Elon Musk's 'Hyperloop': More Details Revealed

astroengine writes "Entrepreneur Elon Musk revealed details today about his concept for a high-speed transportation system he calls the Hyperloop. After tweeting that he'd pulled an all-nighter preparing for the announcement, Musk told Businessweek that the design could transport people as well as cars inside aluminum pods that move up to 800 miles per hour through a tube. The tubes would be mounted on columns 50 to 100 yards apart, not interfering with land needs because it would essentially follow major highways, such as I-75 in California."

Comments

I-75?

[dtmos]

. . . it would essentially follow major highways, such as I-75 in California.

Let the record show that TFA correctly states "I-5". Somebody in Michigan needs to watch his typos.

Re:I-75?

[Anonymous Coward]

And here I was thinking that it also folded space-time!

Re:I-75?

[Valdrax]

Let the record show that TFA correctly states "I-5". Somebody in Michigan needs to watch his typos.

Not the first link. At least not as of the time I read it. The Slashdot summary is a pure cut and paste (with links restored) of the first paragraph from the Discovery News article.

Re:I-75?

[ackthpt]

. . . it would essentially follow major highways, such as I-75 in California.

Let the record show that TFA correctly states "I-5". Somebody in Michigan needs to watch his typos.

Hey, it's Elon Musk, if he doesn't know I-75 runs from Sault Ste Marie, Michigan (say ja to da up, eh!) all the way to Hialeah, Florida, do you trust his 800 miles per hour pod racer?

Re:I-75?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets see... build a system where one small misalignment will mean crashes that kill passengers, in a state that has more earthquakes than anywhere else in the US... Riiiiiiiiiiiight...

Re:I-75?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is that different from the current highway system in CA? The "pod" would be traveling a lot faster but it doesn't take much of a mistake for a 60 MPH vehicle to wreak havoc on anything in its path.

Re:I-75?

[crakbone]

Evidently you have never driven on the 101 in California, High speed and earthquakes is a California tradition.

Re:I-75?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is the article on Discovery that has the typo. The PDF from the Tesla Motors Blog says: "...alongside the mostly very straight California Interstate 5 highway..."

Re:I-75?

[PraiseBob]

There are an estimated 6 million car crashes every year in the US. Roughly 35,000 people die in those crashes. There is no way of knowing what percentage happen at what speed, but still, your chances of surviving a car accident are overall pretty good. Your chances of surviving a crash at 800mph are 0.00000000%

Re:I-75?

[ShanghaiBill]

Lets see... build a system where one small misalignment will mean crashes that kill passengers, in a state that has more earthquakes than anywhere else in the US... Riiiiiiiiiiiight...

The faultlines are mostly along the coast. The hyperloop would run mostly through the central valley. Even if there was a big quake, the seismic waves would take time to propagate, so there would be time to react.

It doesn't have to be perfect. It just needs to be an improvement on the alternatives. If you look at the current plan for high speed rail between SF to LA, almost anything would be an improvement.

Re:I-75?

[esrobinson]

It would be pretty silly to build such a system in Alaska. Not enough people there.

Re:I-75?

[pla]

still, your chances of surviving a car accident are overall pretty good. Your chances of surviving a crash at 800mph are 0.00000000%

The odds of surviving a crash don't much matter here - The odds of a crash do, for two reasons.

First, because the accident rate matters. You have made an argument appealing to the fatality rate, while ignoring whether or not tubes would have more or less total (fatal) accidents. If fewer than 350 100-passenger tube-pods crash per year, you have a net improvement vs cars. Comparing that to flying, if we had an average of one packed airplane going down in flames every day - We'd see commercial aviation end almost overnight. More to the point, people die in car accidents largely because people fail, not because their cars fail.

And second, bad things happen in car accidents beyond "death". Things (IMO) worse than death happen. And don't forget all the high-cost but not-worse-than-death injuries (broken limbs, major surgeries needed, etc). Yes, an 800MPH accident pretty much means trying to ID the bodies by searching for teeth with a sieve; that doesn't mean you get to just ignore all the "not quite dead" car accidents, which far outnumber the actual fatal ones.


/ And hey, if I really end up dying in an accident some day - I'll gladly take "you need to look for teeth with a sieve" over "watching myself and my family slowly bleed to death as paramedics try to cut us out".

Re:I-75?

[garyebickford]

I would add to this that it should be within the range of possibility to build the system with enough motion tolerance and damping to allow the vehicles to slow down. Total motion in an earthquake is rarely more than a few feet - in fact rarely more than a few inches. That's in the range that modern jetliners encounter in bumpy air, at 500 MPH. I'm just guesstimating, of course but I can imagine suspending the tube in a framework that allows it to stay relatively motionless while the framework itself moves two or three feet. It could even be motorized to further reduce motion of the tube.

Re:I-75?

[Teancum]

While I would agree that "driver errors" including having 16 year olds who still have wet ink on their first driver's licenses operating vehicles traveling at 75 mph at night, there are other things that can cause highway fatalities. Some vehicles are poorly maintained and can fail (I know of several highway deaths due to vehicle malfunctions), poor highway maintenance, and even random events like somebody "going postal" or even a cow or deer wandering onto the road when it isn't expected. Poor highway maintenance can be having chunks of concrete falling onto the road, pot holes forming, sink holes, or something like a bridge collapse (like Interstate 880... admittedly during an earthquake).

All that said, if the concept of the hyperloop can be put into a practical form, the likelihood of most of the problems of personal vehicle transportation causing a death could certainly be mitigated. Interestingly enough, part of Elon Musk's proposal includes the idea you could drive your automobile or even a semi-truck into one of the pods and travel the distance of the tube but then drive a short distance to your ultimate destination. The tube itself would need some considerable maintenance, but from what I see in the proposal it would be easier and cheaper to maintain than highway repairs. I assume that the tube could be shut down for maintenance ranging from adjusting a couple of the tubes, repairing broken air pumps, or even replacing whole sections of the tube as needed.

Re:I-75?

[Anonymous Coward]

You might want to RTFP(DF)...his designs account for not just earthquakes but gradual shifts as well.

Re:I-75?

[milkmage]

kind of like trains? we have those here in CA too, and have been successfully operating them through '89 Loma Prieta, Northridge in '94, and a plethora of smaller quakes.

nevermind all the local commuter trains like BART which include the transbay tube that runs for 4 miles on the BOTTOM of SF Bay and carries 400k commuters/day. was the only direct link to the east bay after Loma Prieta because the Bay Bridge broke.

Californians know how to deal with earthquakes. the building I'm sitting in right now rests on giant ball bearings so the ground can move under the building.

Re:I-75?

[BancBoy]

Evidently you have never driven on the 101 in California, High speed and earthquakes is a California tradition.

Evidently you are from Southern California or not from California at all. ;)

Re:I-75?

[larry bagina]

. . . it would essentially follow major highways, such as I-75 in California.

Let the record show that TFA correctly states "I-5". Somebody in Michigan needs to watch his typos.

They used xerox copy/paste

Re:I-75?

[similar_name]

Evidently you have never driven on the 101 in California, High speed and earthquakes is a California tradition.

Link Added.

I'm pretty sure you've driven on it :)

Re:I-75?

[Anonymous Coward]

no much time to react when you have 2000 tons moving at 800mph.

We barely have enough time to stop 2 tons at 60mph by computer.

And then there's O&M costs. Musk will find out how hard it will be to maintain those Teslas after 5 yrs. Sure we can "recycle them", but you really can't do that with commuter trains.... unless you build 2 tracks (one to use, one as a back up upgrader track).

Re:I-75?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, a real Californian would have said "the I-75" if it were a typo.

Re:I-75?

[Provocateur]

Somebody in Michigan needs to watch his typos

Or wake up. He's obviously dreaming.

Re:I-75?

[xQx]

Only if you hit something stationary.

I'm not trolling - I'm just saying, not all accidents at 800mph result in instant and catastrophic death.

Airlines hit birds fairly regularly with an impact speed of 800kph, and NASCAR's that crash usually have drivers walk away even though they're doing speeds in excess of 200mph. (Yes, I know the implications of E=0.5MV^2). Yet a person on a push bike can kill themselves at 40mph if they hit something large, solid and stationary.

As long as the integrity of the tunnel holds, there's nothing to hit at 800mph.

Re:I-75?

[Anonymous Coward]

or have a mechanism to shut down in a seismic event, like most elevators do now! Have to figure out a way to make sure that no one asphyxiates, but that shouldn't be hard, response time should be minimal if it located along major freeways.

Re:I-75?

[Zouden]

Musk's design document (the PDF he provided) calls for three dampeners per pylon to mitigate earthquake damage.

Re:I-75?

[Captain Hook]

First, because the accident rate matters.

I suspect that the accident rate will be much lower than even trains

1) because of the lack of other stuff in the tube so there just wont be anything to run into accept other pods which might have stopped, no trees falling on to tracks or cars at level crossing etc.

2) because the pods are meant to have the air sucked out of them. If anything happens to the tube which breaks the structure of the tube (tree falling onto it for example, then air is going to rush in and the pod wont be able to travel at 800mph even if it tried to, it makes a very easy to detect failsafe system, just have pressure sensors on the pods and in the tubes.

Re:I-75?

[Eivind]

True. But mortality is equal to frequency of accidents, multiplied with death-risk in an accident. Even if death-risk is higher, you can still be a lot safer if the frequency of accidents is much lower.

These capsules run inside a sealed (airtight!) solid-steel pipe. That alone eliminates a pretty large fraction of all accidents, it's not as if you'll ever get a pedestrian on the track or crash in an intersection in one of these.

Re:I-75?

[MachineShedFred]

I don't know, those of us here on I-75 in Cincinnati, Ohio would welcome a 30-minute trip to Southern California; and that would really be something to talk about, even though it would be just as vaporiffic as this idea.

Re:I-75?

[Anonymous Coward]

The main reason that the tube is an idea at least worth considering is that the tube itself has a maintenance profile that is nothing like that of a road. Instead of a roadway surface subject to constant cyclic surface stresses and weathering - perhaps the worst environment for anything man-made out there save for marine stuff, you have a steel tube that is not in direct contact with any moving parts. All you need to do to maintain it is to paint it. If the original paint job is done right, it will require much less maintenance than usual steel infrastructure like bridges. I would personally pay a lot of attention to how the joints are done, and how to treat the area around and under the fasteners. That's where you'd get rust first - as long as you somehow mitigate that, you're golden. The rest can be painted the same way a car would be, except that the layers of various coatings can be thicker to be more resilient. Perhaps they should just bite the cost bullet and trade off maintenance for up-front costs and make the damn thing out of stainless steel.

Re:I-75?

[bluefoxlucid]

Did the article originally cite that bullet trains are a Liberal wet-dream, but are highly inefficient and use way too much energy; and then compare these to show if they're more or less efficient than bullet trains and other methods of transportation?

Re:I-75?

[Anonymous Coward]

"or something like a bridge collapse"

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-08-24/poor-formwork-behind-bridge-collapse/957186

Re:I-75?

[bondsbw]

If fewer than 350 100-passenger tube-pods crash per year, you have a net improvement vs cars.

Not if there are only 350 100-passenger tube-pods launched per year.

Re:I-75?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless we're talking about carrying all traffic in the country via hyper loop, your comparison to accident rates nationwide is flawed. Better to compare to accident rates for the car traffic along the intended route.

Re:I-75?

[tlhIngan]

2) because the pods are meant to have the air sucked out of them. If anything happens to the tube which breaks the structure of the tube (tree falling onto it for example, then air is going to rush in and the pod wont be able to travel at 800mph even if it tried to, it makes a very easy to detect failsafe system, just have pressure sensors on the pods and in the tubes.

You also missed a rather brilliant failsafe as well - let's say the tube fails and thus, the vacuum fails. Your pod now has to battle onrushing air and is also being "sucked" backwards, thus forming a natural brake.

That's if the tube section ahead of you fails.

If it fails behind you, the onrushing air pushes you away from the broken section.

So safety is enhanced because your pod will end up being pushed away from the broken section.

Of course, there's a chance that you might run into the pod behind or ahead of you (depending if the broken section is ahead or behind you, respectively), but given some "leakage" of air around your pod, an air cushion could form that likewise slows your approach ahead. Assuming the pods weren't spaced out to begin with..

Re:I-75?

[Mr Z]

Something tells me that one of these pods would have quite a bit more kinetic energy to bleed off than an elevator car. 1/2 mv^2 and all..

Re:I-75?

[Valdrax]

Did the article originally cite that bullet trains are a Liberal wet-dream, but are highly inefficient and use way too much energy; and then compare these to show if they're more or less efficient than bullet trains and other methods of transportation?

Um, not that what you said had anything to do with what I did, but high-speed rail is actually considerably more efficient in high population areas. It's simply a matter of generator efficiency. (e.g. San Francisco and Los Angeles.) It only fails when ridership is low, and you're pushing too much vehicle per passenger.

Vacuum tube trains have an entirely different set of problems with efficiency, but Musk's solution is to simply use lower pressure to lower drag instead of chasing the ever-rising energy costs of achieving true vacuum. I guess the question will be at those speeds whether or not they achieve greater energy efficiency than airplanes -- which is kind of a low bar, I guess, but it's not like you can travel 760 mph by car, so comparing it to cars is apples and oranges.

Re:I-75?

[booch]

Nice one! Took me a second to realize that you were referring to the comment about the state with the most earthquakes.

Re:I-75?

[booch]

BART ... transbay tube ... was the only direct link to the east bay after Loma Prieta because the Bay Bridge broke.

Uh, the San Mateo bridge is a direct link to the East Bay. Maybe out of the way for many, but still useful for a lot of folks. The Dumbarton bridge is also a direct link, but even less useful for most.

Re:I-75?

[bluefoxlucid]

People are excited over all kinds of shit too easily. Bullet trains--high-speed rail--get a lot of attention for "efficiency", but the truth is they're subject to aerodynamic drag, braking force loss, etc. Regenerative braking isn't a magic bullet, bringing back 20%-50% of the energy lost from trying to accelerate your balls off and keep that speed in the face of air resistance; but people talk like regenerative braking generates electricity (i.e. if the Prius got 5%--rather than its 20-25%--people would still say, "Oh it recharges when you hit the brakes!" just like they do now; they don't know you get less than 1/4 efficiency return for regen in the Prius). Line up all these things and you get a big gap between what people imagine they're getting and what they're really getting.

I'm interested in actual comparisons between things--stuff that says X and Y are subject to all kinds of inefficiencies, and Z solves that or doesn't. Bullet trains are subject to loss in acceleration, braking, track maintenance, wind resistance, etc; light rail is subject to loss in running the AC and lights inside the cabin (we can vent waste heat into the cabin in the winter) for a longer trip. Cars are slow and energy-costly--loading a car into a pod and shipping it at 200mpg-equivalent is a direct, comparable gain over driving at 20mpg. Producing a vacuum is costly; producing a partial vacuum is less costly, and this method uses that to achieve higher speeds, at what efficiency?

In the end, does this still suck twice as much energy as the next best thing; or does it consume comparable for a much faster trip, more flexibility, and greater application? I mean if you can efficiently, cost-effectively move cars on individual routing, you've hit gold: I can't drive my car onto the light rail or subway, so a trip to New York or such by rail means abandoning my car and potentially renting one--which is expensive. The energy cost of driving my car the 400 miles is like $100 total versus like $45 for a train ticket each way plus $20/day to rent a car, slightly cheaper to drive it and less annoying to wind up A) without a car; or B) hassling with walking to get a car, renting the car, bringing the car back. Multi-day trips are a waste.

Re:I-75?

[Areyoukiddingme]

Er, well, not semi tractors. They're too tall. The largest vehicle expected to fit in the vehicular version would be a middlin' SUV. With a tube diameter of 10 feet 10 inches, the largest SUVs and pickup trucks won't fit.

Re:I-75?

[rally2xs]

Where did you get 2000 tons? From the description of a vehicle-carrying hyperloop vehicle:

The overall structure weight is expected to be near 7,700 lb (3,500 kg) including the luggage compartments and door mechanism. The overall cost of
the structure including manufacturing is targeted to be no more than $275,000.

