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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.
Wouldn't the east coast make more sense?
Is there a documentary I could watch that will give me some idea of the absurd disaster scenarios somebody has invented for this technology?
The cost to build something like this could be bounded on the lower end by the cost to build the trans-continental railway (a mammoth undertaking), and it pretty much has no upper bound. The TCR made ample use of cheap freed slave and immigrant labor, whereas something like this would be overwhelmed in the current day and age by excessive government regulations, EPA blockages, prevailing wage laws, OSHA, etc. Put quite simply, it cannot happen and if it could, $100 per ticket would not even begin to pay for it.
It's already 3000 AD? Time to go shopping for my Lucy Liu bot and Slurm.
of a Spruce Goose. And? Every time Musk says something we latch on to it and hype it. Besides, I'm sure the progress of 3D printing means we'll be able to 3D print ourselves at the destination. After all, the first modems only had 300 baud, look how fast they are now, therefore anything is possible. Especially when comparing two completely different things.
Let's see how fast it gets fresh salmon from Seattle to Kansas. Build a six inch wide tube or something. If that works out, then maybe think about humans.
Train accidents are bad enough already. 4000 mph? Would there even be anything left for the NTSB to sift through? What happens if the tube decompresses? Musk has some great ideas; but I think he's gone off the rails on this one.
The ET3 website looks like some kind of scam. They are offering to sell licenses for their amazing technology for only $100! I've seen it listed on several articles about Musk's plans, but I suspect that some lazy journalist just googled some shit and found that page.
Does anyone know if Musk actually has a company working on this technology?
Don't Bogart the fish sticks
Compressed air. Constant 1G acceleration. Underground tunnels. No problem!
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Why hasn't this already been developed in another country, like Japan or Germany or France? The US isn't exactly a bastion of technological development.
credit for the invention belongs to Dr. Joseph V. Foa who was awarded US Patent 3213802 for a "train in a tube" in 1965. This was the basis for a number of years of research into the concept at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the 1960s.
He's got a lot of stupid ideas: A new transportation system that would cost billions to build, would be completely uneconomical for patrons to use, and has a high risk of death with even the slightest malfunction at 4,000 MPH. An electric car which costs nearly $100,000 and is likely to lack the necessary infrastructure to use over long distances for years, if ever. A money transfer system which acts like a bank, but whose customers have no FDIC protections, but lots of horror stories. A private space agency which couldn't make it without government subsidies and assistance. YEAH, he's the NEW Steve Jobs all right!
Come on -- TFA even says, "ET3's Hyperloop-like project".... Musk still hasn't announced what his "hyperloop" actually is and, no, Rand Corp and not even Gerard O'Neil in his book "2081" called the evacuated tube EM levitation system "hyperloop".
Seastead this.
I am sure I am not the only person who is tired of
hearing about this South African scam artist Musk.
Musk is a bullshitter and a scam artist. Look at Paypal
and its wonderful skirting of bank regs which has allowed
innumerable riopffs to occur; look at the Tesla with its comically short range.
Wake up and and see the reality that what Musk is about is Musk and not anything
which is actually useful and worthwhile.
Yeah, sure. Assuming you can get the Federal Government to build the whole thing so that you only have to cover marginal operating costs instead of amortizing construction costs into the price, and each seat is filled every time, and you count in 1950's dollars ;-)
The words 'Elon Musk' and 'Loop' make me think of the Lofstrom variety, not underground tunnels.
This vacuum tube transport idea has nothing to do with Elon Musk. It's a small group of irrational dreamers with an office in Colorado who don't have a realistic plan, and pop up once in a while with some random publicity. This is one of those times.
Nearly 3000 miles of travel, at up to 4000 mph, in 30 minutes?
He certainly pulled off Paypal, Tesla is doing quite well and SpaceX is a revolution in space transport industry(price wise). That is one hell of a track record. Sure risky busness pays off well - if you succeed. But keep taking risks and one day you fail, I hope he has a good contingency plan.
But you can be sure government regulations will dictate 55 mph max!
Although I bet the first route is Golden to DIA.
ANYTHING to get me off Hwy 36...
Technical issues aside (and I see a lot of technical issues if we're talking top speeds of 2000-4000 miles per hour) the real killer for this would be the right-of-way. The costs of the California high-speed rail is in the billions because most of the line will cut through densely populated areas. Even with the use if Eminent Domain the state has to pay prevailing rates for the land seizures and that is some expensive land. Running a line from New York to LA is going to cut through a lot of expensive land, too. Not to mention the two mountain ranges it would have to negotiate. The best routes there are already taken by highways and drilling through mountains is neither cheap nor easy.
signed BeBrown
I'm not anonymous, I just hate log-ins
the idea is ridiculous - even if you remove construction costs - maintenance will be huge considering the potential safety issues, being on the ground makes it much more susceptible to problems. Way way more than $100 per head.
even if it was just hauling goods - what happens locally when something happens at 4000mph
it is not a new concept and now is not the time for this, go build ur model if u like but let's hope no government morons go wow.
in futurama ... nothing new to see here
How much energy is released on impact by a large mass travelling 4000 MPH?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Original 1972 paper here: http://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/2008/P4874.pdf
Building his own radio transmitter at 11.
