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SpaceWanderer22 t1_iu6j5eo wrote

Reply to comment by PandaCL in A mobile makes sound travel faster than the speed of sound by Nicebruhh

I wonder at what point in the future it will be even possible? Probanly quite a long time. Right now, even if the entire GDP of earth was funneled into it, I'm sure they wouldn't be able to do it.

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rumbake t1_iu6jlkm wrote

It'd never be done, pretty sure you'd possibly screw up the magnetic fields around earth in some way. Also we never know if the magma sharks have lasers, considering the undersea cable was attacked by sharks we can't take this risk.

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madsci t1_iu75nlw wrote

Short answer, no.

A quick Google search tells me that the lithostatic pressure in the lower mantle is something like 24 gigapascals, and the strongest high-performance concrete in the world can handle 1% of that.

And that's not even considering the temperature, which starts at around 1000 C.

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SpaceWanderer22 t1_iu76a4f wrote

Plus the inner core is a 1500 mile diameter sphere of a solid iron alloy.

At some point it'll probably be possible, but I'd imagine that's pretty far future territory.

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madsci t1_iu76wbb wrote

If we ever get to that point, I suspect we'll already be building planet-scale megastructures and won't have any need to be boring holes through the Earth.

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SpaceWanderer22 t1_iu77hqx wrote

Agreed, why drill a difficult hole when you could build a Dyson sphere? My main point was just considering what level of technology it would require to actually accomplish the feat.

It is possible though that some unexpected mechanism would make it more feasible than expected, and communication straight through the planet would have some serious benefits. Especially if it was a straight hole, and light was sent directly through it, without even using a fiber optic cable.

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