Re:I-75?

[Teancum]

I'm sure there will be some kind of shipping container that can fit down the tube... either that or the tube will be enlarged to fit standard shipping containers or some sort or another even if it needs to be dismounted from the truck proper.

Re:I-75?

[slashmydots]

What mitigates terrorist bombs along the entirety of the track?

Re:I-75?

[Anguirel]

What mitigates terrorist bombs along the entirety of any major piece of infrastructure? The bridges, or the subway systems under a major city would cause a lot more damage than taking out this line, generate a lot more public outcry as it's a greater part of daily life for citizens, and would be easier to place. And great, now we're both on the watch lists...

I-75....in California?!?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what to say about the rest of the summary but IIRC, Interstate 75 doesn't go further west than Ohio/Indiana.

Re:I-75....in California?!?!?

[olsmeister]

Na, never makes it to Indiana, but it goes north from Detroit all the way to the Canadian border at Sault Ste Marie in the Upper Peninsula. On the south end, it goes somewhere in Southern Florida (not sure where, never been all the way to that end).

Re:I-75....in California?!?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

It stops in Key West, FL.

Re:I-75....in California?!?!?

[booch]

If only there was some kind of map that would show where highways go.

In a world without boundry layer

[Anonymous Coward]

and light, ultra-powerful electric motors, Elon Musk is a visionary.

Genesis II from Gene Roddenberry and Elon Musk

[aisnota]

Elon, you remind us to do better than the conventional wisdom says!

Kudos to your enthusiasm. Also for reawakening us all and note, Genesis II from Gene Roddenberry also features such transport with underground based vacuum systems world wide too.

Re:Genesis II from Gene Roddenberry and Elon Musk

[OneAhead]

But, but... propulison... partial vacuum... cost... bounday layer... turbulence... lateral accellerations...
Oh never mind, if Gene Roddenberry said so, it must work.

Re:Genesis II from Gene Roddenberry and Elon Musk

[Anonymous Coward]

two words, Inertial Dampers.

Sorry had to say it.

Re:Genesis II from Gene Roddenberry and Elon Musk

[VortexCortex]

One Word: Tachyon Sponge.

How the hell did that get in th-- oh, right, faster than light... I forgot I remembered.

Re:Genesis II from Gene Roddenberry and Elon Musk

[aviators99]

If there's trouble, they can always rotate the shield harmonics.

Cool but probably not feasible...

[Billy the Mountain]

The problem I see with this is while it's nice to dream about 800 mph travel, I can't imagine that it would be feasible to construct a track or tube that could follow the terrain at that speed and still maintain passenger comfort. If you are building above-ground supports, you don't want them to be 500 ft tall as would probably be required in order to keep the tube straight enough for passenger comfort and safety.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering the speed of sound at sea level is 761 mph...
- noise pollution?
- shockwaves/heat and their effect on durability?
It seems to me he has absolutely NO idea about the very real engineering challenges to something like this. I expect that is such a project was ever approved, it would run 15 years late and come in at least 50x over budget.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[ZigMonty]

The problem I see with this is while it's nice to dream about 800 mph travel, I can't imagine that it would be feasible to construct a track or tube that could follow the terrain at that speed and still maintain passenger comfort. If you are building above-ground supports, you don't want them to be 500 ft tall as would probably be required in order to keep the tube straight enough for passenger comfort and safety.

Luckily, advancement doesn't have to wait for the average guy's imagination to catch up. Have you actually read the proposal or are you just doing the usual slashdot thing?

The guy runs two companies, one in the space business and one that makes electric cars. I'm sure he'll need to ask a construction company for advice about the pillars, etc, but is there any reason to suppose he hasn't run this past the best engineers in those two companies? I'm sure his cost estimates are off, they can only be estimates this early in a design study, but it's not like he doesn't have engineers that know aerodynamics and vehicle design.

I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt until real rebuttal arrives, say from someone who can point out actual errors in the proposal.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[mozumder]

Have you actually read the proposal

His proposal says it'll cost $1 billion for land & permit rights.

Try $50 billion instead.

Again, the major cost of transportation is the actual cost of the land.

And the land-use issues & solutions are just as applicable to high-speed rail.

Basically this entire report is a big ad for pageview hits to the Tesla motors website.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[Anonymous Coward]

It is fantastic to have someone proposing something that is exciting, new and potentially a sea-change.

It is really easy to try and poke holes in something, it is not easy to come up with and flesh out this type of idea.

If people were able to life an entire city 10 feet in the 1800s and even reverse the flow of a river (http://99percentinvisible.org/) more than 100 years ago, why shouldn't we get behind something aspirational like this?

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[The Cat]

It seems to me he has absolutely NO idea about the very real engineering challenges to something like this.

As opposed to some smartass cunt on the Internet.

By your logic we should be hand-carrying water buckets around to wash our ass with. FUCK I wish this site would go back to what it once was.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[crakbone]

Your probably right. It's not like he put in a whole new privatized space program at a cost less than a nuclear submarine. With a launch charge cheaper than the cost of a ticket to ISS.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[tolkienfan]

Go slower in curvier areas? Those areas are probably stops anyway. In rural areas straightening the path is easier.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[ShanghaiBill]

I can't imagine that it would be feasible to construct a track or tube that could follow the terrain at that speed and still maintain passenger comfort.

Have you ever driven through California's Central Valley? It is completely flat for hundreds of miles.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[fiannaFailMan]

It seems to me he has absolutely NO idea about the very real engineering challenges to something like this.

As opposed to some smartass cunt on the Internet.

By your logic we should be hand-carrying water buckets around to wash our ass with. FUCK I wish this site would go back to what it once was.

Preach it brother! I once read the comments on a regular basis because there used to be a bit of informed comment. But the rot started to set in with the "no wirelss, less space than a Nomad, lame" episode. Now it's just a bunch of basement-dwelling know-it-alls who think they know better than the man who made a fortune on the internet, started an electric car company, and is on the edge of establishing commercial space flight for tourists! And these dickheads truly think they know better than him even though they didn't bother their sorry asses reading TFA! It beggars belief.

Kudos on your choice of language. "Smartass cunt" just about sums up the typical /. commenter these days.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[Anonymous Coward]

His proposal says it'll cost $1 billion for land & permit rights.

Try $50 billion instead.

And why should your estimate be considered more accurate than his?

Basically this entire report is a big ad for pageview hits to the Tesla motors website.

Right, because that's definitely the best way to generate pageviews for an unrelated business. It's not like Elon Musk could afford to start a Google Adwords campaign or anything. And of course Tesla Motors' business model depends entirely upon the number of pageviews they get.

Re: Cool but probably not feasible...

[AvitarX]

Isn't the fact that land use is the major cost reason to spend lots of money on the transport tech?

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[Joce640k]

It can have curves, no problem. They'll just have to be about 10 times longer then the USA's highway curves (for the same comfort level as highway driving).

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[CrimsonAvenger]

It can have curves, no problem. They'll just have to be about 10 times longer then the USA's highway curves (for the same comfort level as highway driving).

Umm, no.

Lateral acceleration is proportional to speed squared, among other things. For ten times the speed, you need 100 times the radius of curvature.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[poity]

Someone's house in the way, and won't sell for sentimental reasons. What to do? Build around it and sacrifice top speed and the entire point of a hyperloop? Plan another route and possibly meeting another no-sell? Forcibly relocate people like in China?

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[Flammon]

Why not dig instead of going 500 ft tall?

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[Anonymous Coward]

If they have +- 50 yards to play with in terms of where they should put the next support pillar, it seems isolated residential plot holdouts wouldn't be a problem. But yeah, eminent domain. An entire city block of houses in my town were bought, condemned, and demolished to make way for a car traffic bridge to go over a portion of railroad tracks.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[tygt]

No, they'll use Emminent Domain like they've always done in USA.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[tygt]

I suspect they'll have the craft rotate in the tube for turns. Passengers will still experience acceleration, but it'll be in the direction of their seat, not to their sides.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[Wintermute__]

Exactly. We forcibly relocate people all the time in the U.S. "like in China". Like pretty much anywhere in the world.

Not an issue.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[AaronW]

It looks like most of the line would run in the center median of I5. There isn't much out there in much of the central valley. In areas where this isn't feasible there generally isn't much population density. He goes into detail on this.

The biggest problem with the high speed rail is that farmers can't easily get from one side to the other without going miles out of their way and high speed rail requires a lot more land. With this it's elevated so it's not much of a problem since they can just go under it.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[clarkkent09]

I don't know better than Musk but I know enough to see that the way he presented this was pure hype. A brand new technology for which even the science is not clear enough, let alone being fully developed even on paper, let alone prototyped, tried on a smaller scale, made economically feasible in comparison to other options, millions of safety and other problems that will come up resolved etc etc. Not saying it cannot work but give a decade to each of those stages and then you can talk about LA to San Francisco.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[Required Snark]

RTFA you moron. It actually has maps that show circles defining the required radius. Some of them are far larger thay any US highway curve.

Stop wasting electrons and quit posting until you learn how to read, fool.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[Dereck1701]

"Why not dig instead of going 500 ft tall?"

Cost of course, NYC for example is putting in only a few miles of tunnel to replace an aging aqueduct and it is costing billions and taking decades to complete (60 miles, $6 Billion). Sure you could go with shallow trenches but if you do you loose the primary advantages of elevating or full fledged tunneling, not having to deal with all of the clutter, property & transit issues at ground level.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[kwbauer]

Until the TSA decides that those farmers might be terrorists and require a fence ten feet higher than the top of the tube.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[kwbauer]

straightened curves... flattened hills... sounds like Hazzard County instead of California

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[kwbauer]

Not that construction most anywhere is immune from the problem but I would be willing to wager that much of NYC's money uis being spent to satisfy the "needs" of a few millionaire "blue-collar" guys.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[Dcnjoe60]

Your probably right. It's not like he put in a whole new privatized space program at a cost less than a nuclear submarine. With a launch charge cheaper than the cost of a ticket to ISS.

You do realize that his privatized space program got to reap the benefits of the public space program. It's a lot easier to do things the second time around. In addition, he only built one type of launch vehicle -- to take people to space. That's no small feat, but since NASA is forced to handle multiple missions with it's launch vehicles, comparing a single use vehicle with a multi-use vehicle is not a fair comparison.

Again, not to diminish what he has accomplished, but the launch charge to the ISS covers a lot more than the cost to get to the ISS. Think of it like the $10 they charge you for tylenol in the hospital. The extra cost pays for those other services that are necessary but inadequately funded. SpaceX doesn't have those other activities so they don't have to subsidize other operations through launch fees.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[Dcnjoe60]

By his own admission this is just a concept of what might be, which would imply the engineers haven't fully vetted it yet.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[DerekLyons]

I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt until real rebuttal arrives, say from someone who can point out actual errors in the proposal.

Translation: Somebody asked a valid question, but it impugns my hero, and thus I must write a handwaving reply praising the 'hero' and cursing the person who dares to question him.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[Anonymous Coward]

It can have curves, no problem. They'll just have to be about 10 times longer then the USA's highway curves (for the same comfort level as highway driving).

Umm, no.

Lateral acceleration is proportional to speed squared, among other things. For ten times the speed, you need 100 times the radius of curvature.

In fact, lateral acceleration is precisely equal to velocity squared divided by the radius of curvature. So while your first sentence is true, your analysis is nevertheless incorrect. For ten times the speed, increasing the (minimum acceptable) radius of curvature by a factor of ten would suffice.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly, what he hasn't managed to do yet is reform our education system and stamp out the horrid usage of your/you're. Also it is a ticket to the ISS. Sigh.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[localman]

What part of the science is not clear enough? It's a new combination of technologies, but every aspect of it is reasonably well understood physics. And what's wrong with hyping a fairly dramatic new idea that needs a lot of input and momentum to reach fruition?

This rest of my comment isn't directed at you, but so far I've seen a hundred critiques of this thing, and each one would be eliminated with reading comprehension. Expensive? Likely cheaper. Necessary? Voters already approved a more expensive, less functional system. Eminent domain? Less of an issue than current plans. G forces? Calculated. Air resistance? They cover that. Maintaining vacuum? They cover that too (or rather, they don't, because it's not a vacuum). Earthquakes? General Safety? Failure modes? They touch on each in the paper. It's a well thought out starting point for a new mode of travel. Of course it needs work - he says that right up front. But this is a hell of a kickoff. I can already hear the people who, after saying it was impossible, finally going through the paper and understanding it, jumping straight to "well it's not that amazing, it's all kind of basic". It's like people desperately need to bolster their self image by shitting on things.

Actually I'm curious to hear some intellegent criticism because it would be interesting to consider, but all the criticism so far is either a) ignorant idiocy or b) even more vague than his proposal.

For heaven's sake people, if this paper doesn't get you at least a little excited, you really ought to turn in your geek card and pick up a boring naysayer card in exchange.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[Namarrgon]

speed of sound at sea level

It's in a low-pressure tube.

noise pollution

It's in a low-pressure tube.

shockwaves/heat

It's in a low-pressure tube.

It seems to me that you have absolutely NO idea about what the paper actually says.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[localman]

Everything you say is true, but Space X isn't done either. I think you'd have to admit they've done better than many people predicted. What is strange is how with each milestone they pass, people move the goalposts and withhold respect. Same with Tesla, though that's starting to change a little now. Not saying that's what you're doing, but it does make me wonder what the motivation is when people do that.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[localman]

I'm guessing you're another person who has either not read or not understood the proposal?

They're already building a bullet train with vastly more land requirements than the hyperloop proposal. So if you think moving people out of the way is a problem, then you are saying the hyperloop is better than the approved bullet train. This is not a valid criticism of the hyperloop

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[localman]

Whatever you think the problem is with land rights for hyperloop, they're worse for the already approved rail system. Like almost everyone else here, you don't have an intelligent criticism, but rather a knee-jerk reaction that would be alleviated by thinking for a moment instead of trying to find ways to sound cleverly skeptical.

I'd love to hear some intelligent criticism. That would actually be interesting. All we've got so far seems to be ignorance and complaints more vague than the proposal itself.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[Anonymous Coward]

What part of the science is not clear enough? It's a new combination of technologies, but every aspect of it is reasonably well understood physics. And what's wrong with hyping a fairly dramatic new idea that needs a lot of input and momentum to reach fruition?

If "reasonably well understood physics" was the only criterion for becoming a commercially viable technology, we would all be thinking emails to each other from our flying cars while genetically engineered viruses worked tirelessly to keep us healthy and forever young. I'm not jumping on the "this thing is impossible" bandwagon, and I'm happy to see some high-profile spit balling, but it is 90% hype. Creating and maintaining even a partial vacuum on that scale, designing a practical electromagnetic linear accelerator, and finding durable materials to make it safe, reliable, and profitable... "presumptuous" is being charitable. And this is not, by any stretch, the first proposal to stick a mag-lev train in a vacuum tube.

Space X is cool, but built quite directly on top of decades of work by NASA (right down to their rocket design and designers). Tesla is likewise cool, but again based on decades of work and near-commercialization by others who abandoned it when they couldn't turn a profit. The Hyperloop is at best based on modeling and speculation. Sure, it's possible, but the time and money required just to prove the principle and scalability could very well prove to be impractical. But what do I know, I'm just a professor at a materials science research institute, like all the basement dwelling know-nothing-know-it-alls on the Internet.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[Anonymous Coward]

FUCK I wish this site would go back to what it once was.

Since you've only just started posting again, I'd suggest that this site would benefit from you fucking off back to wherever you came from, you self-important ass.

Worthless spouting prick, go die slowly in a fire.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[AmiMoJo]

I'm not sure why you think Taco was wrong. The iPod was a technological step backwards in many ways, but it eventually sold well because it had better advertising. As geeks I thought we preferred technological superiority over marketing.

Other than that I agree with you. Musk often seems to be the target of this kind of stupidity - clearly no-one would want an electric car that can only do 300 miles and takes 50 minutes to charge because some idiot got a job 151 miles from his house.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[localman]

This comment is not insightful. Read the paper. He covers this in significant detail, including the maximum g-forces that passengers will experience and the resulting turning radius limits at different speeds for different sections of the journey.

