended to one day travel all the way across the continent and on february 1 2004 the gan embarked on its first transcontinental journey the track madelaine to darwin it's almost 3 000 kilometers 2970 kilometers takes an astonishing 54 hours with a four hour break in the middle [Music] since the gan entered service railway technology has made astonishing advances speed and comfort particularly linking city centers with the convenience that air travel cannot match has become the byword it is the new age of rail travel the age of the bullet train and the tgv from when it first entered service in september 1981 the french train agrovites tgv has been at the forefront of european high-speed rail travel they're fast the track has to be long radius curves and not rough but smooth track with no significant bumps or disruptions in the track profile it holds the world speed record for conventional wheeled manned passenger trains after reaching 574.8 kilometers an hour but there are issues that must be taken into account when it comes to traveling at these speeds for starters these trains need a massive amount of energy a train traveling at 480 kilometers per hour uses roughly 27 times more power than one traveling at 160 kilometers per hour a problem even more pressing is the fact that human bodies simply aren't built for rapid acceleration and traveling at these speeds makes us more prone to motion sickness to combat this the tgv decreases its degree of tilt when cornering so passengers can feel when the train is turning the tgvs also have a feature where the wheel sets are shared between two adjacent cars because it reduces the ability of adjacent carriages to jump relative to each other smooths out the whole operation of the trade on one of its most popular routes the tgv travels at more than 490 kilometers an hour in only two hours and 20 minutes the engineering innovation is the design of the whole system to be reliable to be fast and to be safe at the same time [Applause] a european very fast train that undertakes a quite special quite different style of journey is the eurostar it travels under the sea [Music] eurostar trains speed through the tunnel channel with the longest undersea section of any tunnel in the world at 38 kilometers the only place that this locomotive operates is in the channel tunnel between the united kingdom and france recognized as one of the seven wonders of the modern world by the american society of civil engineers alongside the likes of the empire state building and the panama canal it's only a 35 minute trip so it's kind of special it's the only place these locomotives are used up to 400 trains pass through the tunnel every day carrying an average of 50 000 passengers that's more people between england and france than all airlines combined passengers can even bring their vehicles with them by simply driving on and off the shuttles almost every type of vehicle can be transported and cars can be loaded with as much stuff as passengers like because there are no excess luggage fees as for the trains themselves they stretch to 775 metres long the same length as eight football pitches they're quite a powerful locomotive six axles specially designed and built for this particular purpose all of it of course controlled by the train driver but driverless for all modes of transport is very much the way of the future there are driverless trains typically at major airports ferrying people short distances between terminals but in one place they operate as an entire urban transit system [Music] the dubai metro has entered the guinness world records as the longest driverless metro network in the world started operating in 2009 it's about 75 kilometers of track and they're increasing that dubai's population is expected to reach 5.25 million by 2020 and improving transport with the ever expanding city is vital to dubai's future the metro has presented itself as a solution to road congestion travel times and increasing pollution the term metro has different uses in different places trains which don't run to timetable have turn up and catch the train sort of things they have to have a high frequency between the trains an average of 500 000 people use it every day and to date over 500 million passengers have traveled on its trains which can reach speeds of 110 kilometers an hour along the longest tracks for unmanned trains in the world you can run more trains per hour and unload and load them more frequently because they're single deck and you're not waiting for people to file in to a narrow space to find a seat the driverless metro is a safe and reliable way to travel without the risk of human error the system that operates the metro called cell track can run without human interference indeed the entire metro system is overlooked by only 10 people for a method of transport that began dying out after the 1920s it would be an understatement to say that rail travel has made a comeback to measure the number of passengers that are moving around per day they are measured in passengers per kilometer and there's something in the order of nine billion passenger kilometers per day across the world [Music] but the serious competition that threatened trains throughout the 20th century isn't going to go away in 2012 76.3 percent of u.s commuters traveled by car in 2014 over 252.7 million cars were in use in europe it seems no matter how big the plane luxurious the ship or fast the train cars dominate the way we travel today which is why it is not trains ships or planes that fuel our aspirational dreams it's cars like the rolls-royce [Music] the rolls-royce phantom was built with the aim of being the best car in the world introduced in 2003 the first of a new generation of rolls-royce cars after bmw's takeover of the mark the phantom is hand built with its exterior trim and upholstery taking weeks to stitch there are hundreds and hundreds of paint colors leathers different wood grains in the dash even stones and carbon fibre and taking it to the absolute extreme if you've got a color that isn't on their palette they will make it for you and even name it after you its 12 cylinder engine sourced from bmw propels it to 100 kilometers an hour in less than six seconds they are the tallest production cars currently being built with models measuring over 1.6 meters high it is huge i'd have to say i've driven one a few times in english country roads around where it's built and it is intimidating to drive on a small road i tell you each phantom takes at least two months to build each is bespoke each is the epitome of luxury it is supremely comfortable whisper quiet and just beautiful in every aspect the personalization is absolutely second to none you can have a car that literally nobody else on the planet can own