Shanghai to San Francisco in two hours - by submarine

Chinese scientists are building a new type of supersonic submarine that will enable travellers to go from Shanghai to San Francisco in only 100 minutes.

According to a report in the South China Morning Post, the new technology is developed by a team of scientists at Harbin Institute of Technology's Complex Flow and Heat Transfer Lab. The super-submarine is equipped with the new marine technology of ‘supercavitation’, that basically allows the vessel to travel fast in an under water air bubble.

Water produces more friction, or drag, on an object than air, which means conventional submarines cannot travel as fast as an aircraft. The principle of ‘supercavitation’ was invented by the Soviets in the cold war and allowed torpedo’s to travel at a high speed of 370km/h. In theory, a supercavitating vessel could reach the speed of sound underwater, or about 5,800km/h.

The Chinese scientists claimed to have found solutions to two known problems with high-speed underwatertravel: launching the vessel at high speeds, necessary to generate and maintain the air bubble, and steering the vessel at high speeds.

Further reading on scmp.com