Re: Cool but probably not feasible...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for making this post. I have little knowledge of Musk, and am hence sitting on the fence taking no view - which is what everyone should do in the same situation. The need to always either praise something sky high or dismiss it completely is some kind of misunderstood superhero syndrome.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[Dcnjoe60]

Everything you say is true, but Space X isn't done either. I think you'd have to admit they've done better than many people predicted. What is strange is how with each milestone they pass, people move the goalposts and withhold respect. Same with Tesla, though that's starting to change a little now. Not saying that's what you're doing, but it does make me wonder what the motivation is when people do that.

I'm not trying to take anything away from his accomplishments, but he, like most other visionaries build on the work of others, which is often forgotten or conveniently ignored.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[Anonymous Coward]

He wants to run the hyperloop over the median on I-5.

So the State of California already owns the land.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[bluefoxlucid]

He's been on the edge of establishing commercial space flight for tourists for two decades. Fusion is just around the corner.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[Anonymous Coward]

The iPod was a technological step backwards in many ways, but it eventually sold well because it had better advertising.

From my vantage point, it sold well because it didn't suck. Most every other mp3 player at the time that I ever had or tried, was a total pain in the ass to use. Not to mention that half of them were also poorly built so they died in about a year. And I'm saying this as a geek who was too cheap to buy an ipod, so I tried a fair number of the alternatives.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[RockClimbingFool]

This isn't a proposal being pitched to the CA state government for money. Elon has stated many, many times this is an OPEN SOURCE concept he is presenting. He wants the design to start a discussion about what really is possible, especially compared to what is currently on the table ($100,000,000 for very slow "high speed" rail).

The main idea he has added to the vacuum tube idea is to run it at low pressure, then use on board pumps to pull the low pressure air in front of the train and shoot it about the bottom for air bearings. Its a very novel idea. Its worth funding a test portion of track for developement purposes.

Like I said, CA is already thinking of spending 100 BILLION on high speed rail. That would probably balloon to 200 BILLION when it is all said and done. That is an unbelievable amount of money.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[cornjones]

trying to find ways to sound cleverly skeptical

Well put, that sums up my feelings as well. i didn't have any mod points so this is just a 'me too!'

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[Anonymous Coward]

But, boy would a monorail put us on the map! Just like Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[serviscope_minor]

The iPod was a technological step backwards in many ways, but it eventually sold well because it had better advertising.

And a user interface which didn't stink to high heaven.

because some idiot got a job 151 miles from his house.

Not only that, the idiot also seems to need a semi's worth of space to haul crap on a regular basis. Oddly there seem to be a lot of long distance commute truckers for a tech website.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[crunchygranola]

Not that construction most anywhere is immune from the problem but I would be willing to wager that much of NYC's money uis being spent to satisfy the "needs" of a few millionaire "blue-collar" guys.

Got anything at all to support this other than pure prejudice?

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[Anonymous Coward]

This idea is not feasible for implementation on a large scale yet because it is simply not a proven transportation technology. We need to build a prototype (at least a scale model) first to test out all the equipment, failure modes, determine cost, etc. The prototype is likely to be (very) expensive. If Musk builds the prototype, he still faces the uphill struggle of convincing people that this system is significantly better that existing systems, particularly airplanes. All of this will take many years, so the proposed route in California is not likely to be built.
On the other hand, expensive transportation prototypes have been built in the past. Maglev has been in the prototyping stage for many decades in Japan, surely costing many billions of dollars. They seems to be finally ready to implement the technology on a large scale. I'm not sure a similar feat can be pulled off in the US, though. We seem to be satisfied with our cars and planes. (Hmm.. maybe the Japanese would be more receptive to this technology..)

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[Areyoukiddingme]

First, it's not a maglev train. It's an air repulsion train. Second, it's a linear motor, not a linear accelerator. It's not only practical, there are any number of commercial products that incorporate them. It's so practical, the inverters used to power the thing are off the shelf gear used in mining equipment. Third, the materials required are quoted in the paper. Concrete and steel. The tube is nothing but steel. That's all that's necessary. Being a materials science professor, you really should read the paper. It has stress diagrams that should be extremely familiar to you. Skip the article. Read the paper linked from Mr. Musk's blog.

The paper is a good deal more than reasonably well understood physics. It's also well executed engineering and financial analysis.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[Areyoukiddingme]

I have thought of one question not addressed in the paper.

The system calls for solar panels mounted on top of the tubes, which absorb a good deal of the sunlight hitting the tubes, but far from all of it. My question is how much does solar heating affect the interior of the tube? Exterior air pressure being much higher than interior, the steel of the tube should conduct much more heat to the outside air than to the inside air, but it's pretty clear that in an air-tight system, heating of the interior air must be carefully avoided. The analysis doesn't mention exactly how much of the heat the intercoolers manage to extract from the air. but the flow diagram seems to say it's intended to maintain equilibrium only with respect to the capsule's operation. It seems to me the intercoolers should extract slightly more than necessary to maintain equilibrium, in order to extract both radiated and conducted solar heat from the interior of the tube.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen to that brother! I myself am thankful that for every thousand or so fucktards who's social contribution is limited to make snarky comments about someone else's idea, there is 1 Elon Musk (or his less visible equivalents) who are out there trying to get shit done.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately there are a lot of "geeks" who are not really that intelligent, they tend to take the role of skeptic because skepticism is important to science and it does not require any real thought or understanding on any particular subject. Being a low intelligence loud mouth skeptic feels like being a polymath, since they get to shit on a wide range of fields.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[DavidTC]

Indeed. It's just damn high-speed rail, except in the air and put in a tube. Anyone who thinks we can't do that seems unaware we build bridges and subway tunnels, and it's not exactly rocket science to put a subway tunnel on a bridge.

Seems to me like it would be more expensive than HSR, but there do appear to be a lot of savings to offset the added costs. (I.e., being in a tube allows it to be propelled in a novel manner with a lot less air friction.)

And anyone who thinks this is somehow more at risk of earthquakes is an idiot. It's a tube. We can cheaply put sensors on it to detect damage...unlike HSR, where stuff could fall on the track and not be noticed. And putting structures in the air makes them more resistant to earthquakes, assuming they aren't built by idiots. It's the stuff directly on the ground that gets thrown around during an earthquake.

The only actual objection would be something like 'Musk can't do it that cheaply', and t would be more expensive in the long run. Maybe that's valid, maybe not, I don't know...but all other objections are stupid.

Re:Cool but probably not feasible...

[Anonymous Coward]

The main criticism of hyperloop is not technical. Although cooling issues of that compressor are non-trivial.

1. Musk is not putting his money or significant time into it.
2. Fresno, Oakland and a host of other cities want HSR, they will fight this. Will there be a stop in San Jose??
3. The state of California just signed a $985m contract to build the first segment http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20130820-905529.html
4. the median of I-5 is too crooked for a 700 mph train. Think gradual turns.
5. Who funds the $100m-1,000m development cost? Due to the government hurdles, no investor would do it.

He's nuts

[HornWumpus]

Musk had a supply of good crack that week. Also thinks anything he doesn't understand is easy.

Re:He's nuts

[Anonymous Coward]

He pulled an all-nighter.

Re:He's nuts

[Anonymous Coward]

We need a few crazies in the world. Normal people don't get stuff done.

Re:He's nuts

[ShanghaiBill]

Musk had a supply of good crack that week. Also thinks anything he doesn't understand is easy.

He has a solid track record of getting stuff done.
Even things that others didn't think were feasible.
And he has done so repeatedly.

Re:He's nuts

[fiannaFailMan]

Musk had a supply of good crack that week. Also thinks anything he doesn't understand is easy.

Yeah. Who the hell is he anyway? All he ever did was make a fortune on the internet and started a car company and a space tourism company. What the fuck would he know compared to a smartass cunt like you trolling on the internet? I'll bet you've done more in your life than he has.

Re:He's nuts

[HornWumpus]

First he established the 'bank of the net' and managed to keep it from being regulated as a bank. As far as I can see this is the only thing original he's done.

The first cars were electric. No great breakthroughs. We'll see if Tesla is viable in the long term. It's simple economics of a fashion accessory. If a Tesla gets enough people laid to justify it's extra cost the car will continue to sell.

Launch services aren't simple, but he was hardly the first.

This is pure scifi.

Re:He's nuts

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh man, I had a van back in high school. There was a mattress in the back and at lunch time, my friends, my sisters, and I would smoke up. There were easily a dozen orgasms per week in the back of that thing. The fun continued through college, too. I lived in it for a year when I moved to SV to work on a startup. Worst mistake I ever made was when I traded it in for a Lambo.

If Tesla made a fuck van, I would buy it NOW.

-- Matt (CTO, http://or.ga.sm/

Re:He's nuts

[Anonymous Coward]

Also thinks anything he doesn't understand is easy.

Kind of reminds me of HornWumpus and trolling.

That's only 20% of the promised speed...

[Anonymous Coward]

of 4,000 MPH. If he is already reducing his promise by 80%, how much more do you think he's going to reduce it after running into problems with the final design and after building it? In the end, I'll be surprised if this project is faster than driving.

Re:That's only 20% of the promised speed...

[Guspaz]

He never promised anything remotely near 4,000 MPH. He promised about a half hour between LA and SF. Proposal does it in 35 minutes, which is indeed about a half hour.

Technical challenges

[bob.lansdorp]

What about the steam storage? Would it be under pressure? If so, isn't that dangerous in case of a leak? If not wouldn't the tanks need to be gigantic? Also, what about friction of air between the inlet and the nozzle expander?

Re:Technical challenges

[khellendros1984]

What steam storage? The article seemed to say that air would be forced through skis at the bottom of the pods by an air compressor and thrust would be provided by magnets.

Re:Technical challenges

[bob.lansdorp]

What steam storage? The article seemed to say that air would be forced through skis at the bottom of the pods by an air compressor and thrust would be provided by magnets.

Oh there are more details here: http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/hyperloop_alpha-20130812.pdf There is steam storage

Re:Technical challenges

[Anonymous Coward]

Its right there you the link. page 18. Water reservoir p = 101kPa, T =293K, m = 290kg. That is, a normal water tank under atmospheric pressure. Sucks if there is a leak though.

Re:Technical challenges

[bob.lansdorp]

Its right there you the link. page 18. Water reservoir p = 101kPa, T =293K, m = 290kg. That is, a normal water tank under atmospheric pressure. Sucks if there is a leak though.

Yes, I am talking about page 18. You are referring to the water tank. After passing through the intercoolers, the steam is 557K (vapor phase). I am talking about the steam output. How do you store that? As high-pressure steam? If so, won't a leak kill everyone? If it's low pressure, won't the volume be enormous? Either way, seems like a technical obstacle to feasibility.

Re:Technical challenges

[dbIII]

Either way, seems like a technical obstacle to feasibility.

I'd say no, there are published standards for that type of pressure vessel. As for leaks thermal power stations often have "blowdown vessels" for when you want to dump everything out of a boiler really quickly.

Re:Technical challenges

[bluefoxlucid]

Why would a steam leak kill everyone? It cools as it expands, and it's just water. It's easy to vent somewhere harmless.

Re:Technical challenges

[bob.lansdorp]

Why would a steam leak kill everyone?

OK, so this blow-down boiler has to be either at the back or the front... if it inbetween passenger cabins then it will kill everyone if you vent it. But yes, in theory you can store compressed steam. That's all fine and dandy until there is a rupture. Then you have a boiler that explodes inside of an enclosed tube with people in it, and can expand in one dimension. That is a much different disaster scenario than a boiler in a train that can expand into 3 dimensions. The "blast radius" is undefined in an enclosed tube.

It cools as it expands, and it's just water. It's easy to vent somewhere harmless.

Uhh... 250kg of steam at 550K will take up a huge volume, and thus a huge length of tube. In other words: you have to be careful to prevent it from entering the passenger cabin. Not impossible, but still requires some thought to prevent high pressure steam from entering the passenger cabin.

Re:Technical challenges

[bob.lansdorp]

Either way, seems like a technical obstacle to feasibility.

I'd say no, there are published standards for that type of pressure vessel. As for leaks thermal power stations often have "blowdown vessels" for when you want to dump everything out of a boiler really quickly.

there is no blast radius when you're in an enclosed tube...

Re:Technical challenges

[bluefoxlucid]

What's the math here? It's not going to lose half its energy to double in size I'm sure (in which case the answer is store at high pressure).

Re:Technical challenges

[im_thatoneguy]

The "blast radius" is undefined in an enclosed tube.

The low pressure environment in the tube should help since it would be 'repressurizing' the tube.

Re:Technical challenges

[bob.lansdorp]

The low pressure environment in the tube should help since it would be 'repressurizing' the tube.

250kg of steam at 25 bars has a TNT equivalent of 25kg. That's a big boom! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiSzi8bWozE I wouldn't want to be in the same tube as that when it goes off... hopefully the boiler system is designed properly.

Re:Technical challenges

[dbIII]

Is that supposed to mean something? I suggest putting in more effort into communication.

very unfeasible

[mozumder]

The tubes are going to be expensive as hell.

Rail is far more efficient. The track itself is cheap, the major cost is actually buying the land. There is very little friction resistance as well.

Sorry Elon, but you're not going to be Tony Stark, even if they're just trying to make him into you.

Re:very unfeasible

[dgatwood]

Rail is far more efficient. The track itself is cheap, the major cost is actually buying the land. There is very little friction resistance as well.

That's actually a problem past a certain speed. At least in the U.S., they don't allow trains to travel at high speeds in populated areas because they can't usefully stop if somebody walks across the rail. They can't stop because there is very little friction possible. With a closed tube, you don't have that risk, so you can shoot through downtown L.A. doing 250 MPH.

Re:very unfeasible

[Anonymous Coward]

Rail is far more efficient. The track itself is cheap, the major cost is actually buying the land. There is very little friction resistance as well.

That's actually a problem past a certain speed. At least in the U.S., they don't allow trains to travel at high speeds in populated areas because they can't usefully stop if somebody walks across the rail. They can't stop because there is very little friction possible. With a closed tube, you don't have that risk, so you can shoot through downtown L.A. doing 250 MPH.

So put up a chain link/plexiglass fence around it. Or better yet, worry less about drunks. Build the fence for cows anyway though.

Re:very unfeasible

[HornWumpus]

It would be a LOT cheaper to build an access control fence then to build a tube that will hold good vacuum.

You can't stop a train _anywhere_ when someone walks across the rail. That's just evolution in action. I just hope they haven't bred when I hear about things like that.

Re:very unfeasible

[dgatwood]

Also, you can't climb hills with rail. Standard rails max out at a single-digit percent grade. If you want to climb more than five or six feet per hundred feet, rail can't do the job. That severely limits where you can run it; in particular, it is not practical to run a rail alongside most roads that go through mountains, much less run one at anything approaching a high speed.

Re:very unfeasible

[dgatwood]

No, you can't, but the faster the train is moving, the greater the danger, because the less warning you have before it gets there. Hence, speed is severely limited when traveling through populated eras, even with access control fences.

Re:very unfeasible

[Entropius]

It seems like one could deter people from walking across the rails with some sort of symbolic notification device? To not reinvent the wheel, we could reuse the old inventions of "words" on a "sign":

WARNING
TRAINS GO THROUGH HERE
THEY GO REALLY FAST
IF THEY HIT YOU YOU'RE DEAD
EVEN IF YOU'RE DRUNK

or something.

We haven't roped off every cliff in the mountains, even though people die there. We've not even put warning signs on a lot of dangerous things ("WARNING: THIS IS A BEAR. DO NOT POKE IT. IT IS BIGGER THAN YOU. EVEN IF YOU'RE DRUNK.") Why do we need derp-proof railways?

Re:very unfeasible

[kylegordon]

The article explicitly states that the tube does not hold a vacuum, and thus greatly reduces costs.

Re:very unfeasible

[Anonymous Coward]

Musk's design doesn't require a vacuum.

But you would know that if you bothered reading his 5 page summary at the beginning of his 50+ page analysis.

Re:very unfeasible

[Martin Blank]

A sign like this becomes a magnet to suicidal people, who I think represent the majority of people killed by train impact. The tube pretty much removes any chance of such suicides taking place.

