The Way to Go: Moving Through Sea, Land, and Air by Kate Ascher by penguinpress

THE WAY TO GO MOVING THROUGH SEA, AIR, AND LAND Kate Ascher Author Of The Heights

THE WAY TO GO MOVING THROUGH SEA, AIR, AND LAND Kate Ascher Art Direction by Design Language Research by Robert Vroman

LIFE AT SEA

THE WAY TO GO: MOVING THROUGH SEA, LAND, AND AIR

TYPES OF SHIPS At any given point in time, thousands of ships are plying the world’s waters. These range from military vessels carrying troops in war or peace, to ferry boats shuttling back and forth from one port to another, to container and bulk ships moving cargo in international trade. Less heralded are the scores of workboats designed to support them: tugboats, coastal patrol vessels, tugboats

and repair ships, to name just a few. Nearly all boats are somehow involved in supporting the transportation of people or goods. This mission is central to understanding why there are so many types and sizes of ships. A ship’s shape and design is largely driven by what it carries: container ships have deep holds and flat decks to facilitate the stacking of containers;

LNG CARRIER

CONTAINER SHIP

OIL TANKER

Designed to carry liquefied natural gas, these ships may be over 1,100 feet long (335 m) and feature 4-6 distinctive spherical-shaped tanks.

Capable of carrying over 14,500 containers, the largest container ships are over 1,200 feet long (365 m).

Supertankers are capable of carrying over 2 million barrels of oil and can be as long as the world’s tallest skyscrapers.

ro-ro (roll-on/roll-off) ships are shaped like a box to accommodate the movement of wheeled vehicles; cruise ships rise high off the sea to maximize accommodation and views and ferry boats are designed to move large numbers of people on and off deck swiftly. The missions of naval ships have evolved over the centuries, but two are consistent—protection of

trade and protection of people and property. Form follows function in warship design—sleek destroyers and submarines glide seamlessly through the ocean carrying their payload of missiles and torpedoes, while aircraft carriers boast broad decks for airplane takeoff and landings and amphibious ships feature flat bottoms for launching troops and equipment close to shore.

AIRCRAFT CARRIER

HOSPITAL SHIP

HEAVY LIFT

At nearly 1,100 feet (335 m), the Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier carries over 5,500 crew and 90 aircraft.

The floating hospitals support military and peacetime missions. Attacking a hospital ship is a war crime and all hospital ships must be clearly marked with a red cross (or equivalent).

Heavy-lift ships are designed to move large loads like oil platforms and other ships. Many are semi-submersible, which allows the ship to float its load on and off.

COMMERCIAL FISHING

CORVETTE

SURVEILLANCE/RESEARCH

Large, oceangoing commercial fishing vessels feature extensive onboard facilities for processing and freezing their catch.

Smaller surface combatants like the Swedish Visby class feature stealth technology to decrease their radar signatures to other combatants and missiles.

Smaller military surveillance and civil research vessels utilize towed sonar systems for intelligence or scientific data collection.

BULK CARRIER

CRUISE SHIP

RO-RO

SUBMARINE

COAST GUARD CUTTER

AMPHIBIOUS TRANSPORT DOCK

Used to carry bulk commodities like iron ore and coal, these mammoth ships feature expansive deep holds covered by large, watertight hatch covers.

At nearly 1,200 feet (365 m), the world’s largest cruise ships are floating cities able to carry over 6,000 passengers.

Roll-on/roll-off vessels are used to carry vehicles able to be loaded on their own wheels. These ships feature bow and/or stern ramps for ease in loading/unloading.

The US Navy’s newest submarine class, Virginia, is 377 feet long (115 m), can travel over 25 knots, and is said to be quieter than its predecessors when it is sitting at the pier.

The largest cutters used by the US Coast Guard measure 378 feet in length (115 m) and enforce laws and treaties and perform search and rescue on the high seas.

Measuring nearly 700 feet (215 m) long, these amphibious warships carry helicopters and air-cushioned landing craft to deliver up to 800 marines ashore.

