Roller Coaster Engineering The Euthanasia Coaster is a hypothetical steel roller coaster designed to kill its passengers. In
2010, it was designed and made into a scale model by Lithuanian artist Julijonas Urbonas, a
PhD candidate at the Royal College of Art in London. Urbonas, who has worked at an
amusement park, stated that the goal of his concept roller coaster is to take lives "with elegance
and euphoria." As for practical applications of his design, Urbonas mentioned "euthanasia" or
"execution." John Allen, who served as president of the Philadelphia Toboggan Company,
inspired Urbonas with his description of the "ultimate" roller coaster as one that "sends out 24
people and they all come back dead."
The concept design of the layout begins with a steep-angled lift to the 510-meter (1,670 ft) top,
which would take two minutes for the train to reach. Any passengers that wished to get off could
then do so. From there, a 500-meter (1,600 ft) drop would take the train to 360 kilometers per
hour (220 mph), close to its terminal velocity, before flattening out and speeding into the first of
its seven slightly clothoid inversions (loops). (Wikipedia)
Assume each loop has a radius of 20 meters. According to a recent article in Popular Science,
14 Gs of lateral acceleration can tear your organs loose from one another. Head-to-foot motion,
meanwhile, plunges all the blood to the feet. Between 4 and 8 longitudinal Gs will knock you out
after 10 seconds. A force of 1 G is the force of gravity we feel here on Earth, while 14 Gs equals
the pull of a planet 14 times as massive. Will you survive the seven loops?