Re:very unfeasible

[Anonymous Coward]

Try running into a 200lb human being at 220Mph and then tell me who's day got fucked up more--the idiot you disintegrated or you and your car. In dollar figures, it's certainly not the guy who lost the genetic lottery.

Re:very unfeasible

[Anonymous Coward]

Which doesn't solve the problem of 1) idiots who ignore it to save themselves 5 minutes walking to the nearest crossing 2) people who sadly commit suicide 3) idiots proving how 'brave' they are to their friends. Besides the injuries to the person who should've known better, it has considerable impacts on others. The drivers will be extremely upset by it, needing counselling and often quitting their job afterwards, many passengers may be similarly scarred, and in the short term the time and money costs of the damage to the train/track and delays (which will cascade even onto other routes) is considerable... more than enough to invest in fencing to save money.

Re:very unfeasible

[SwedishPenguin]

That would be why the rail is usually grade separated at that speed, i.e. roads run under or over the tracks. Hell, even mainlines here in Sweden are mostly grade-separated, and where they are not there are systems in place to detect obstacles and stop the train before the train driver can physically see the obstruction. And we only have trains running 200 kph, you can be pretty sure that railways that allow trains to run at over 300 kph are entirely grade separated.

Re:very unfeasible

[HornWumpus]

Then he's completely insane and doesn't understand. Likely never heard of boundary layers or looked at how they pump gasses down existing pipelines.

Of course I didn't RTFA. Are you new here?

Re:very unfeasible

[HornWumpus]

Most areas are populated. Some just not very densely.

I'm fine with losing the kind of morons that climb fences onto high speed rail tracks. In fact I think the fences are unneeded.

Re:very unfeasible

[Anonymous Coward]

This comment does not consider the train engineer. Sure you don't care about the "morons", but please consider that the engineer may still not want to kill someone and their compassion might not have been bred out of the human race.

Re:very unfeasible

[ShanghaiBill]

Also, you can't climb hills with rail. Standard rails max out at a single-digit percent grade.

This is NOT standard rail. Rail relies on the friction between the wheel and the rail for propulsion. The Hyperloop uses magnetic attraction and repulsion. Magnetic railguns can shoot straight up.

Re:very unfeasible

[aardvarkjoe]

The drivers will be extremely upset by it, needing counselling and often quitting their job afterwards, many passengers may be similarly scarred,

Only a problem until people adjust. The "emotional scarring" is a side effect of people being completely detached from the reality that people's actions have consequences. Once they realize that it's no big deal when an idiot snuffs it due to their own choices, we'll be better off.

and in the short term the time and money costs of the damage to the train/track and delays

Sounds to me like maybe we should invest in research into high-speed cowcatchers.

Re:very unfeasible

[erice]

Rail is far more efficient. The track itself is cheap, the major cost is actually buying the land. There is very little friction resistance as well.

That's actually a problem past a certain speed. At least in the U.S., they don't allow trains to travel at high speeds in populated areas because they can't usefully stop if somebody walks across the rail. They can't stop because there is very little friction possible. With a closed tube, you don't have that risk, so you can shoot through downtown L.A. doing 250 MPH.

So put up a chain link/plexiglass fence around it. Or better yet, worry less about drunks. Build the fence for cows anyway though.

In populated areas, the residents will look at the fence as an eyesore and file endless lawsuits to stop it. If you elevate, they will still file endless lawsuits. The only way to satisfy the nimbys is to build it underground. This costs a fortune but it would be exact same for Hyperloop.

Hyperloop doesn't solve any of the land use issues. It just removes the option to lay simple track on bare ground. Going down the unpopulated parts of the I5 corridor is the easy part for both Hyperloop and High Speed Rail. It just ignores the difficulties of getting in and out of cities. For instance, I5 doesn't even go to San Francisco and finding an acceptable connection from the the Central Valley to the Bay Area has been probably *the* biggest land use problem for High Speed Rail.

Re:very unfeasible

[Anonymous Coward]

People keep talking about fences around track and I can't think of any hick town I've lived where they wasted the money on such a thing. The tracks were even next to a city park in one town I lived in.

Re:very unfeasible

[HornWumpus]

Impossible goal. The suicides will just jump off an overpass in front of the train, if that's their only option.

We should educate the suicidal. A disposable charcoal grill in a small room and warning signs about CO hazard...

Re:very unfeasible

[fiannaFailMan]

Rail is far more efficient. The track itself is cheap, the major cost is actually buying the land. There is very little friction resistance as well.

That's actually a problem past a certain speed. At least in the U.S., they don't allow trains to travel at high speeds in populated areas because they can't usefully stop if somebody walks across the rail. They can't stop because there is very little friction possible. With a closed tube, you don't have that risk, so you can shoot through downtown L.A. doing 250 MPH.

I suspect it's got more to do with the sub-standard rickety tracks that keep getting thrown out of whack by the freight trains that have priority on them. Tracks in America are usually owned by freight companies, passenger trains piggyback on those tracks. Kinda the reverse of how it works elsewhere. Roads are maintained by the public sector, people provide their own cars, for example. Hence why American railroads are pretty decent at hauling cargo over long distances, but terrible at carrying passengers since they have to run on track and signalling technology that dates from the industrial revolution.

Re:very unfeasible

[Anonymous Coward]

The Hyperloop uses magnetic attraction and repulsion. Magnetic rail guns can shoot straight up.

You misunderstand at least one of these.

Re:very unfeasible

[garyebickford]

Amtrak spent $80 million back in the 1980s on a plan to build a high speed rail from LA to San Diego. Every little burg between the two cities sued to stop it. They finally sold the plans to somebody for $5 million.

Re:very unfeasible

[garyebickford]

So you're assuming that this guy, who has spent $zillions on engineers for his successful SpaceX endeavour (including ones who _really_ understand both subsonic and supersonic airflow and boundary layer effects, which are all critical elements of rocket design), and for his successful Tesla venture, has not spent dime one on engineers to work out the details? Hmm.

Re:very unfeasible

[Anonymous Coward]

You are talking about freight rail tracks with a maximum speed of maybe 30MPH. High speed rail is 200MPH and the tracks certainly have fences.

Re:very unfeasible

[garyebickford]

Yes, but at 800 MPH even a large blob of water can cause serious damage to whatever hits it.

Re:very unfeasible

[garyebickford]

We missed the opportunity to fix this back in the 1960s and 1970s, when the railroads were pretty much all bankrupt. The fix would have been to buy the mainline trackage (everything except the maintenance yards) from the railroads and give them a 20 year free ride to help pay for the deal; then run the railroads as part of the National Highway System. Then the railroads could have become the customers rather than the vendors, and the government, which generally does infrastructure pretty well, could have made the rails a viable solution while the railroad companies, which could then compete on an equal basis, could do the business things, which they do pretty well. And new companies could enter the market to provide passenger train service on an entrpreneurial basis.

Alas, instead we had a huge bailout of railroad companies, and the creation of the bastard stepchild Amtrak, which was designed and intended to fail, but has continued to survive despite the best efforts of the government and the railroads to kill it.

Re:very unfeasible

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always thought it would be cool to put railroad wheels on cars (keeping the wheels on) so that they could go on rails and then drive like normal on the road. That way, you get the best of both worlds and you can expand the infrastructure (the rails) on demand and a little at a time.

Re:very unfeasible

[Teancum]

Obviously you didn't RTFA as a ordinary idiot. Part of the proposal is to turn that boundary layer problem into an advantage by turning it into an air bearing and having a turbo fan engine (electrically powered... another of Elon Musk's ideas he has toyed with so far as to make electrically powered airplanes) suck up the air in front of the pod and blast it out of the back of the pod.

The air itself in the tube isn't really moving. The tube is kept at a partial vacuum, but it doesn't have to be a perfect vacuum. Essentially, the pod is "flying" through the tube in a fashion similar to an airplane.

At least download the PDF file and make some intelligent comments rather than suggesting the guy is insane based upon wild ass speculation of what folks thought the concept might be prior to Musk's announcement.

Re:very unfeasible

[Y-Crate]

Amtrak spent $80 million back in the 1980s on a plan to build a high speed rail from LA to San Diego. Every little burg between the two cities sued to stop it. They finally sold the plans to somebody for $5 million.

If it had been a freeway, the property owners would have been told to take a walk.

Re:very unfeasible

[garyebickford]

Possibly. Those cities became what they were/are because of the original freeways, which were both a blessing and a curse. It was the cities themselves, not the property owners within them, that lined up to sue. Amtrak did not have the eminent domain power but the State of California does. So once the 10-20 years of environmental challenges finally waddle through the courts, the present $5 billion state plan _might_ actually get started.

Re:very unfeasible

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but at 800 MPH even a large blob of water can cause...

I resemble that remark...

Re:very unfeasible

[Anonymous Coward]

Amtrak spent $80 million back in the 1980s on a plan to build a high speed rail from LA to San Diego. Every little burg between the two cities sued to stop it. They finally sold the plans to somebody for $5 million.

To be fair, it wasn't a very good plan. They were planning on upgrading the Surfliner tracks, which in some places runs right next to the beach and over fragile cliffs and sand dunes.

The plan (if it ever comes to fruition) now envisions going to San Diego roughly via I-15.

Re:very unfeasible

[Anonymous Coward]

Unreliable, and any excess CO2 (not just CO is produced) would make the death physically unpleasant.

A small industrial bottle of N2. A gas humidifier (or a home-made water bong with appropriate piping). And a $2 nebuliser breathing mask. (And a "Warning! Low Oxygen! Use Breathing Apparatus" note on the door for rescuers, just in case. You don't need to seal the room, and so the gas released shouldn't completely displace oxygen, but better to err on the side of caution.) Turn on the nitrogen, put on the mask, relax and go to sleep.

(It amazes me that the US has created such bizarre over-elaborate death penalties as electrocution, cyanide gas chamber, and chemical cocktail lethal injection, when a simple bottle of nitrogen, a humidifier, and a mask is all that is required. Twist yourselves in knots to create supposedly "humane" executions, but the easiest, most painless way to die is always ignored.)

Re:very unfeasible

[kwbauer]

Or not take away their guns thereby keeping the train engineer safe.

Re:very unfeasible

[Anonymous Coward]

One word solution: Bumbers
Two word solution: Suicide booths

If someone wants to kill themselves how about letting them do it so it doesn't bother others?

Re:very unfeasible

[dbIII]

I'm not so sure about that. In one place I worked three guys sat down for lunch near a large furnace (coke oven at a steelworks), dozed off and never woke up due to high carbon monoxide levels.

Re:very unfeasible

[delt0r]

High speed track is quite expensive to make and maintain. Friction for high speed trains is mostly aerodynamic, and often about 1/2 of that is the wheel bogies.

Re:very unfeasible

[bluefoxlucid]

Problem with suicidal people?

Re:very unfeasible

[bluefoxlucid]

There's a filing fee for lawsuits. After this has been decided stupid, just throw out the rest but keep the filing fee. Make the morons fund the fences.

Re:very unfeasible

[T.E.D.]

The air itself in the tube isn't really moving. The tube is kept at a partial vacuum, but it doesn't have to be a perfect vacuum.

Sounds like those pneumatic tubes they have at some banks and pharmacies.

When I was a little kid in the 70's waiting with my mom at the bank drive-through, I used to wonder why nobody tried using those for mass-transit. Nice to see somebody's finally looking into it. :-)

Re:very unfeasible

[Teancum]

While the pneumatic tubes is a fair analogy, that isn't perfect here. In those tubes, the capsule is propelled by high pressure air pushing against the back of the capsule and perhaps "sucked" forward as well with a low pressure partial vacuum. The hyperloop uses a slightly different system where the capsule is accelerated using some sort of launching system, then there is a turbofan on the front of the vehicle (similar to a jet airplane engine and acts on a similar principle) that is used to compress the air in the tunnel and push it past the capsule as well as use that air to act as an air bearing to support the vehicle (like a hovercraft or air hockey table).

There are some practical limits to the pneumatic tube system, which is why it hasn't been used for mass transit. It was thought that the pneumatic tubes could be used for large scale postal delivery, and some buildings in NYC had some extensive networks installed. I've also seen them used in hospitals where pharmacies and various wings of the hospital were linked together to rapidly transport medicine or documents (like x-ray images.... now done via computer networks so that isn't really as big of a deal any more).

Re:very unfeasible

[Anonymous Coward]

Completely different problems and therefore it is an entirely reasonable assumption. You seem to be emotionally caught up in the cult of the man instead of rationally considering the solutions he is proposing. So long as you are putting your money where your mouth is (and not the tax payers) I do not have any objection.

Re:very unfeasible

[booch]

I suspect that they'd outlaw trains in this country before outlawing guns.

Re: very unfeasible

[gzuckier]

Imagine a they were to demand that the airline stop in their little towns.

Re:very unfeasible

[rally2xs]

All you really need is the legislature to get behind it and pass a law forbidding the lawsuits, a statement of, more or less, "Sit down, shut up, we're doing this."

Re:very unfeasible

[Anonymous Coward]

WARNING
TRAINS GO THROUGH HERE
THEY GO REALLY FAST
IF THEY HIT YOU YOU'RE DEAD
EVEN IF YOU'RE DRUNK

What do you do for people who can't read? Or that are tourists and don't read English? Or people that read, read English, and didn't see the sign -- do you put the sign every meter? Or what about someone who saw the sign, read it, understood it, and stood right in the middle anyway because they want to die... the train, let's say, is not automated... the driver, then, would be guilty of manslaughter, no?

Re:very unfeasible

[Anonymous Coward]

Only a problem until people adjust. The "emotional scarring" is a side effect of people being completely detached from the reality that people's actions have consequences.

Yea, excuse me, I go tell my friends that come back with PTSD that they're too detached and this emotional scarring stuff is just a bunch of bullshit... ... what's the number for the ambulance again? I seem to have walked into some fist ...

Re:very unfeasible

[matfud]

http://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/02/27/27/2272747_de23195f.jpg

Re:very unfeasible

[Ungrounded Lightning]

It was thought that the pneumatic tubes could be used for large scale postal delivery, ...

There were plans to do this. But the US Postal Service (then a government department with a legal monopoly on delivering sealed "first class" mail) blocked them, as it had shut down other competing private-enterprise postal services in the past.

Under the current legal regime it might once again be possible. But given the expense of building the infrastructure in the midst of built-up cities (without existing steam tunnels and the like) and the relative cheapness of electronic communication, it seems unlikely to be profitable.

Re:very unfeasible

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be a LOT cheaper to build an access control fence then to build a tube that will hold good vacuum.

Which is why this project does not require a tube that holds good vacuum, just a tube that holds a reduced pressure atmosphere.

Zoom...!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Woosh!!!

"You don't want to live in Tube Land."

[Lendrick]

Speak for yourself, Musk. Tube Land sounds awesome.

Better for freight carrier replacement

[x181]

I think it would be a much better replacement for freight trains and trucks. I'm guessing that may be their goal but they don't want to upset the train and trucker unions just yet. I'd say Amazon should get it on this as well to speed up their shipping times and hit their same-day delivery dream.

Re:Better for freight carrier replacement

[garyebickford]

For some high-value perishable cargo, maybe. That speed just isn't necessary for much cargo. It might put a dent in FedEx and UPS Blue. Fresh fish maybe?

Re:Better for freight carrier replacement

[kwbauer]

The Teamsters don't really have a huge stranglehold on freight moving up and down the highways.

Re:Better for freight carrier replacement

[Dcnjoe60]

I think it would be a much better replacement for freight trains and trucks. I'm guessing that may be their goal but they don't want to upset the train and trucker unions just yet. I'd say Amazon should get it on this as well to speed up their shipping times and hit their same-day delivery dream.

With the planned design, only one vehicle at a time can be in the tube because of the air being moved from the front of the vehicle to behind it. The vehicle needs a slight vacuum in front but for a second vehicle in the tube, it will have increased pressure in front caused by the operation of the leading vehicle.

Besides, just like with railroads, the hard part is stopping. A freight train in this tube is going to be difficult to slow down from 800mph. Current freight trains are a mile long and take up to two miles to stop using dynamic brakes on the engine and friction brakes on the wheels. You won't have either in the hyperloop.