BEHIND THE WHEEL

THE WAY TO GO: MOVING THROUGH SEA, LAND, AND AIR

PAVING The making of roads has come a long way since the days of the Appian Way. They are no longer constructed by soldiers, prisoners of war or slaves—but instead by government transportation agencies or by contractors hired by those agencies. While more skilled labor is involved in roadway design and construction than ever before, the roads themselves are probably no better today than they were in the

past: indeed ancient roads that consisted of a drained stone surface required considerably less maintenance than the tarmac roads we drive on today. The oldest paved roads date back 4,600 years to Egyptian civilization. Most were built with slabs of sandstone or limestone, although some included petrified wood. Stone sleds moved on rollers

above them. Some six and a half feet wide, these roads stretched from quarries to ancient lakes that would meet the Nile at flood; from there the blocks of basalt could be floated to Giza. Though technologies for moving materials have gotten much more sophisticated, the process of building a road is not much faster today than it was in the ancient

Paving represents the last stage of road construction—taking place after years of planning and design. To begin, earth-moving and grading equipment will be brought in to create a level surface suitable for paving. Embankments are constructed, major bumps are leveled and depressions or holes are filled. Drains and sewers will be inserted where necessary. Alignment of the roadway will also be considered: the center of the road must be slightly higher than the edges to facilitate drainage.

world thanks to the bureaucratic approval processes that characterize modern democracies. Planning and designing a major road can take up to two years; acquiring the right-of-way and constructing the road can take anywhere from three to five additional years—assuming no legal challenges to its construction delay the process.

STEP 4 STEP 3 STEP 2 Asphalt is poured from a dump truck or transfer unit into the hopper of the paver. The material is conveyed to a screed, which spreads and compacts it over the road. Pavers rely on a constant stockpile of asphalt, so they can move at a constant speed to ensure an even depth of surface.

STEP 1 Road scrapers and graders are used to scrape the dirt below vegetation levels to ensure an even base. The screened dirt or gravel fill is sprayed and compacted repeatedly until it is even.

ROAD ANATOMY Major roadways are typically constructed of asphalt or concrete paving. Asphalt is a petroleum product that can be used to bind sand and crushed rock and can be poured in place to create a hard surface. Though cheaper in most places, it is not as strong or long-wearing as concrete— which is made of cement and water, typically poured into steel molds and formed into large roadways slabs.

As the new asphalt layer is dumped on the prepared roadway, workers smooth in out in preparation for compaction by a roller.

Paint stripers can carry up to hundreds of gallons of paint, though many are smaller. The paint is run through hoses and applied under pressure through one or more ‘gun carriages’ to the newly paved roadway.

RECYCLED MATERIALS

LAYER 1 Embankments are constructed in the earth to provide the bed for the roadway. Typically ditches are created on either side of it, for drainage and other purposes.

LAYER 2 Sub-grade layers consist of a variety of fill material used to bring the roadway to an even level.

LAYER 3 The sub-base layer extends across the roadway and the shoulders on either side.

LAYER 4 A base course is spread across the roadway. It typically consists of gravel or a combination of Portland cement and lime.

LAYER 5 Asphalt is poured on top of the base course, and may or may not be extended to the road’s shoulder

Rubberized asphalt is now commonly used to supplement traditional petroleum-based materials as a road surface. It’s a form of concrete that’s made by blending rubber from ground-up tires with asphalt and traditional aggregate material. The result is stronger than conventional roadway materials: on average, it lasts 50 percent longer. A two-inch

thick road surface uses up to 2,000 old tires per mile of car lane constructed. Other recycled materials also appear increasingly on roads. “Glasphalt” relies on crushed glass as an additive, and has been used widely in the U.S. and Canada for city roads and driveway. Fly ash, shingles, and coal-mine refuse have also been used in roadway concrete mix.