Aptitude for flying (at 14), math, engineering (auditing Caltec).
Despite injuries and OCD (likely) he built a huge company, and many subsidiaries.
http://www.dvice.com/archives/2012/07/hyperloop-elon.php
LA to SF in 30 minutes. Still much faster than current high speed rail, but nowhere near as insane as NY to LA in 30 minutes. Getting a mass transportation vehicle to travel at Mach 5.2 might happen one day, but we will have to see many evolutionary steps between now and then.
Gas taxes, license fees, tolls, etc. only pay for 51% of what the federal government spends on the roads that your car is on, with general tax dollars filling in the rest. Why stop at just subsidizing the roads themselves?
The link for: "... from New York to L.A. in about 30 minutes ..."
Goes here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51HbmuKhRbk
Which clearly states claims New York to Los Angeles in 45 minutes.
LA to NY is around 3900km.
The link for: "... Musk as a "cross between a Concorde, a railgun, and an air hockey table ..."
Goes here: http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-has-plans-for-faster-transportation-called-the-hyperloop-2013-5
Which claims, quote: "You would go from downtown LA to downtown San Francisco in under 30 minutes."
LA to SF is around 558km.
So, um, yeah... what the fuck. Timothy, are you dropping acid again?
I feel I should point out that maintaining 1G constantly (or anything near it) to get that distance in 30 minutes and reach that speed is completely impossible. The math just isn't there.
property rights in many places extend underground and would still require a lot of above ground infrastructure and access ways for maintenance purposes.
Eminent Domain works wonders, particularly for establishing public rights of way, but also for taking your property, which isn't making me mone, so that I can build a mall or hotel or some other business or a roadway there.
Lyle Lanley here!
I'd love to see engineering documentation of the anticipated failure modes for an atmospheric or sub-atmospheric 4000mph transit system.
On the plus side, it will save a bunch on funeral costs for the unlucky passengers!
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
1G doesn't mean you need strapped in -- it means your seat & tray (which naturally is no longer attached to the seat in front of you) pitches forward or backward 45 degrees, and you experience a mildly uncomfortable straight-down "gravity" of 1.4G. As long as the transitions are handled smoothly, it shouldn't be a problem.
And 1G is small enough for the prospect of a seat jamming in one position to not be a show-stopping safety issue. The main issue is the midpoint flip. (If the failure occurs during the 45 degree switch from level to acceleration immediately after launch, the trip can be aborted or delayed while we move them to a functioning seat. If it occurs during the opposite switch at the end, well, the trip's done anyway. Also note that both of these transitions are only 45 degrees, so the user has a chance of hanging on long enough to gracefully exit the seat -- the 90 degree transition in the middle will throw people right out of their seat if done wrong.) Naturally, the seats face the rear of the train, so that if a seat should be stuck in the acceleration position (reclined 45 degrees), the occupant gets to spend the next 15 minutes with the G's pressing their back into the seat-back (rather than their butt into the seat-seat as intended -- they won't get much typing/reading/whatever done, and they'll get a bellyful of whatever was on their tray, but it's not directly injurious, and doesn't require safety belts). The opposite, forward-facing design would fail with the passenger thrown forward out of their seat onto the floor, or suspended as though from the ceiling by their safety harness (which would then be necessary, at least during the midpoint switch).
Alternatively, you can just use (forward- or backward-facing, or some of each) seats tipped back at a fixed 45 degrees, and spend half the trip sitting on your butt, half laying on your back with your knees up. No trays provided, if you want to use a laptop/tablet/phone, you keep it secure in your own lap -- it's only a half hour. Not as clever and scifi, but it does the trick well enough.
If a capsule is traveling along at 4000mph what happens when it needs to alter course? How long would the curve need to be to alter the direction by five degrees?
The tube may work well in straight lines but building one completely straight is difficult if not impossible. There are mountains, valleys, cities, etc. that have to be compensated for. I am pretty sure passengers would not want to be on a roller coaster ride while going across the US.
Sure an absolutely straight tube would be great but the world is not straight.
while maintaining a near-continuous G force of 1
As opposed to those annoying above-ground trains with their varying gravity?
This seems to have come from the video, which states that:
It produces a max of 1G of force at top speed. Passengers would not experience any discomfort.