So, because of the physics involved, it is unlikely that freight has anything to worry. Most likely neither does passenger rail. As soon as you start adding multiple stops/stations, you loose the ability to reach your maximum speed because of the acceleration/deceleration (I'm sure it can accelerate/decelerate instantly, but that would not be good for the people onboard).

So, ultimately, this will be a delivery system between two fixed points, much like airports are today. And that is probably who will be impacted, short and mid range flights. If the specs are met, this will be twice as fast as air travel for distances up to 1000 miles. The deciding factor as to whether or not it is successful is the final cost to the traveler. Faster is desirable, but it depends on the cost.

Re:Better for freight carrier replacement

[x181]

Any freight carrier going (at a proposed) 4000mph (forgive me if I misread the theoretical estimates -- which are innately theoretical) will benefit any shipping carrier like Amazon. At these speeds, I don't think perishable cargo would be a limiting factor.

Re:Better for freight carrier replacement

[x181]

I'm envisioning an exponential drop-off for the vacuum required to sustain individual freight transportation.

Re:Better for freight carrier replacement

[x181]

Not yet.

Re:Better for freight carrier replacement

[localman]

> With the planned design, only one vehicle at a time can be in the tube

This is not true. The system states that it is designed to have multiple simultaneous pods, separated by several miles for safety.

Re:Better for freight carrier replacement

[Dcnjoe60]

> With the planned design, only one vehicle at a time can be in the tube

This is not true. The system states that it is designed to have multiple simultaneous pods, separated by several miles for safety.

I know it says that, but the design relies on a vacuum on the front and increased pressure behind. How does that work for the cars behind the first, magic?

Re: Better for freight carrier replacement

[Anonymous Coward]

Try reading the details in the proposal, it absolutely does NOT rely on an air pressure differential for propulsion.

There is a partial vacuum maintained throughout the entire tube. Each pod has an air compressor and intake on the front. The compressor allows the pods to use part of the air to levitate in the tube, and part of the air is bypassed (sent out the back of the pod via an expansion nozzle).

Acceleration and deceleration is primarily by way of linear motors placed at both ends as well as at periodic locations throughout, I think it stated 70 moles between acceleration points.

The pods will be essentially flying through a partial vacuum, like an airliner at 35,000 feet, only with dramatically less air resistance. They stated 1/6 the atmospheric pressure of Mars.

Re:Better for freight carrier replacement

[garyebickford]

I have not RTFA, but I think the actual speed in the proposal is 800 MPH. The 4000 MPH figure came from some earlier docs? I'll read TFA eventually! :D My mention of perishable cargo was in mind of things like lobsters, fresh fish and flowers, which are presently all shipped via air freight. I was thinking that shipping these via hyperloop might be cheaper, as well as faster - to destinations on the route of course!

One thing folks may not realize is that modern airports are very big - IIRC DFW takes as much total space as a four-lane freeway from Dallas to New York. The advantage is that the cost and benefit of taking that land is almost entirely 'local' - the region that dedicates the land also receives the benefit. Although a specific suburban locality may not be all that thrilled about jumbo jets flying over, at least they get an economic boost from the new gas stations, hotels, etc. Building a highway or rail system is more complicated as it crosses so many jurisdictions and the benefits are not nearly so obvious to the localities in between. If the system is entirely on pylons, that makes it easier - they could use not only highway and rail rights of way but perhaps power line rights of way. Eminent domain will be critical to the process in any case.

Also, if my rough calculations are correct, at 1G acceleration it will take 42 km to accelerate to 1287 km/h (800 MPH), so it would be rather pointless to have too many stops on the way. Having not RTFA, I don't know if there is any kind of 'track switching' system to allow local and express scheduling, for instance.

Re:Better for freight carrier replacement

[kwbauer]

They have less now than in decades past. Doing away with the ICC mostly took care of that.

Re:Better for freight carrier replacement

[crunchygranola]

> With the planned design, only one vehicle at a time can be in the tube

This is not true. The system states that it is designed to have multiple simultaneous pods, separated by several miles for safety.

I know it says that, but the design relies on a vacuum on the front and increased pressure behind. How does that work for the cars behind the first, magic?

Does not rely on a vacuum. You haven't bothered to take even one peek at the document. Quickly skimming page 4 of the document is sufficient to dispel this notion.

Honestly - is actually looking at the proposal too hard for you?

Re:Better for freight carrier replacement

[Dcnjoe60]

> With the planned design, only one vehicle at a time can be in the tube

This is not true. The system states that it is designed to have multiple simultaneous pods, separated by several miles for safety.

I know it says that, but the design relies on a vacuum on the front and increased pressure behind. How does that work for the cars behind the first, magic?

Does not rely on a vacuum. You haven't bothered to take even one peek at the document. Quickly skimming page 4 of the document is sufficient to dispel this notion.

Honestly - is actually looking at the proposal too hard for you?

Why don't you read the whole thing. Basically, the design requires the movement of air from in front to behind the vehicle using an onboard air compressor. This provides propulsion after the initial kick start from the magnets. Now, unless you know something I don't, in a sealed tube, if you move air from one end to the other, you create a low pressure differential. The air pressure will then try to equalize, and the system relies on that equalization as it is what is actually propelling the vehicle. Continually creating a low pressure zone followed by a high pressure zone with the vehicle in the middle. Moving air is relatively cheap cost wise and the vehicle goes along for the ride.

However, the following vehicles will have a higher pressure barrier in front of them, so it will not work as efficiently. This barrier is created by the vehicle in front. It also explains the need for the magnetic kick start. If everything is synchronized just right, it would be possible to time the air transfers to minimize the effect and increase efficiencies, but that will create a pulsing effect for the riders and at 800mph might not be too comfortable (vomit bags, anyone?).

As for multiple vehicles in the tube, even overcoming the propulsion physics involved, the math does not work out. The tube is at maximum 1000 miles long and the vehicles are traveling 800 mph. Leaving time to accelerate along with time to board each vehicle, get situated and then start, exactly how many vehicles can there be traveling at one time before having to slow down to stop? Unless you are going to load up 10 cars all at once and make the people in the back car wait an hour before starting (and make the first care wait an hour before disembarking at the other end), you can't get the volume of people moving in the tube that they are projecting. And if you did do the load at once with a delayed start and unload, well, then the 30 minute trip is hardly 30 minutes by the time you actually get to your destination (kind of like airlines using the departing the gate as leaving on time but sitting on the tarmac for 30 minutes as still an on time departure).

Remember, they are talking about speeds in excess of 800mph. You could out run a bullet fired from a 9mm hand gun (avg speed 634 mph) on one of these. The delays in loading and securing passengers, leaving safety margins, accelerating and decelerating and then unloading at the other end are all going to limit how many vehicles can actually be traversing the tube at any given moment. In theory, you might be able to send a vehicle every minute down the tube, but can't load and unload that quickly. Look how long it takes to load a small commuter jet. Why would this be any different?

So there you have it. From the document itself there are issued raised about the physics involved with multiple vehicles and also with the queuing of multiple vehicles. While I am confident with enough resources the first will be overcome, the second will most likely have to result with people waiting to embark or disembark, a significant amount of time. At least until those transporters are developed and by then, we won't need the tube.

Re:Better for freight carrier replacement

[rally2xs]

Look at the bar graph, Figure 1, in section 3, Background. It ain't necessarily about the speed, its also about the energy use, which is lower than most anything else for passenger travel. This would probably also translate to cargo.

here's an idea and just as plausible as elon's

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just put everyone inside a giant cannon with wingsuits / parachutes and let them land under their own power on the other side. It'd probably be safer, not to mention way more fun.

Re:here's an idea and just as plausible as elon's

[HornWumpus]

I look forward to the day I can commute via trebuchet and parachute.

Cheaper than high-speed rail???

[OneAhead]

How on earth can he possibly keep on insisting that all this will be cheaper than a high-speed rail? It just flies in the face of common sense.
Oh right, an all-nighter sometimes does that to you. Hope he regains his senses soon.

Re:Cheaper than high-speed rail???

[Anonymous Coward]

For high-speed rail, you either need to buy up vast tracts of land (some parts in areas with very high property values, as that's where you want the stations), or shut down large parts of the current rail network (either for long periods, or short periods with very slow progress) reducing fare revenue. You then have to clear that land, and if it's fresh build do large amounts of earthwork/tunnelling to get it into the correct shape to take a railway line (no sharp curves horizontally or vertically), and even if it's an upgrade some earthwork may be necessary (higher speed requires even gentler curves) if you want to operate that stretch at higher speed. On top of that there's additional work to gauge clear for whatever rolling stock you're going to operate. The track is assembled on site. And long-term, the track and cabling are open to the weather, vandals, metal thieves, etc.

This scheme meanwhile has prefab track sections, avoiding the bespoke assembly, and requires little earthwork (installing struts after ensuring the ground gives sufficient support) and can presumably done with at worst the closure of one or two lanes of freeway. Long-term repairs to problems caused by external factors is reduced (although track maintenance for mechanical wear would still be necessary, as well as checking the support structures and track housing was undamaged).

I haven't done the maths (and don't have the numbers to do it anywhere near precisely), but you can see where potentially huge savings could in theory be made. It's not just a clear-cut "it's in the air so it must be far more expensive" thing.

Re:Cheaper than high-speed rail???

[Anonymous Coward]

It just flies in the face of common sense.

Maybe this thing is feasible and maybe it isn't. But either way, "common sense" has historically had a poor track record on this sort of thing, and appeals to it have no place in a rational discussion.

Re:Cheaper than high-speed rail???

[KingMotley]

Common sense would tell you that the earth is the center of the universe and the sun rotates around it.

Re:Cheaper than high-speed rail???

[Anonymous Coward]

Well in order to lay train lines, you need to buy/expropriate a lot of land. Then you need to level all of that land, etc... Apparently his proposal is to stick poles at regular interval along the freeway and put the tubes atop the poles. So yeah I can foresee the execution to be much cheaper and quicker.

Re:Cheaper than high-speed rail???

[Dereck1701]

"this will be cheaper than a high-speed rail?"

Red tape? ROW restrictions? Sound Pollution? Grade restrictions? base material restrictions? etc. High speed rail has some pretty significant drawbacks that limit its use and increase its costs. There are some pretty significant advantages to elevating the "tubeway", decreasing the size of the footprint (ROW in this case) and simplifying the "cars". Not saying its going to be a walk in the park, but with high speed rails mounting costs ($65-117 Billion and climbing) for Californians HSR project alone and ever distant completion times (2040 at the earliest) alternatives should be considered.

Re:Cheaper than high-speed rail???

[Dcnjoe60]

Common sense would tell you that the earth is the center of the universe and the sun rotates around it.

Actually, common sense would not tell you that. It was the best scientific minds of their time that came up with that and even the math to explain the motion of the planets in such a system. It was a mu.ch more complicated system than what we now believe to be correct.

Re:Cheaper than high-speed rail???

[localman]

> How on earth can he possibly keep on insisting that all this will be cheaper than a high-speed rail?

Maybe it's because he estimated prices for all the components, many of which aren't entirely unfamiliar because his companies work on similar hardware?

> It just flies in the face of common sense.

Ah, there's the problem. Common sense is no substitute for actually sitting down and doing some math. Which he and his engineers did. Common sense, despite it's popular reputation, isn't really that useful beyond the most basic of problems. It certainly isn't what got humanity out of the dark ages.

Yes, he's making ballpark estimates. Yes there are many unknowns. But he made a legitimate effort to price it out and it looks like it will be much cheaper. You may want to ask yourself how much you really know about the complexity and cost of high speed rail systems.

Re:Cheaper than high-speed rail???

[dbIII]

If the most expensive cost is land even seemingly expensive things that don't use much of it start looking cheap.

Re:Cheaper than high-speed rail???

[bluefoxlucid]

Typical high-speed rail is increasingly inefficient. Fuel and maintenance costs increase due to track wear-and-tear and increased drag from high speed travel through atmosphere. He's proposing a system that avoids those issues and a number of other engineering problems, so it could possibly be cheaper than the normally expensive and inefficient high-speed rail.

For reference, bullet trains are ridiculously inefficient, while light rail (top speed: 70mph at the straight part of track on a good day) is more efficient than bus.

Re:Cheaper than high-speed rail???

[bluefoxlucid]

Math isn't common sense. Common sense is looking up, seeing the sun come up over the eastern horizon, move through the sky, and sink to the west. I mean if you spin a gigantic ball that's wet, water flies off it; what madman would come up with stupid shit like "the earth is spinning and the equator moves at roughly 1000mph"?

Re:Cheaper than high-speed rail???

[Dcnjoe60]

Math isn't common sense. Common sense is looking up, seeing the sun come up over the eastern horizon, move through the sky, and sink to the west. I mean if you spin a gigantic ball that's wet, water flies off it; what madman would come up with stupid shit like "the earth is spinning and the equator moves at roughly 1000mph"?

Math is common sense, at least basic math. Even caveman paintings show rudimentary math. The druids, who would seem pretty primitive by our standards seemed to have a good grasp on many things celestial that required math to account for the passage of time. From the moment that early man threw a spear at a running animal math (geometry, actually) was being used. Just because it wasn't defined yet, didn't keep it from being used. Early man knew through common sense that the shortest distance between two points was a straight line. He didn't know what geometry or trig or calculus was, but he knew how to use basic principles. The first time he divided the spoils of a hunt up equally, he again used math.

Math is all common sense. The formal definition and descriptive language of mathematics is not, but math itself is. We use it all the time without thinking about it.

As for common sense saying the earth was the center of the universe because of the rising and setting of the suns, stars and planets, that is was not common sense. That first had to cause the realization that there was something more that the world around us. Common sense attributed the rising and setting of the sun and other celestial bodies to the work of the gods. That was what common sense told them. Common sense also told them that if you displeased those gods, bad things happened to you.

Re:Cheaper than high-speed rail???

[bluefoxlucid]

Uh, the shortest distance between two points on the earth is a curved line. In many ways. It's shorter in some cases to go north and then come arcing back south rather than to travel directly westward.

Re:Cheaper than high-speed rail???

[Anonymous Coward]

And it does. Using the Earth as your reference point is just as valid as using the Sun (or the Moon, or the centre of the galaxy, etc.). The reason why we generally use the Sun (when making calculations about the solar system) is Occam's Razor: it's a lot simpler, and allows us to take Earth's rotation out of most equations.

Quoth the Hawkings: "Although it is not uncommon for people to say Copernicus proved Ptolemy wrong, that is not true. [...] one can use either picture as a model of the universe. The real advantage of the Copernican system is that the mathematics is much simpler in the frame of reference in which the sun is at rest."

Re:Cheaper than high-speed rail???

[Anonymous Coward]

Relativity would tell you that you're entitled to any reference frame you want, but I'm not helping you with the math if you pick an inconvenient one.

Tubes

[SnarfQuest]

Can these tubes also be used to carry the innernet?

Re:Tubes

[Entropius]

Only if there's a series of them.

Re:Tubes

[ByteSlicer]

Can these tubes also be used to carry the innernet?

Sure, just back it up on tape, and send it on its way...

Re:Tubes

[Anonymous Coward]

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a hperloop full of magnetic tapes.

Re:Tubes

[Anonymous Coward]

More important, cout Tux run through the tubes?

Re:Tubes

[Mr Z]

Well, it's not a dump truck!

Re:Tubes

[Sabathius]

...and you don't put it on the back of a truck.

Red tape is the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

It's been over 5 years since money was initially dumped into the California high speed rail project. After 5 years and 15 billion dollars we still don't have a single foot of track. If we can't even get two pieces of metal in the ground, what makes it believable that miles of metal tubes would be any easier and cheaper.

Re:Red tape is the problem

[HornWumpus]

Red tape could be a helper here.

They should be acquiring rights of way with _all_ of the initial money. Then start building when the population has grown to the point where it can run at break even.

But politically it was a non-starter without money for the construction unions.