FLIGHT

THE WAY TO GO: MOVING THROUGH SEA, LAND, AND AIR

HELICOPTERS Not all flight is in a forward direction: a helicopter’s rotor blades provide lift in a wholly vertical one. In fact, a helicopter can do a number of things an airplane can’t: it can fly backwards, it can hover motionless in the air, and it can rotate there. As such, it provides the perfect solution for a range of functions that normal planes cannot do— such as medical evacuation, firefighting, sightseeing, and news coverage, among many others. The idea of a helicopter dates back hundreds of years before they became a reality. Leonardo da Vinci described an “aerial screw machine” or “ornihopter” as far back as

1490. The word helicopter can be traced back to 1861, when a French inventor pieced together the word “helicoptere” from the Greek words ‘helix’, meaning curved, and ‘pteron’, meaning wing. His steam-powered model did not get very far, but the idea stuck. The year 1907 saw two landmark events in helicopter history: in France, two manned craft—one tethered and one not—lifted off the ground and flew. By the 1920’s prototype helicopters were regularly moving half a mile or so at about 50 feet in the air. But a commercial helicopter would not develop until long after the first

fixed-wing aircraft, primarily because helicopters require much greater amounts of engine power than small planes. Not until engines had become more powerful and fuel had improved significantly would they prove a viable transportation alternative. Compared to a jet plane, a helicopter is a relatively simple device mechanically speaking: it contains a metal shaft extending upwards from the cabin, a “hub” or attachment point for the rotor blades at the top of the mast, and the blades themselves – which can be attached in any number of ways (rigid, semi-rigid, fully articulated). However it is a

much more difficult machine than an airplane to fly— a helicopter pilot must continuously use his or her arms and legs to keep the craft stable in the air. The rotor blades provide lift in a vertical direction— that is to say up. The “angle of attack” of its rotor blades during rotation determines the nature of that lift – both its pitch (tilting forward and back) and its roll (tiling sideways). The pilot must be in control of both, simultaneously counteracting the torque created by the main rotors by relying on the tail rotor or other rotors that are moving countercyclically.

OSPREY

DIRECTIONAL FLIGHT

LIFT

In addition to moving up and down, helicopters can fly forward, backward and sideways. Directional flight is achieved by tilting the swash plate assembly at the rotor which alters the pitch of each blade as it rotates. As a result, every blade produces maximum lift at a particular point in the rotation.

The helicopter’s rotor, is the rotating part of a helicopter which generates lift, and arguably the most important component of the aircraft. The main rotor is usually designed to rotate at a fairly constant speed, typically several hundred revolutions per minute. The helicopter’s main rotor blades are attached to the rotor and generate lift, much like an airplane wing. As they spin in the air and produce the lift, each blade produces an equal share of the lifting force while hovering.

TORQUE Torque, a turning or twisting force, is created by the engine turning the main rotor blade. To compensate, most helicopters use a vertically mounted tail rotors to counteract the effects of torque on the aircraft. Other designs may employ a second counterrotating main rotor (e.g. the US Army Chinook) or a ducted fan on the tail (No-Tail Rotor or NOTAR) to provide counter torque.

BLADE FLAPPING Because of the increased airspeed (and corresponding lift increase) on the advancing blade, it flaps upward; decreasing speed and lift on the retreating blade causes it to flap downward. This imbalance affects the angle of attack on the blades and causes the upward-flapping advancing blade to produce less lift, and the downwardflapping retreating blade to produce a corresponding lift increase, which in turn, balances the lift across the rotor. This phenomena is known as blade flapping.

When is a helicopter not a helicopter? When it is also a turbo-prop, and can fly quickly over great distances. The best example of a helicopter-plane is the V-22 Osprey, an American military plane that can has the ability to take off and land on short runways (STOL, or short takeoff and landing) or vertically (VTOL, vertical takeoff and landing). Twice as fast as a conventional helicopter, with a range five times greater, it can carry up to a dozen soldiers and is suitable for both combat and rescue missions. Development and refinement of the Osprey took almost twenty years. The new-fangled craft was the product of an unusual collaboration between Boeing and Bell, aircraft and helicopter manufacturers respectively, under contract to the U.S. Defense Department; this collaboration began as far back as 1983. Over the next two decades, there were many who doubted the wisdom of such hefty government investment and questioned the viability of the program. But since its formal introduction in 2007, the Osprey has become an accepted and valuable method of military transport. Both the Marine Corps and the Air Force now rely on their versions of the Osprey in battle zones ranging from Iraq to Afghanistan.