Two things seem wrong with that to me. Firstly, if you're already at "top speed" you won't be exerting any more force because you won't be going any faster. Secondly, no discomfort? Wouldn't it make the floor feel like it was 45 degrees and gravity was 1.41x stronger? I'd find that at least slightly uncomfortable.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
NY-to-LA at 4000mph for a fortunate few at inconceivably-enormous cost? That may have appeal for the self-appointed "job-creators", but strays laughably far from any possible reality.
In a local transit scenario, this technology will rule. Support infrastructure is very lightweight. The path of individual tube "cars" under computer control means NON-MASS transit with highly-individualized trajectories for everyone, right down to the sub-neighborhood level. No engines, no fuel, no batteries, just huge centralized (and thus greatly efficient) vacuum generators powered with *whatever*. Vacuum-powered "switches" so simple that (apart from seal maintenance) there's nothing to fail. Acceleration and braking through sectorized control of pressures.
"You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream." -- Sherwood Anderson
I think we could actually make it self-powering if you put solar panels on it, you generate more power than you would consume in the system. -- Musk
How would you put solar panels on an underground tube?
Doesn't anybody read the old masters of science fiction anymore? Slashdot, of all places, should already be familiar with all the details of subsurface evacuated tube transportation. This idea has been around for at least half a century, and has been electrically and mechanically feasible for decades. Financially is another story, which is why the whole thing is the pipe dream so cleverly pointed out by another poster.
But let's talk about the real concept, instead of all the (bad) guesswork.
An absolutely straight tube would be quite bad, especially for that distance. What you want is a great circle arc, and the only way to achieve one that's perfect enough and stable enough is to bury it and bury it deep, to avoid mountains, valleys, cities, etc.
It's not pneumatic. That's just silly. It's electromagnetic. You use coils at either end, accelerating with them on the way out and decelerating (and incidentally storing a great deal of the initial launch energy to be reused) at the end. Your vehicle is ballistic in the middle, in free fall. Helluva way to travel, but very cheap, energy-wise, assuming you build giant ring capacitors at each end to store the recovered energy each time the vehicle arrives. Then you only have to make up the losses in the system, which is reasonable to do. The tube is evacuated to vacuum to eliminate air resistance losses, which is so high at useful speeds that it prevents the whole system from working at all, never mind cost effectively.
And no, you don't switch. The tubes are point to point, and there's only one large vehicle per tube, going back and forth between each end. Of course, while you're at it, you might as well build two parallel tubes, 'cause the marginal cost of boring another hole isn't too bad. Still, the system has a hard capacity limit for each route. It's a very high limit if you build a large enough vehicle, but it's also a very hard limit. Once you hit it, the only way to expand capacity, beyond making the vehicle longer (a process with strictly diminishing returns with its own hard limit) is to bore another hole. Time-consuming and energy-intensive, at best.
Of course, it will never happen. Quite aside from property rights problems (land ownership extends right to the center of the Earth), the time and energy required to bore a hole long enough to be useful is extreme. It took 6 years to build the 50km long Channel Tunnel. At that rate, New York to LA would only take 579 years. (Admittedly the actual boring time wasn't anything like 6 years, but still... The project has all the same problems, magnified.)
We'll all be riding in self-driving all-electric vehicles long before anybody bores a transcontinental train tunnel.
Anyone else read that as hyperlob? It'd be pretty awesome getting thrown by some kind of massive trebuchet.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
the world needs ditch diggers too, right?
:P. Basically, just because the robot economy was delayed 50 years by an influx of slave labor from China and a few tech hurdles doesn't mean it's not coming. 3-D printers + robots will either create a utopia or a world of 100,000 or so haves and 8 billion have nots. Given our track record I'm not betting on the utopia...
Agreeing with you there
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The wikipedia article on the Hyperloop quotes Musk as saying the hyperloop and vacuum tunnel are not the same. Anyone know the difference ?
How really, really weird reality follows fiction sometimes...
The earth is honeycombed with subshuttle tubes for high speed transit between settlements, a remnant of the 1990s technology before the nuclear armageddon. Only the scientists from the Pax settlement retain the technology and knowledge of using the subshuttle network... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cmwl3-D62XE
Nothing wrong in principal
You could in principal build something like this
Principle, not principal.
It always confuses me.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
Something this precise cant possibly be maintained.
Reminds me of the Top Thrill dragster. At every run it weighs the passengers + cars and exerts the exact force to get them JUST over the top without flying off or rolling back. The few times I have been there it has gone down several times a day for maintenance.
If Cedar Point cant keep something complex, yet not nearly so of this proposed venture running smoothly for its 1000 FEET of track, how in the hell do you expect something this mammoth to run smoothly over 3000 MILES of "track".
Just another pie in the sky "flying cars for everyone" vision.
one day the robots will look back in horror at how their ancestors were used for slave labor.
Soylent Green comes out the other? : )
Soylent Green is People!
The HyperLoop, contrary to what the icon depicts, is not a big truck you can load up with all kinds of stuff. It's a series of TUBES.