Re:Red tape is the problem

[Mashiki]

Probably not. Taken a good look recently on how much red tape you need to go through for even the most simple building projects in the US? Hell at my place down in Florida, it took me nearly 2 years go get a live oak cut down. That was *after* it had been hit by lightening, caught on fire, was infested with ants, and was leaning on the neighbors house.

Re:Red tape is the problem

[djupedal]

+1 mod up...good idea or not, govt. will find a way to get in the way.

Re:Red tape is the problem

[khallow]

It's been over 5 years since money was initially dumped into the California high speed rail project. After 5 years and 15 billion dollars we still don't have a single foot of track. If we can't even get two pieces of metal in the ground, what makes it believable that miles of metal tubes would be any easier and cheaper.

Well, presumably it'd be someone other than California doing the project.

Re:Red tape is the problem

[HornWumpus]

We don't want them building yet. We want them to buy up as much land as reasonably possible before real estate recovers.

That way in 50 years, when it actually makes sense to build HSR, the land will not be too expensive.

Flori-duh is special. Like the special Olympics. I would have 'trimmed it for safety' rather aggressively. Gotten rid of the 'live' issue, then dealt with what was left.

Re:Red tape is the problem

[KingMotley]

Because it was the gov'ment that is doing the high speed rail, while the hyperloop would likely be done by a private company, and only after the cities involved had agreed to get the hell out of way.

Re:Red tape is the problem

[garyebickford]

Flori-duh is special. Like the special Olympics. I would have 'trimmed it for safety' rather aggressively. Gotten rid of the 'live' issue, then dealt with what was left.

... and gone to jail or paid a find comparable to the cost of your car. In many parts of Oregon, many cities in California, and (IDK about Florida). Probably other places as well. I think the parent noted how long it took even with the safety issue. Having said that, at a small town on the Oregon Coast, when we found that a tree *mostly* on city property was dangerous, we told the city about it and they actually came and took it down within about two years.

Re:Red tape is the problem

[kaatochacha]

In California, if you tried the "trimmed for safety", and you kill the oak tree, you're screwed. Oaks are simply sacred. The fine alone would put you and all your offspring in the poorhouse.
I drive, daily, around an oak tree "roundabout" put in place to keep that tree alive.
I'll admit, I like it, but the proposal to move failed as the chance it would die was too high.

Re:Red tape is the problem

[HornWumpus]

Coastal Oaks. I've cut down a dozen scrub oaks in the last year. Mostly saplings from the larger one I cut down a few years ago.

Of course you get an arborists report for a damaged coastal oak. If a tree had already been hit by lightening you're pretty damn safe. Than again our lightening rate is about 1% of Florida's.

Re:Red tape is the problem

[Dcnjoe60]

Because it was the gov'ment that is doing the high speed rail, while the hyperloop would likely be done by a private company, and only after the cities involved had agreed to get the hell out of way.

And you are thinking that magically all government regulations will just disappear? While it is the government doing high speed rail, it is a different part of the government causing all the red tape and delays. That part would still be causing red tape even for the hyperloop.

Re:Red tape is the problem

[Sardaukar86]

Hell at my place down in Florida, it took me nearly 2 years go get a live oak cut down. That was *after* it had been hit by lightening, caught on fire, was infested with ants, and was leaning on the neighbors house.

I feel for you, that's like some kind of horror story. Any idiot can see that ignoring a situation like that is a false economy, surely *somebody* on the council has had to deal with this problem in the past and understand the total cost in the long run...

Ugh, who am I kidding. Local body government is always the same, the crème de la crème of incompetence.

Re:Red tape is the problem

[dbIII]

And you are thinking that magically all government regulations will just disappear?

You put money in the right pocket and magically government regulations don't apply to you any more. It's the reason for a lot of complicated regulations in corrupt third world countries. Guess what's happening to yours?

Re:Red tape is the problem

[KingMotley]

Yes, sort of how google fiber got rolled out. They deployed it in cities that agreed to all their demands up front. No building permits, right of way, etc etc.

Just start with converting a normal highway

[Anonymous Coward]

No need for tubes and whatnot, simply allow for high speed autonomous vehicles on a "normal" highway. ~200 mph speeds with no humans in control. It'd be way better than a train, and autonomous driving conditions could be well controlled since the road could be designed with them in mind.

Re:Just start with converting a normal highway

[HornWumpus]

Have you ever driven on the fun side of 100mph? If you had, you would not suggest this. Many people have a hard time keeping their brakes serviced and think that tires that hold air are good by definition.

Re:Just start with converting a normal highway

[KingMotley]

Yes, and I would suggest it. But only for cars designed to actually go that fast. No, your supercharged smartfortwo doesn't count.

Re:Just start with converting a normal highway

[HornWumpus]

Then your ether an idiot or (even more then me) are a believer in active, every day evolution.

Do you know what kind of pavement you need to drive 200mph? What kind of tires? How long these tires last in use?

It's just a stupid suggestion. Rubber tires on pavement is at it's limits at 200mph. The only ones that go faster then that last about 1/2 mile (half slowing down) and are thrown away after one use.

Re:Just start with converting a normal highway

[Anonymous Coward]

You think tires are the limiting factor for speed of cars? Seems unlikely to me. Make them out of whatever you want, I would imagine the reason race cars require replacing so often is because they have special requirements like maximizing acceleration and handling on turns at speed. Acceleration and turning requirements could be controlled for on an autonomous roadway.

Re:Just start with converting a normal highway

[HornWumpus]

I _know_ tires are the limiting factor for the speed of theoretical cars (where they assume power is INXS). They are _the_ most important part of any car, F1 racer to rock crawler.

Had you ever bought a tire rated for speeds in excess of 100mph you would know that alone is expensive. It gets _much_ more expensive as you go faster.

Airplane tires, desert speed test tires, doesn't matter. Fast speeds means expensive and short life. Sidewall flex and heat, flat spots and the issues with those at high speed etc etc etc.

Re: Just start with converting a normal highway

[KingMotley]

No offense, but I suggest you get back into your Volkswagen and let the grown ups talk. Yes, I've driven over 100 mph. Yes, I've driven over 150 mph. Yes, I've AVERAGED (including gas stops, bathroom stops, and getting speeding tickets) over 110 MPH driving from Chicago to San Diego. Average speed while driving ~130.

No, tires rated for continual driving at over 150 MPH on my car are not that expensive.

Have you?

Re: Just start with converting a normal highway

[KingMotley]

Here is a link to some cheap ones: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Sumitomo&tireModel=HTR+Z+II&partnum=74WR7HTRZ2V2&vehicleSearch=true&fromCompare1=yes&autoMake=Pontiac&autoYear=2002&autoModel=Trans%20Am%20WS6&autoModClar=

Here is a link to the ones I have:http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Goodyear&tireModel=Eagle+F1+Asymmetric+All-Season&partnum=74WR7F1AAS&vehicleSearch=true&fromCompare1=yes&autoMake=Pontiac&autoYear=2002&autoModel=Trans%20Am%20WS6&autoModClar=

Under $400 for a set of 4 isn't "expensive" and rated to up to 168MPH. Which is exactly what I need since the top end of my car is 167.

Re: Just start with converting a normal highway

[HornWumpus]

Assuming you are not completely full of shit; you are a dangerous jackass.

I've driven that fast, on a fucking race track after taking the time and money to get the license. With a roll cage and 5 point restraints.

BTW read upthread. Idiot suggested autonomous cars doing 200.

Re: Just start with converting a normal highway

[KingMotley]

In a car actually designed to run at those speeds, it really isn't much more dangerous (excluding bad drivers). Well designed cars give better downforce on both the front and rear of the car, which actually gives them better traction at high speed. Most cars aren't designed for those speeds, and some actually give LESS downforce on the front as they increase speed which is dangerous indeed. But make it autonomous, and I bet cars doing 200MPH will result in significantly less accidents (and fatalities) than the bozos doing 55-75 manually. People regularly do (or did when I was there) 140MPH on the autobahn in Europe, and even doing 140MPH you weren't the fastest, and would get passed by a motorcycle. But the roads are better maintained, designed for high speed, and they don't give out driver's licenses just because you hit a certain age and can sign your name at the top of a "test".

That said, there are a lot more hurdles to getting a car to run well at 200MPH than 150MPH, but I doubt they are as insurmountable as you make them out to be. Tires rated for 188+MPH are indeed a bit more expensive ($1,500ish for a set of 4), and they last about 70% as long as any other tire. This is a far cry from your claims. If the 200MPH autonomous car became common, you'd see the cost of tires drop significantly as they started to produce them in reasonable numbers. Right now they are somewhat of a rarity, reserved for very high end cars. Message me in a year, because my current car is getting a bit old, and my next one comes from the factory with Y-rated tires, and has a top end of just over 200MPH. I'll let you know how the tires hold up.

Re: Just start with converting a normal highway

[Dcnjoe60]

Here is a link to some cheap ones: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Sumitomo&tireModel=HTR+Z+II&partnum=74WR7HTRZ2V2&vehicleSearch=true&fromCompare1=yes&autoMake=Pontiac&autoYear=2002&autoModel=Trans%20Am%20WS6&autoModClar=

Here is a link to the ones I have:http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Goodyear&tireModel=Eagle+F1+Asymmetric+All-Season&partnum=74WR7F1AAS&vehicleSearch=true&fromCompare1=yes&autoMake=Pontiac&autoYear=2002&autoModel=Trans%20Am%20WS6&autoModClar=

Under $400 for a set of 4 isn't "expensive" and rated to up to 168MPH. Which is exactly what I need since the top end of my car is 167.

Those are only rated to 168mph. The proposal was autonomous cars running 200mph. Those tires won't work.

Re: Just start with converting a normal highway

[KingMotley]

The response was to the question:

Had you ever bought a tire rated for speeds in excess of 100mph you would know that alone is expensive.

So tires rated up to 168 would easily qualify. I also listed Y-rated tires that are rated for 188+MPH which covers 200 MPH further in the thread if you care to read it.

Re:Just start with converting a normal highway

[rwise2112]

You think tires are the limiting factor for speed of cars? Seems unlikely to me.

The Bugatti Veyrons tires will explode after about 15 minutes at top speed. Which is fine because you run out of fuel (100 litres) after 12 minutes.

Re:Just start with converting a normal highway

[bdo19]

Then your ether an idiot or (even more then me) are a believer in active, every day evolution.

I don't think he's an idiot. Why the attitude?

Do you know what kind of pavement you need to drive 200mph?

Smooth pavement? I think when the AC poster wrote "normal" in quotes he was implying that it would require some modifications to handle the speed as well as the automation. But this wouldn't require anything magical.

What kind of tires? How long these tires last in use?

It's just a stupid suggestion. Rubber tires on pavement is at it's limits at 200mph.

Citation needed. Is there some limit around 200 where the physics change dramatically, like it's the speed of sound or something?

The only ones that go faster then that last about 1/2 mile (half slowing down) and are thrown away after one use.

It seems you are referring to drag race tires? That's because they are engineered that way, and race teams can afford to throw them away after every run to get every .001s of speed. Not to mention that in some cases they handle thousands of HP. That doesn't mean they couldn't be engineered for longevity instead. Consider also Indycar or Nascar tires which go ~100mi at 200mph, under RACE conditions, and then only wear out because they are made so soft to begin with. Or whatever tires they use on the Bugatti Veyron. Z and Y rated tires are widely available. I don't think it's a stretch to think that a 200mph rated tire could be mass produced if there was some demand.

Re:Just start with converting a normal highway

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be a lot less efficient, a lot more dangerous, a lot slower, and probably a lot more expensive when all the costs are taken into account.

Real prices vs. fantasy prices

[MrEricSir]

It's simple: there's no way of knowing exactly what the hyperloop would really cost to build, since one has never been built. He's comparing real-world prices to fantasy prices.

it's much like how pharmaceuticals that haven't been released yet always seem to promise "no side effects."

Re:Real prices vs. fantasy prices

[Teancum]

Elon Musk has done some preliminary engineering and at least modeled the concepts to come up with some pretty reasonable guesses for the prices. Keep in mind that SpaceX (one of the companies he runs) happens to make aluminum tubes of about the diameter he is proposing with the hyperloop and knows to the penny how much they cost to build and to ensure the quality needed for a project like this. Land acquisition costs are something that numerous studies by the California Department of Transportation alone has done several studies for high speed rail lines, not to mention monorail fans and other groups including AmTrack that have at least studied many of the costs involved with establishing a transportation corridor.

On top of that, his experience with Tesla Motors is more than sufficient to make reasonable guesses in terms of how much each pod is going to cost. Mind you, many of the technologies in the hyperloop were things he was considering as additional lines of business in the future for Tesla (like electric turbofans) and he also knows how to build a passenger vehicle where you can travel in style.

While the costs might be preliminary, I'd bet they are good +/- 50% of the figures he is quoting. He did a pretty good job of coming up with a price on the Falcon 1/5 as well as the Tesla Roadster back when people like you were saying he was a nut case that didn't have a clue what he was doing with those vehicles.

That is the thing about Elon Musk. You might dismiss him as a crackpot spouting off at the mouth, but he has a track record of tacking crazy ideas like this and making them into reality. A whole lot of actual engineering effort has gone into this idea, where some people experienced in mechanical and aerospace engineering (actual rocket scientists I'll add) have contributed to its design specifications. That is how engineering works, where somebody with a bold vision puts out an idea, digs into the details for how it might work, draws up some diagrams, and uses real-world physics and knowledge gained by doing previous projects to come up with a way to take that crazy idea into reality.

Otherwise, I suppose you are a Luddite who thinks we need to sit on our hands all day wishing that civilization can collapse along with 99.9% of humanity so the few remaining can return to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Good luck with that.

Re:Real prices vs. fantasy prices

[Dcnjoe60]

I'm just curious how he is going to deal with the expansion issues of an metal tube that is 1000 miles long in various different temperatures and weather. The pipeline industry has been struggling with it for decades. It would seem that his designs are going to need some fairly close tolerances to work and with the various thermal coefficients involved it will be interesting to see how he plans to deal with it.

Re:Real prices vs. fantasy prices

[localman]

Like almost every other question or criticism in this thread - if you read the proposal he talks about that exact issue and proposes a solution. You may not be convinced his proposed solution will work, but this is something the hyperloop plan covers.

Re:Real prices vs. fantasy prices

[dbIII]

The pipeline industry has been struggling with it for decades.

The pipeline industry has been solving it for decades. There's even an oil pipeline over a fault in Alaska that moved by ten metres in an earthquake which survived because of a clever design of a couple of bends over the fault. For extreme thermal expansion problems look at power station pipework, and something like this is not so limited to materials that can withstand high temperatures and pressures. Great big compressible plastic rings are used between segments of some water pipelines for instance.

Re:Real prices vs. fantasy prices

[Dcnjoe60]

Like almost every other question or criticism in this thread - if you read the proposal he talks about that exact issue and proposes a solution. You may not be convinced his proposed solution will work, but this is something the hyperloop plan covers.

Talking about it and solving the problem are two different things. People talk about cold fusion, but to date, nobody has solved it, either.

Re:Real prices vs. fantasy prices

[Teancum]

As if neither SpaceX nor Tesla engineers have ever needed to worry about thermal expansion nor high acceleration or shock issues in their engineering designs. Just look at what they've built then say that again with a straight face. This particular issue you are complaining about is a solved engineering problem as having large diameter tubes dealing with these issues over distances of hundreds of miles is currently being done in many places, including earthquake prone areas of the world.

Don't get me started on "cold fusion", as you obviously don't have a clue about that technology either... or are you talking about a practical "Mr. Fusion" device using banana peels and left over soda as an energy source?

Re:Real prices vs. fantasy prices

[serviscope_minor]

People talk about cold fusion, but to date, nobody has solved it, either.

You're conflating two massively different things.

The hyperloop is a bit of a nutty plan but the technology is all well established. Linear induction motors work. Long, high pressure pipelines work. Earthquake proof structures on poles work. Air locks work. Partial evacuation of tubes works.

Basically it's a bunch of well understood science with some engineering challenges. They don't seem insurmountable, but the scale is large and making it cost effective will be one of the challenges.

Whereas fusion, cold or otherwise is a completely unsolved scientific problem.