THE WAY TO GO: MOVING THROUGH SEA, LAND, AND AIR

SPACE STATION The International Space Station orbits the earth today as the focal point of human exploration of space. Launched in 1998 as a partnership between the United States, Europe, Russia, Japan and Canada, it has been continuously occupied since the year 2000 by one or another of two dozen different crews. The station is enormous—the length of a football field and four and five times the size of the spacelabs Mir and Skylab respectively. Composed of two distinct portions— the ROS (Russian Orbital Segment) and the USOS (United States Orbital Segment)—it weighs approximately one

million pounds. Most of its energy needs are met by an acre or so of solar panels that sit on its exterior, and it is regularly serviced by missions from its partner countries. The station functions as a modern-day science laboratory. Its visitors undertake experiments—on humans, plants, and other materials—to see how they function in space over extended periods of time. It also serves as a data-gathering station for space itself, including the study of meteors and other astrophysical phenomena. Data gleaned from the station is serving as the foundation for the design of future forays into space.

The ISS features multiple cranes and robotic arms. The largest is Canadarm2, a 58 ft (18m) arm capable of lifting 260,000 pounds (116,000 kg) which can be operated from Earth and is often used to support extravehicular activities.

At 357 feet (109 m) long, the integrated truss structure forms the backbone for the ISS and supports the solar arrays and other unpressurized logistic components.

The core of the ISS is 15 pressurized modules that contain laboratory, habitation, and service modules. Several additional modules are due to be delivered in the next couple of years.

ADDITION TIMELINE

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With stunning visuals and encyclopedic insight, the author of The Heights and The Works reveals how humans move across the globe by land, sea, and air.

In our digital age, it’s easy to forget that almost everything we enjoy about modern life depends on motion. We ride in cars and on buses and trains to work; enjoy food shipped over oceans; fly high in the sky to any point on the planet. Over the last century, the world has come to rely on its ability to move just about anywhere effortlessly. But what prompted this transformation? What inventions allowed it to happen? And how do the vehicles and systems that keep us in motion today—airports, trains, cars and satellites—really work? Exploring how the world moves is the task of Kate Ascher’s The Way to Go: Moving Through Sea, Land, and Air. Lusciously illustrated and meticulously researched, The Way to Go reveals the highly complex technologies that underpin global transportation. How do airplanes and rockets get into the sky? What really happens under the hood of a car, or in the cables above a streetcar? How do submarines generate enough air to stay underwater for so long? What makes high-speed trains move so fast? How can airplanes land on ships at sea? What allows bridges to stand? How do driverless trains work?

Focusing on the machines that underpin our lives, Ascher’s The Way to Go also introduces the systems that keep those machines in business—the emergency communication systems that connect ships at sea, the automated tolling systems that maintain the flow of highway traffic, the air control network that keeps planes from colliding in the sky. Equally fascinating are the technologies behind these complex systems: baggage tag readers that make sure people’s bags go where they need to; automated streetlights that adjust their timing based on traffic flow; GPS systems that allow us to know where we’re going. Together these technologies move more people farther, faster, and with less effort than at any other time in history. As our lives and our businesses become more entwined with others across the globe, there has never been a better time to understand how transportation works. Indispensable and unforgettable, Kate Ascher’s The Way to Go is a gorgeous graphic guide to a world moving as never before.

KATE ASCHER worked at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the New York City Economic Development Corporation, and Vornado Realty Trust before taking up her current position managing Happold Consulting’s U.S. practice; she serves on the faculty of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. Her former books include The Works: Anatomy of a City and The Heights: Anatomy of a Skyscraper.

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