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Elon Musk Admits He Is Too Busy To Build Hyperloop
DavidGilbert99 writes "It sounded like the future — a 600mph train taking people from San Francisco to Los Angeles in just 30mins. In fact it sounded like a future too good to be true. And so it seems to have proven. As Alistair Charlton at IBTimes reports, Elon Musk, the man behind PayPal, Tesla and Space X has admitted that Hyperloop is a step too far and he should never have mentioned it in the first place — 'I think I shot myself in the foot by ever mentioning the Hyperloop. I'm too strung out.' Oh well, let's hope SpaceX works out a bit better ... " Considering that SpaceX has already sent materials to the ISS and retrieved the capsule, it seems to have worked out pretty well so far.
Great article!
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/497781/20130808/elon-musk-admit-busy-make-hyperloop-shot.htm
who where what when now?
I get the feeling that if we had about a dozen Elon Musks we would be living in the 2010's version we see in 40 year old sci-fi films...
Ok, the Hyperloop is a bit too much (for now), but the work he's done with Tesla and SpaceX is amazing. And don't forget he had PayPal back when it was a good thing!
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
Maybe he could . . . you know . . . hire somebody to build it for him rather than doing it himself.
and nice 404 link.
Elon Musk Admits he is Too Busy to Build Hyperloop
The editors should be paying me to do their homework.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
This just completely shattered my illusions of Elon Musk as a real life Tony Stark.
Hell, a single high speed rail link through the middle of the country linking the existing decent rail on the coasts would be great.
I wonder if he realized all the people "on his side" pushing trains would turn around once it got started and put tens to hundreds of millions in lawsuits in the way about environmental studies, hiring union people, and anything else they can think up, not coincidentally buying time for people to throw up apartments in the way, or cram warehouses in the way full of old machinery, all of which must be bought at vastly overinflated government condemnation appraisals.
More stories from Washington, and bankrupting Detroit in this month's issue of Actual Tales From Actual Freakin' Reality.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Launching through cleared airspace is probably much easier than trying to secure right-of-ways for a slightly-subsonic transport through thousands of municipalities, state and federal lands, and individual property owners, not to mention likely tangles with the EPA and whatever unions might be involved. Plus, a high-profile transportation project like that might pick up TSA attention too.
Maybe DD Harriman though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delos_D._Harriman
Space flight is incredibly inefficient.
You lift a tin can above the atmosphere only to drop it back in a little later. All the energy you used to lift it will be lost.
It also doesn't scale very well.
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
Maybe we just need to figure out how to apply regenerative braking to rocket engines...
It sounded like the future — a 600mph train taking people from San Francisco to Los Angeles in just 30mins. In fact it sounded like a future too good to be true.
A future where SF and LA are only 300 miles apart does sound a little unlikely.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
"Groves" on trees? [/facepalm]
I think you've invented a new eggcorn.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
a lot of freight is already transported by rail. HSR is for people, and in most cases people prefer to fly because its faster
No, it is not. For flights you have to get there an hour or more in advance, they are chronically late or canceled and you can't get up and walk around during it.
Go someplace they have HSR and check it out.
People travel by air because they don't have HSR available to them.
It's bad for another reason too. Earth Quakes.
Earthquakes take time to propagate, so unless it is built right on the faultline, there will be time to react.
Protip: If you immediately see a serious problem with something you know almost about, it is likely that the responsible professionals are already aware of the problem and have considered it in their design.
What you meant to say is, "Nowhere in the world do roads compete successfully with railroads except thanks to road and motor vehicle subsidies."
Europe is huge. Lisbon to Vienna is farther than NYC to denver. Europe these days extends far past Vienna as well. Lisbon to Minsk is 2400 miles. That is only 300 miles shy of NYC To LA.
You might be able to get out of NYC at 7am, you might not. Last year I was stuck for 3 days waiting for a flight to leave. This does not happen with trains. You will also be getting to the airport at 5am and crammed into a tiny seat for several hours. On the train you could walk around, eat, drink, have free wifi.
Go visit a place with HSR.
The one in Spain crashed because it was going to fast around the corner because the driver was texting on his phone.
He was not texting, he was talking on the phone, receiving instructions from the train company about the route farther ahead (it was not a warning about the corner). But that is probably irrelevant since he was already too fast when he got the call, one minute before the crash. Even if he noticed the corner, I don't know if one minute would be enough to slow down the train to a safe speed.