Re:Real prices vs. fantasy prices

[Dcnjoe60]

As if neither SpaceX nor Tesla engineers have ever needed to worry about thermal expansion nor high acceleration or shock issues in their engineering designs. Just look at what they've built then say that again with a straight face. This particular issue you are complaining about is a solved engineering problem as having large diameter tubes dealing with these issues over distances of hundreds of miles is currently being done in many places, including earthquake prone areas of the world.

Don't get me started on "cold fusion", as you obviously don't have a clue about that technology either... or are you talking about a practical "Mr. Fusion" device using banana peels and left over soda as an energy source?

Yeah, cold fusion was a bad choice, intentionally sarcastic. But the expansion problem is not solved. It is a real problem that every pipeline deals with, every bridge and highway and railroad must deal with with. It is an understood problem, but that doesn't mean it is solved. In particular, what is at issue here is a 1000 mile tube that must be able to maintain a partial vacuum and allow for very close tolerances for the air cushion that is to be generated through the skies to function properly. In addition, it needs to be able to shift that vacuum and hold it from in front of the moving vehicle to behind it. Even today's pipelines leak all over the place and they are transporting a viscous liquid. If a pipe filled with air for a transport that is dependent on pressure differentials to operate, even if the leaks are solved the expansion and contraction will alter the pressures.

I am quite confident that he has engineers working on it. If successful, they might even get a Noble Peace Prize for it one day, but it is not a trivial problem and it is every bit as complex the issues that SpaceX and Tesla have had to deal with, if not more so. Everybody is treating the pipe as some sort of pneumatic tube like banks have in drive up tellers. It isn't. It is an integral part of the system and it is critical to the whole thing working.

One could argue that what makes the whole thing revolutionary is the vacuum/air flow proposal which is dependent on the tube being exactly right everywhere along the path. If the goal was just getting from point A to B really fast then mag lev would accomplish that and building a mag lev in the median of the highway, but elevated like the tube would have kept the cost down (as others have pointed out, the most expensive part of high speed rail is not the train and the track, but the land acquisition).

So, please, don't dismiss the thermal properties of the tube or the engineering obstacles involved with accounting for them. Of all of the "parts" of the system, it is the one thing that is going to create difficulty. Just about everything else is off the shelf technology. It's when you put it all together you have to make it work.

Re:Real prices vs. fantasy prices

[Dcnjoe60]

People talk about cold fusion, but to date, nobody has solved it, either.

You're conflating two massively different things.

The hyperloop is a bit of a nutty plan but the technology is all well established. Linear induction motors work. Long, high pressure pipelines work. Earthquake proof structures on poles work. Air locks work. Partial evacuation of tubes works.

Basically it's a bunch of well understood science with some engineering challenges. They don't seem insurmountable, but the scale is large and making it cost effective will be one of the challenges.

Whereas fusion, cold or otherwise is a completely unsolved scientific problem.

You are correct, I was in a hurry, looking for a sarcastic remark. I should have used something like hydrogen powered cars or something similar. One of those things where the technology is available, the concept has been demoed, but solving the real world problems has been, well, problematic.

Re:Real prices vs. fantasy prices

[MrEricSir]

That is the thing about Elon Musk. You might dismiss him as a crackpot spouting off at the mouth, but he has a track record of tacking crazy ideas like this and making them into reality.

Except that Musk has stated that he has no plans to ever build this. Nobody else is planning to build it either.

Otherwise, I suppose you are a Luddite who thinks we need to sit on our hands all day wishing that civilization can collapse along with 99.9% of humanity so the few remaining can return to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Good luck with that.

Right, so you either have Musk's cock in your mouth, or you're a luddite. Got it!

Re:Real prices vs. fantasy prices

[Teancum]

I'm not going to dismiss that this is a trivial issue, as I think you are correct that it will be one of the major issues to solve, perhaps THE major issue to solve as you are suggesting. By Elon Musk's own calculations there will be a "hot spot" produced by the pods themselves that will be about 500 degrees C (obviously momentary for the tube proper, but it will be a design consideration). The partial vacuum is going to be an interesting challenge as well.

One of the interesting things about the proposal is that it depends on a distributed power generation grid instead of a central power generation authority. I think this is sort of betraying his experience at Solar City where this kind of thinking is presumed, but I think that is almost as revolutionary as the tube itself as he sort of hinted that the tube will end up generating a surplus of electricity that could be sold to power customers along the route. Perhaps he has also been reading a few too many Heinlein novels as I think that was one of the ways that D. Delos Harriman (fictionally) made his billions to pay for the Luna City construction project. At least it wasn't the rolling roads idea that Musk proposed.

Re:Real prices vs. fantasy prices

[booch]

I'd bet they are good +/- 50% of the figures he is quoting. He did a pretty good job of coming up with a price on the Falcon 1/5 as well as the Tesla Roadster back when people like you were saying he was a nut case that didn't have a clue what he was doing with those vehicles.

The Tesla Roadster was supposed to cost $80k, but ended up at about $110k. So about a 40% cost overrun on that.

Re:Real prices vs. fantasy prices

[OneAhead]

You guys (as well as the mods who modded me down) have no idea how strong a large-diameter pipe needs to be to withstand a partial vacuum that is high enough to make the speeds he's talking about feasible. An airplane/rocket/spaceship body simply doesn't compare; it's much easier to keep pressure in than to keep pressure out. That's because the pressure in an overpressurized tube will counteract any deformation/buckling initiated by random forces (such as a capsule traveling through it), while the pressure in an underpressurized tube will amplify it. Think a submarine body or a particle accelerator. Neither are particularly light or cheap. I can assure you Mr. Musk's tube will have to be incredibly strong and therefore either heavy or very expensive.

Also, there's nothing stopping a 1000-miles-long high-speed rail track from being built on poles above a major highway. That is, nothing but the horrible cost of doing so, which is way higher than buying people's land. Or, populist soundbites aside, did you think the planners of the high-speed rail project are complete idiots?

Yes, and I know Mr. Musk's track record. I do not, however, believe in appeal to authority. When he got the idea of doing SpaceX, I thought: "good idea, he may pull it off". When he got the idea of selling electric cars, I thought: "good idea, he may pull it off". But this just makes me think "what has he been smoking?" After his previous successes in the face of adversity, he must have become overconfident.

Re:Real prices vs. fantasy prices

[Teancum]

Actually, I do think there are some political considerations and non-engineering reasons for the extreme costs as well as comparatively slow speed that the California "high speed rail" system is being developed. Those political considerations in particular are the kind of thing escalating the costs making it unaffordable, just like similar spiraling costs are killing NASA.

I am quite certain that there are some really decent engineers working on that project who could do an excellent job if they were given a chance. Unfortunately the current way that the project is being developed that they will never be given a chance or even be allowed to even know if they could be given the chance.

I also think this crazy idea could become just as big of a government boondoggle as the Las Vegas Monorail. Big on hype even if a "demonstrator" is built with paying passengers. Regardless, I do think that some of the statements by what I must consider to be utter jerks commenting here on /. as well as elsewhere don't deserve anything more than a slap on the face with a trout and told to go away. There are legitimate concerns about this project that can be raised, but raise those objections based upon knowledge.... by at least reading the f'ing paper that describes the project in the first place. Being closed minded that it is impossible for Elon to ever pull this off or that others can't run with the idea and try to build it is also just as stupid as those who may be claiming that Elon is Tony Stark and can turn all into gold.

Re:Real prices vs. fantasy prices

[OneAhead]

You're dodging my points. I said building on pylons is more expensive than expropriating land, as shown by the current high-speed rail project (as well as most high-speed rail projects in other countries) not being built on pylons. Your answer:

Actually, I do think there are some political considerations and non-engineering reasons for the extreme costs as well as comparatively slow speed that the California "high speed rail" system is being developed. Those political considerations in particular are the kind of thing escalating the costs making it unaffordable, just like similar spiraling costs are killing NASA.

Oh yeah, because every politician knows expropriating land can make you insanely popular. I bet politicians stand in line to show voters they have the spine to expropriate large swathes of land... not!

There are legitimate concerns about this project that can be raised, but raise those objections based upon knowledge.... by at least reading the f'ing paper that describes the project in the first place. Being closed minded that it is impossible for Elon to ever pull this off or that others can't run with the idea and try to build it is also just as stupid as those who may be claiming that Elon is Tony Stark and can turn all into gold.

After skimming the paper, searching it for information relevant to my reservations, and reading some more technical commentaries, I'm more convinced than ever that his cost estimates are far, far too low. Along with the engineering margins on some structural details. Also, you're strawmanning me. I never said that "it is impossible for Elon to ever pull this off". I never even raised any technical objections against it being possible. All I ever said is that his cost estimates are laughably optimistic and it will turn out to be more expensive than the current high-speed rail project. By a huge margin. I'm willing to bet good money on this. But given your own reservations about budget, I take it you won't accept the bet ;)

Bottom line: I'm as excited as the next guy to see this coming true. Just don't think for a second it will come cheap. In fact, in light of the willingness of American taxpayers to spend big on hi-tech public infrastructure, China, Japan or France will likely beat the US to it.

INCONEL!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

INCONEL!!
$$$$
I guess you gotta start some where.

How safe would this be?

[elbonia]

I know that the original target speed was 4000 mph but even at 800-1000 mph how safe will this be when a fast deceleration occurs. In a plane during a crash it skids, hopefully, in a empty field or ocean and then comes to a stop. In a car there are crumple zones to absorb the impact to slow down the deceleration. It doesn't seem like there would be the enough padding to make it stop reasonably. This idea seems to be great but only if it had it's own separate rail section to handle emergencies. http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2005/09/13/1459026.htm

Re:How safe would this be?

[Microlith]

A fast deceleration caused by what? Most fast-decelerations that planes suffer are imposed at 9.8m/s^2 and kill a good chunk of the passengers as they slam into the ground, so I don't see how accidents could be much worse given how few people ride per pod.

Re:How safe would this be?

[elbonia]

A fast deceleration caused by what?
Like detecting a crack or fault in the tube structure shortly ahead of the current location and it needs to come to an immediate stop.

Most fast-decelerations that planes suffer are imposed at 9.8m/s^2...
Actually almost None do, a plane becomes a glider when it's engines quits and glides to the ground. 9.8 m/s^2 would imply that it descends straight down like a rock with no air resistance. When engines fail planes can glide to a landing and then skid on the ground with the resistance of the ground slowing the plane down during the "slapdown"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_Impact_Demonstration

Re:How safe would this be?

[Guspaz]

The target speed was never 4000 MPH (I think you're confusing this with ET3's proposal). For deceleration: emergency brakes and the cars have wheels for emergencies. One question that should be asked is, what is it going to crash into? Not other capsules, they're moving away from you and have a huge safety margin of distance between them. Not the station, it's a passive system that handles deceleration (no power required). If the capsule needs to decelerate themselves for some reason, you're going from a maximum of 760 MPH to 0 MPH using the capsule's mechanical emergency breaking system. At the same deceleration as the capsules would accelerate, that's about seventy seconds over roughly seven and a half miles. Which is much faster than a high-speed train can do the same thing.

The document Must posted does cover several emergency scenarios. Passenger health emergency? Best thing is to keep going to next station as scheduled, with a maximum trip length of 35 minutes it's the fastest way to get an active response, and much faster than you can get emergency services to an in-flight aircraft. Major depressurization of a car? Actuate emergency breaks on all cars and rapidly re-pressurize the entire tube. Major earthquake (beyond the ability of the pylon dampers to handle)? Emergency break all the capsules and wait it out. Power outage? The system has many times more stored battery capacity to complete all in-progress journeys. Power failure of system itself? Cars are self-powered, so can coast a decent distance themselves, and then the batteries normally used to power the turbine can be used instead to power motors on the emergency wheels to get the capsules either to the station at the end of the line or the closest emergency exit location. I'm sure there are tons of possibilities that haven't been accounted for, but many are.

Re:How safe would this be?

[Anonymous Coward]

How will they engineer the tubes to prevent an earthquake or external force (flood, vehicle collision with supports, etc) from deflecting a tube from its intended geometry? What is the maximum deflection the tube can experience before the capsule is impacting the wall, experiencing catastrophic heating from friction or lateral acceleration beyond the safety limits for the passengers?

Re:How safe would this be?

[Guspaz]

Consider first that sufficiently large deflection would result in the immediate emergency breaking of all capsules. There is also the consideration that earthquakes don't travel instantaneously, which means there is some advanced warning between an earthquake being detected and an earthquake reaching the hypertube. There is also the capability of the dampers on the pylons to absorb a certain amount of movement. These things combine to give sufficient time to decelerate the vehicles.

Consider this: earthquakes are a far larger problem in Japan (both in intensity and frequency), and there are similar consequences to deflecting the rail of a high speed train (the danger there is derailment). Even a stationary train can topple in an earthquake, much less of a concern on the hyperloop. Japan has never suffered a fatality on a shinkansen due to earthquakes, over the past half century. The hyperloop's emergency stopping distance would be vaguely similar to that of the shinkansen. The shinkansen emergency braking from top speed takes about 40 seconds by my math, and the *normal* deceleration from top speed of the hyperloop would take 70. If it decelerates faster than normal for emergency braking, it could potentially even stop faster than the shinkansen.

Re:How safe would this be?

[Microlith]

Like detecting a crack or fault in the tube structure shortly ahead of the current location and it needs to come to an immediate stop.

That's different from an impact-style deceleration, which all of your examples involve. I suppose it depends on what kind of fault is in the tube, unfortunately there are so many that there are a number of different scenarios including: not stopping, allowing the increase in air pressure to slow the car, slamming into a fractured tube and crashing, etc.

Actually almost None do, a plane becomes a glider when it's engines quits and glides to the ground.

Oh right, they tend to fail in the sky then either explode, break up, lose engine power at low altitude then drop from the sky at odd angles or glide to the ground. And when you hit the ground, if you're lucky, they won't collide with something, break apart, and burst into flames (if there's fuel left.) There's a reason air crashes are so terrifying despite being relatively uncommon.

I suppose I'm struggling to see your point, given that this project hasn't gotten much past the concept phase.

Re:How safe would this be?

[localman]

I don't think he ever claimed 4000 mph. The one time I saw that number was in a confused article that claimed the 30 minute travel time was for a NY to LA trip, not the SF to LA he had stated. As far as I have heard, he has always placed the speed at under 1000 mph.

Re:How safe would this be?

[dbIII]

Like detecting a crack or fault in the tube structure shortly ahead of the current location

If it's not shut down for testing you are only going to find such a crack if it opens up fast enough to do something extremely nasty to the pod exerting the force to open it up. They are suggesting a distance between that and the next one to give enough room to slow down.

Re:How safe would this be?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why dont you build one in China then let them sell it back as CHinese technology and let them handle the accidents? Must be 800 m/h average. I see no problema. Can they use some other gas than oxygen?

Re:How safe would this be?

[rally2xs]

Don't break those capsules, that is unnecessary and counterproductive. Brake them instead.

Re:How safe would this be?

[Anonymous Coward]

I read these comments about "emergency breaking of all capsules" and think of what would happen if everyone on Slashdot was given a hundred Kinder Surprise eggs and instructions to open them at a certain time and place.

Re:How safe would this be?

[Guspaz]

Geeze, you put a single wrong letter in one of three instances of a word and everybody loses their minds.

Re:How safe would this be?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://youtu.be/VZjYL847KnI?t=42m3s

There is a system to stop Highspeed rail before earthquake hits. Watch video.

Hmm. 800mph in a tube suspended in the air...

[srijon]

in a region known for earthquakes. sounds fun!

Sounds good until you realize there's no bathrooms

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you just shit yourself.

Just another boondoggle

[Anonymous Coward]

Please spare us more articles about how it will work. It's not going to work. It's not meant to work. It's meant to generate a few development contracts for big bucks, then a few more construction contracts for even bigger bucks, and then fail in a rather long and drawn out way so that nobody actually has to take the blame.

Re:Just another boondoggle

[garyebickford]

This is pretty much not the way Musk operates. SpaceX developed and built almost every part of their rockets, because the existing vendors were too expensive and too slow. And their launch prices are listed on their website - no cost-plus BS. If you plunk down your $180 million or so, SpaceX will build it and launch it. Musk likes efficiency and economic solutions to tough problems.