various versions take the top three spots on lists of most expensive luxury cars but despite the high price tag it seems drivers get their money's worth approximately 65 of all rolls-royce cars ever built are still on the road this means that though the roller is exclusive it is not exceptionally rare unlike the mercedes-benz 770k of which only 88 were ever built originally they were commissioned by general nicolas von falkenhurst who commanded the nazi invasion of norway and denmark while the 770k was falkenhurst's vehicle of choice its most famous owner was adolf hitler who did not even know how to drive it was an elegant and extravagant car and the largest car that mercedes-benz had produced to date it is the heaviest car ever made it's become infamous for a number of reasons its nickname is the grosser which means big and heavy in german it weighed about three and a half tons which is huge for its time it had a big straight eight supercharged engine which only produced about 150 kilowatts which is not much in modern terms but back then it was pretty significant this was probably the first factory produced luxury car at this time the 770k was the most expensive german passenger car that money could buy in 2009 an unnamed russian billionaire bought hitler's dark blue open top 770k for several million euros today because of their rarity style and some of that historical significance restored examples fetch up to millions tens of millions of dollars classic car dealer michael froelich remarked that the pride of the collection hitler's car is going to moscow he then added which is more than the nazi dictator ever managed perhaps if he had been driving a hummer am general started making high mobility multi-purpose wheeled vehicles or humvees for the us army in 1983 with over 40 centimeters of ground clearance the humvee could climb over a 56 centimeter high obstacle handling a 60 grade and weighed through up to 76 centimeters of water it had some technology in there that was meant to take it into terrains that no man was ever meant to see it's got a lot of ground clearance so it can get over boulders and a really solid four-wheel drive system that allows it to plow through the bush mud anywhere it wants to go it wasn't until 1992 that am general started building civilian models [Music] introduced as the hummer h1 the massive four-wheel drive earned a reputation when it became the ride of choice among hollywood celebrities and professional athletes as an suv it is huge it fits right in in america everything has to be big it's got to be bigger than texas it's got to be bigger than its competition and to live up to the military nature it was just big the hummer has the widest wheel track of any suv in the world at 330.2 centimeters wide and it weighs in at more than three tons a hummer is nearly one meter wider than a compact car and weighs more than two average family cars making it somewhat less than practical maneuvering in traffic and parking and narrow city streets can be extremely tricky [Music] the h-1 was discontinued in 2006 but for all its failings as a private vehicle the humvee served the us military well better suited to combat than comfort and not built for speed but speed is what appeals and has always appealed to the passionate motorist and the passionate motorist has always been prepared to pay for the thrill of going to the edge meet the viper the dodge viper has the largest motor in any currently made production car it's powered by an immense 8.4 liter v10 engine it is an all-american action supercar it's big engine is literally out of a truck but they've transformed it into a performance car engine that just is brutal [Music] based on the chrysler lav8 truck engine the v10 was designed by the supercar maker lamborghini who were a division of chrysler at the time dodge boasted a 300 horsepower engine when it showed the viper as a concept but as of 2016 the viper acr far exceeds this it produces about 480 kilowatts in its top spec which is probably about five times the average small hatchback it can also reach 100 kilometers per hour in just 3.4 seconds the viper's rear wheel tires measure a staggering 350 millimeters across which makes them the widest tires currently fitted to a production car considered one of america's only genuine supercars the viper definitely lives up to its impressive namesake what makes it unique is it's got huge amounts of torque and it can spin its tyres up pretty easily but we keep building bigger and bigger so it's no surprise that there's a faster car in town with a top speed of 407 kilometers per hour the bugatti veyron is the fastest production car ever built it delivers 1001 horsepower and can accelerate from zero to 100 in less than three seconds in all the bugatti veyron has as much engine output as two corvette z06 v8s the yadi veyron is an engineering feat it has an 8 12 cylinder engine with four turbo chargers for an engine like this 11 radiators and 64 valves are needed it literally holds the record as the fastest production car at 430 odd kilometers an hour specially made michelin pax pilot tyres are needed for the car and they cost a modest six thousand five hundred dollars each the tyres also needed to be specially made to handle 430 kilometers an hour otherwise they would blow out while driving at top speed these tyres will only last 15 minutes and the 100 liter fuel tank will be empty in 12 minutes the first veyron was made in 2005 and 10 years later in 2015 the last was sold in total bugatti built only 450 veyrons they've been handmade by master craftsmen and just that power having the world's fastest car is a pretty big status symbol going faster than the veyron may be difficult unless roads and traffic management are improved but there is no such curb on rail or air travel and very little to stop us from building bigger and bigger on the oceans why is man fascinated with building big things some might say because he can but a lot of it ultimately will come down to economics or prestige it comes from pushing the boundaries making it faster making it bigger making it more efficient the successes the failures the breakthroughs and the catastrophes from the efficient to the beautiful to the downright superfluous ever since we've had places to go we've found bigger and better ways to get there and no doubt our appetite for travel will continue to drive the development of machines the take us places

Channel: Spark

Views: 158,550

Keywords: Spark, Science, Technology, Engineering, Learning, How To, education, documentary, factual, mind blown, construction, building, full documentary, space documentary, bbc documentary, Science documentary

Id: e-oCUQ9YOPA

Length: 53min 26sec (3206 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 25 2021