Colorado Company Says It Plans To Test Hyperloop Transport System
Freshly Exhumed writes "Elon Musk's dream of a hyperloop transport system seems to be closer to reality than he anticipated. Hyperloop transportation, referred to by Musk as a "cross between a Concorde, a railgun, and an air hockey table", is a tubular pneumatic transport system with the theoretical capability of carrying passengers from New York to L.A. in about 30 minutes at velocities near 4,000 miles per hour, while maintaining a near-continuous G force of 1. Colorado-based company ET3 is planning to build and test its own version of such a hyperloop system, Yahoo reports." A more critical article would point out that the numbers presented seem absurdly optimistic; $100 for a 4,000mph cross country trip may be "projected," but construction of a cross-country train tube is a long way off, and so are ticket sales.
The TCR made ample use of cheap freed slave and immigrant labor
Why do you think it wouldn't be accurate robots building this thing, end-to-end?
Ezekiel 23:20
While it's true the US has been losing its edge in technological development, what other countries have really stepped up and filled that space? What country has developed usable electric cars, for instance? What country has developed private spaceflight? What country developed the internet? Smartphones?
The US is definitely going down in a lot of ways, but no one else seems to be shining in technological innovation either; everyone else either does only manufacturing or continues the use and development of a highly-mature technology. I just don't see any groundbreaking innovation coming from anywhere else. When the US collapses, things aren't going to progress very quickly in technology.
They could use the NYS Thruway model. "We'll only charge tolls until the road is paid off. And then just keep raising tolls long after the road is paid off."
Tesla Motors? You mean the only car company that got government loans and has already made enough money to pay them off early? You mean the same Tesla Motors that posted a quarterly PROFIT in May?
Yeah, it means even more expensive.
The drunken captain, bad as that was, wasn't the cause of the accident. He was asleep in his bunk, and the ship was being piloted by someone who was qualified. The drunken captain bit was played up to distract from Exxon's culpability, like choosing not to fix a radar that was broken for a year, in order to save a few bucks. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill#Identified_causes
[Nukenerd] Also, Musk's idea is to run inside a vacuum tube. A leak caused by an earthquake would let in air, which, if you hit it at 4000 mph, would be like hitting a brick wall.
[Teancum] I'm really curious about what details you happen to know about this hyperloop system. Are you a SpaceX or Tesla employee that has had a couple of cool ones with the boss to get him to spill his guts about the idea?
No. But some of the links I followed (eg www.businessinsider.com/what-is-elon-musks-hyperloop-2013-5) referred to an evacuated tunnel.
[Teancum] Otherwise, I don't think anybody but Musk has a bloody clue about how his system works. When asked explicitly if it was an underground vacuum tube system, Elon Musk even said "No".
I am a former London Undergound railway engineer and I can tell you that the air resistance in a tunnel is higher than in the open, and that there is no way that 4000 mph is going to be possible in a tunnel unless it is evacuated. The train would melt otherwise, even if you could give it the power.
[Teancum] In other words, this whole article is just a bunch of BS.
Agreed.