Sadly, this is an example of unions run amok. Trains don't need drivers. It's entirely feasible to automate them. Look at all the automated airport shuttle trains. But in Spain, there's a union, and they make damn sure there's a driver on every train, and unfortunately, they don't police their own members so we get incompetents who cause fatal wrecks because they can't be bothered to pay attention to their meaningless makework job.
Unions have their place, but that one is a poster child for Fox News to point to. They should be ashamed.
Why does it have to be profitable? If the economic benefits on the area are great enough it will pay for itself through economic growth. That's what governments are for, to finance things that benefit the people but don't necessarily make a profit.
Help I am stuck in a signature factory!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_protection_system
Why would there not be simply some mechanical/electrical switch that triggers the train to slow down automatically approaching sharp corners?
I don't know about Spanish railroads, but the NYC subway system has had what you're talking about for many decades. For a dramatization, watch the original Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (1974). The part where the train is automatically slowed down going around the loop at South Ferry is entirely accurate.
I believe it's called a "railroad". I wonder if it's ever been tried as a business model?
Not successfully. No where in the world do passenger trains operate profitably without subsidies.
Now there's a [citation needed] if I ever saw one, SNCF is booking half a billion per quarter. The TGV network is a goldmine.
(At any given moment there's more high-speed equipment waiting to depart at Gare du Nord than exists in all of North America.)
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
Not successfully. No where in the world do passenger trains operate profitably without subsidies.
Name me one location where automobiles operate profitably without subsidies. You think those roads were built with private money? Even the occasional toll road is only possible because it feeds into a network of publicly financed roads. You seriously think that automobiles and airplanes aren't heavily subsidized?
Sounds much more comfortable and less degrading than flying coach.
It's bad for another reason too. Earth Quakes.
Japan has earthquakes too, much more often and intense than we have on the west coast (we haven't actually had a large one since 1999). Japan has a fairly substantial rail system, complete with high speed lines. If they can do it, why can't we?
Lisbon to Minsk is about the same distance from NYC to LA.
How many people travel from Lisbon to Minsk (or equivalent distance) by train? Seriously - I don't know.
People rave about the TGV, but Paris to Lyon is only 237 miles (roughly like a Boston to NY or NY to Washington trip) Even Berlin to Paris (like an old war movie) is only 545 miles. It seems that when people travel from, say London to the south of France, they're more likely to fly, and that's only about 600 miles.
Sometimes (most times?) it is better to be at the mercy of the odds than in situations where people are in control.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
(At any given moment there's more high-speed equipment waiting to depart at Gare du Nord than exists in all of North America.)
But can you buy Freedom Fries on the train?
Tyrone, you know how much I love watching you work, but I've got my country's 500th anniversary to plan, my wedding to arrange, my wife to murder and Guilder to frame for it; I'm swamped.
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
its 41 hours lisbon to vienna
in the USA only the craziest train fans would opt for this kind of trip over flying.
No sewage system in the world runs profitably either.
I agree on railroad business requiring subsidies. In fact, as public transport, it should probably be run by the public (ie, government) to ensure less profitable but important lines stay open. Hell, we Dutch should never have privatized rail. It's never been a worse mess.
Among the many problems with hyperloop is elevation changes. If you're going even 1000 miles per hour, the minimum turning radius to stay less than half a g is 25 miles. There are 4000 ft mountains between LA and SF, and either you have to build a 80 mile long tunnel through them (pretty expensive) or build a viaduct that is 2000 ft high and 100 miles long. Going around the mountains might make more sense, but you're going to end up way out to sea.
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Engineering is about compromises. First, didn't read TFA, but 600 MPH in the summary clashes with your 1000 MPH. Did it say 'mean speed of 600', as opposed to peak speed?
Second, a 'pinnacle' design could make this work. Think like new coasters that either have a 2nd acceleration point or reverse back to start: Go fast, then slow down, then go fast again. Modern engineering's got more than a few tricks -- mix 'em up: pod accelerates at each end, undergoes inductive breaking in as few spots as possible, goes 'slowly' where it makes sense, introduces banks/curves to keep the G-forces palatable, and chooses a route that optimizes against all of these.
If you tell me I can go SFO to LAX in 38 minutes instead of 30 (and a net transit of 60 mins), I'm still happier than I'd be with current alternatives, whether driving or air. Hell, get me and a ton of freight there in under 2 hours and I'd like it.