Re:Just another boondoggle

[Teancum]

There have been a few aerospace part suppliers that Elon Musk simply went to the company and made an offer to buy their company completely, offered them shop space in the El Segundo plant, set them up with newer tools and higher pay, and let them work on the Falcon rockets in other areas of the plant if they were interested. Elon said he didn't want them to start making parts for a competitor and making SpaceX a lower priority, so he was willing to bring them into the company at technically a loss.

The nice thing about his vertical integration of rocket construction is that he can control the quality at every step making sure that suppliers (since they are mostly in-house) don't cut corners pushing for some quota. It also doesn't hurt that his production rate is so freaking high right now where he is turning out a new Merlin engine about every other week (or is that every week now?) on the assembly line and trying to ramp that up to an even higher production rate. I don't know of anybody else in the aerospace industry doing something like that in terms of mass producing rockets. If the folks in Texas destroy a few engines, it really isn't that big of a deal as more are coming off of the production line to take care of any needs for upcoming launches. In short, SpaceX is getting very good at building rocket engines.

Re: Just another boondoggle

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, good info. Thx. Anon caused on my phone.

Re:Just another boondoggle

[taiwanjohn]

Wish I still had mod points. I hadn't heard this story before, but it's similar to many others I've heard which point to Musk's thoroughness and attention to detail. Case in point: he's been kicking around this idea in his head for at least a year (that we know about, maybe even longer) but he held off on publishing it until he could honestly justify taking enough time away from SpaceX and Tesla to give it a reasonably complete "alpha" treatment.

I've seen this before

[OzPeter]

“The pods would be mounted on thin skis made out of inconel, a trusted alloy of SpaceX that can withstand high pressure and heat,” Vance wrote. Air would get pumped through tiny holes in the inconel skis to create an air cushion, and it would get there via an electric turbo compressor. An electromagnetic pulse would each pod an initial thrust.

I saw this described almost exactly the same in a popular science magazine in Australia in the mid '70's . I can still picture the cover illustration, but damned if I can remember the title of the magazine ("Scientific Australia"????)

Re:I've seen this before

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

I was thinking is sounded like the train described in the Robert A. Heinlein book Starman Jones.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starman_Jones

Re:I've seen this before

[OzPeter]

I was thinking is sounded like the train described in the Robert A. Heinlein book Starman Jones.

Yeah that too (which I actually re-read this week)

Re:I've seen this before

[garyebickford]

One thing that has changed is materials - a lot of things are possible now, that were not then. Also, back then the economics weren't there. Folks just weren't used to the idea of being in another city in a few hours. Now we want to go to the other side of the planet for lunch, and be back in time for dinner.

Re:I've seen this before

[Wintermute__]

I was thinking is sounded like the train described in the Robert A. Heinlein book Starman Jones.

Yeah that too (which I actually re-read this week)

And like this same thing from the webcomic Quantum Vibe:

http://www.quantumvibe.com/strip?page=460

And so it begins

[kylegordon]

All the /. experts come out of their caves to debunk a paper by a guy that brought us internet payments, commercial space travel, and luxury electric cars.

Re:And so it begins

[The Cat]

Wins the FUCKING thread. Take a bow, sir.

Re:And so it begins

[phantomfive]

He already said he's not going to do this one, so don't hold your breath.

Re:And so it begins

[Anonymous Coward]

All the /. experts come out of their caves to debunk a paper by a guy that brought us internet payments, commercial space travel, and luxury electric cars.

except he hasn't really "brought us" any of those , he merely built upon existing stuff and managed to kiss the right buttocks to secure funding. Not exactly revolutionary .. impressive as a business feat but that is all.

Re:And so it begins

[ByteSlicer]

All the /. experts come out of their caves

I'm not coming out of my cave. It's the only place with decent WiFi coverage...

Re:And so it begins

[The Cat]

Well, at least you didn't start with "actually." You're still a towering cock, but at least you didn't start with "actually."

Re:And so it begins

[DerekLyons]

Just because he can hire enough experts to do what has already been done or mostly done... doesn't mean he can do everything or anything. This isn't Paypal, which took existing technology and convinced people to use him rather than the banks. Nor is this SpaceX, which has taken existing technology and may (someday) provide commercial space travel by hiring existing experts. Nor is this Tesla, which took existing technology... I think you see the pattern.

(Seriously, if you believe that someones ability to eat a banana proves that that can ride a tricycle across a tightrope, you'd abandoned all common sense.)

Re:And so it begins

[c 0xFF]

He already said he's not going to do this one ... yet. He's giving the world a chance to chime in first. Then, in a couple years, if someone else hasn't picked up the ball, he says he'll pursue it himself.

Given Musk's history, I'm going to think of this project as vaporware that has a decent chance of condensing into a liquid someday.

Re:And so it begins

[Areyoukiddingme]

I think Mr. Musk has demonstrated four times now that he is the financial equivalent of riding a unicycle across a tightrope while juggling bananas. Existing technology is useless if it never leaves the bench. (And Slashdot has 10394856 solar cell stories to prove it.) Elon Musk takes technology that's been languishing on the bench and turns it into viable companies. This is not exactly a trivial talent, or it would happen more frequently. His ability to put together a functional team of experts, then direct and fund them to success, is quite unusual. Doing it all on a budget 1/10th the size of other organizations (that still fail to deliver) is what really makes for an impressive performance.

Yes, I do see a pattern. I see a pattern of rather startling success, that "anybody" could have done. Except. They didn't.

Re:And so it begins

[Rockoon]

The problem with the majority of the world is that they forgot (or never knew) how to make good bets. Elon considers many things, but only puts piles of money down on stuff that will pan out.

Re:And so it begins

[harperska]

Remember, /. likes to trash talk another company with the same M.O. of taking existing languishing technologies, figuring out what magic sauce they are lacking, turn them into viable products people actually care about, and then actually deliver.

Elon Musk is the new Steve Jobs. They run their companies in a very similar way, and the value of that way goes over the head of the average /.er who can't comprehend that innovation is far more often figuring out how to make an existing technology better as opposed to conjuring up never-before-heard-of categories out of thin air.

Re:And so it begins

[Anonymous Coward]

Musk *is* using existing technology. That's the beauty of his system. It's cheap to build, even if he's grossly underestimating costs. The only technological innovation is a method to overcome the Kantrowitz Limit, and he does it in a way that turns a problem into a solution--i.e. uses a turbine to move air from the front of the pod to behind, generating air bearings under the sleds in the process.

Apparently unlike you, Musk doesn't subsist on a steady diet of presumption, ignorance, and science fiction.

You denigrate his achievements, and yet you're too lazy to even read his very well put together, 50+ page proposal.

There's a ton a stuff missing from the proposal for a project this complex. But Musk has kicked the ball firmly back into your court. You can't just waive your arms and huff and puff. If you want to refute it, read it and provide constructive criticisms.

Re:And so it begins

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean a guy that brought us visa on the internet without good conflict resolution (or fraud protection), a company for laid off JPL workers and contractors (Orbital created commercial space travel actually, & Virgin Galactic is creating personal space travel), and cars for the rich.

Not joking, Musk is truly some to admire and get credit where credits due, but anyone can come up with a stupid idea: why go through all the inefficiencies on the ground to solve one problem in the air. Hell, nature has showed us that (birds).

Re:And so it begins

[DerekLyons]

I think Mr. Musk has demonstrated four times now that he is the financial equivalent of riding a unicycle across a tightrope while juggling bananas.

To believe that requires... well, either an incredible disconnect from reality or... well, there really isn't another option though I could speculate at length as to the causes.
 

Elon Musk takes technology that's been languishing on the bench and turns it into viable companies.

Well, considering he's founded pretty much only one viable company to date - that's a bit of a stretch. (Neither Tesla nor SpaceX are viable at this point.)
 

Yes, I do see a pattern.

I do too - unabashed hero worship, admantium blinders, and a stack of special pleadings from here to the Moon.

Re:And so it begins

[Anonymous Coward]

All the /. experts come out of their caves to debunk a paper by a guy that brought us [...] commercial space travel

Why do people keep repeating this canard about commercial space travel? Arianespace was founded in 1980. United Launch Alliance has been around since the early 90s. Private companies were getting their for-profit payloads delivered to Earth orbit for decades before SpaceX came on the scene.

Re:And so it begins

[Anonymous Coward]

All the /. experts come out of their caves to debunk a paper by a guy that brought us internet payments, commercial space travel, and luxury electric cars.

You forgot walked on water, cured cancer, saved the world's puppies and invented rainbows.

Well that's just about as realistic. Musk did not single handedly do any of those things, and the others would have gotten them done with or without his competition, even if a little more slowly.

Re:And so it begins

[localman]

You either didn't read or didn't understand the paper.

This idea is indeed a clever combination of already existing technologies. Nothing about it is mystical. It's just engineering. Like Space X. Like Tesla. Like, well, just about every bit of progress ever. I don't know how you think it happens, but reworking existing technology is how it actually happens.

I've already seen all the "it's impossible" posts today. When something like this eventually works, I'll look forward to the "it wasn't that hard, and he doesn't deserve too much credit posts".

People are a riot.

Re:And so it begins

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, at least you didn't start with "actually." You're still a towering cock, but at least you didn't start with "actually."

And there you go outing yourself as a template copy-pasta boilerplate fucktard. Well done, you've proven you can paste the same drivel by way of response into nearly any conversation, you just need to change the phallic reference as appropriate.

Redundant retards like you are why /. has degenerated into shit. All your low uid proves is that you are the worst kind of fuckwit: an old fuckwit

Re:And so it begins

[AmiMoJo]

PayPal is a failure though. The only reason it's still alive is that it is the only way to pay for stuff on eBay. Otherwise it is just about the worst way to pay for anything.

Re:And so it begins

[assertation]

The last two are well known to be a work in progress. No disrespect.

Re:And so it begins

[Areyoukiddingme]

Not viable? Tesla and SpaceX are both profitable now, Tesla for the past two quarters and SpaceX since 2010, with 24 booked orders. Your definition of "viable" needs work. Speaking of blinders...

Re:And so it begins

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, SUPER-great-pattern... eh? Pity I ve seen two very different Musk-s in pictures. And the two musks does sound like some vague memory...

Re:And so it begins

[Anonymous Coward]

Once he gets back from his round trip to Mars with a week on the surface, with a total travel time of less than 3 months, he will probably take it up as the politicians are still trying to understand the whole thing. So I would estimate sometime in Q3 of 2016.

Re:And so it begins

[DavidTC]

So what magical new technologist do you mysteriously think it requires?

Can we build pylons? Check, we build bridges quite some distance.

Can we build metal tubes? Subways systems say check.

Can we build air turbines? Why, yes we can.

What exactly do you feel is the technologically implausible part of this proposal?

What makes him think this can be done?

[HockeyPuck]

Ok, building an electric car is one thing, since public utilities, like roads, don't need to be heavily modified; but dreaming of a high speed rail... quite a bit needs to be done for that. Why are we even posting this? There's plenty of people dreaming, my 6 old daughter thinks there should be an emergency slide to get from a space station back to earth. Where's her article?

Given that California has been struggling since the 80s to establish high speed rail between LA and SF... I doubt this will get any consideration. We've finally got approval for the project to start with initial rounds of funding being approved for a project that will cost at least $50Billion.

I also dream of having a gold plated urinal in my Ferrari filled garage but like Elon, that's just dreaming.

Re:What makes him think this can be done?

[phantomfive]

There's plenty of people dreaming, my 6 old daughter thinks there should be an emergency slide to get from a space station back to earth. Where's her article?

That's my question too, why haven't you gotten her to write it? People might actually be interested in that.

I also dream of having a gold plated urinal in my Ferrari filled garage but like Elon, that's just dreaming.

Just so you know, a gold plated urinal would probably cost less than $1000. Gold plating is surprisingly inexpensive.

Re:What makes him think this can be done?

[Microlith]

Why are we even posting this?

Because it's interesting, and the guy who thought of it has a decent track record?

There's plenty of people dreaming, my 6 old daughter thinks there should be an emergency slide to get from a space station back to earth. Where's her article?

Because your daughter's idea is an uneducated flight of fancy. Given she's 6, it's forgivable. This is hypothetical, but not as silly as an emergency slide from the ISS to the ground.

Re:What makes him think this can be done?

[Martin Blank]

I understand your view and to an extent I agree with it, but a lot of people thought Musk was crazy for thinking that he could build rockets basically from the ground up for a few hundred million dollars. There were many who said that such a program would need billions just to get the first launch, but he came up with a way to do it for far less than most expected. He might have something here, though whether it's possible at any price in the current California political environment is a very good question.

Re:What makes him think this can be done?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's plenty of people dreaming, my 6 old daughter thinks there should be an emergency slide to get from a space station back to earth. Where's her article?

If she had a net worth of over $5 billion, I'm sure people would listen to her emergency space slide idea too.

Re:What makes him think this can be done?

[Anonymous Coward]

but dreaming of a high speed rail...

He's not talking about a rail, he's talking about a tube. Did you read his (rather detailed) document?

We're talking about it so we (or the experts among us, not me) can evaluate the idea and see if it's worth pursuing.

Re:What makes him think this can be done?

[Areyoukiddingme]

If your daughter could write a 57 page document with detailed engineering and financial data supporting her proposal, then she'd get an article too.

You have to follow two layers of links to find out that this isn't just dreaming. It's a real proposal, with detailed research and analysis, informed by a mind that has been associating with rocket scientists every day for 11 years. He's been asking and getting answers to questions about supersonic travel through air for quite a long time now. He's not exactly spitballing.

And if you follow those links and read, you'll discover that he thinks the $50 billion price tag that California is currently proposing to spend is just as stupid as you think it is. He thinks Hyperloop could be built for less than $6 billion. And he's probably right.

I don't recommend the article. It's as useless as any other click-bait. The paper [PDF] is worth a read.

Re:What makes him think this can be done?

[Wraithlyn]

Did you just seriously compare your six year-old's daydreaming, to a 57-page proposal document written by the guy behind SpaceX and Tesla?

Maybe if you actually read the aforementioned paper, you'd have a fucking clue about "why he thinks this can be done", instead of asininely comparing it to "dreaming".

Re:What makes him think this can be done?

[localman]

Another person who didn't read the paper. Sigh. Is this really what Slashdot is now?

The reason we're posting this is because it isn't just dreaming. He laid out a specific plan with some reasonable numbers. Did your daughter calculate the the drag effects for moving through a low pressure tube at mach 1? Did she spec out the size of batteries it would take to power the turbofan that moves the air from the front of the system to the back while creating a suspension cushion? What about how the lateral g force limit for human comfort impacts the maximum turn radius for various speeds?

And he priced it out. And the components aren't far more exotic than stuff his companies already build. And the cost is likely to be less than the, actually, $70 billion rail project.

So no, you have, like everyone else in this thread, failed to levy an intelligent criticism. Without any interest or understanding of the topic you dismissed it. Are there any real geeks left out there? Anyone have intelligent criticism of this project so we can analyze it and learn?

Re:What makes him think this can be done?

[pantaril]

There's plenty of people dreaming, my 6 old daughter thinks there should be an emergency slide to get from a space station back to earth. Where's her article?

Did she write 100 pages technical PDF about it? Publish a link and i bet it will make it to the slashdot frontpage.

Re:Sounds good until you realize there's no bathro

[Anonymous Coward]

It's less than an hour. How many people get up to go to the bathroom in a packed theater after just one hour? I do think it'd be smart to put one small toilet on there though. If you're spending that much money, a black water tank and pump-out isn't going to kill it. It does make the maintenance procedures less pleasant though. Maybe they could just have regular bathrooms close by at both ends.

And

[The Cat]

Cue the pack of bleating neckbearded Mythbusters-humping assholes screaming "IT WILL NEVER WORK BECAUSE I AM SCIENTIST!" before they go back to their bongs and gripe because there are no jobs and there's no reason to go to college any more.

Now mod it down because you're a butthurt crying bitch.

Re:And

[Anonymous Coward]

dddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd
"IT WILL NEVER WORK BEACUSE I IS AN ECONOMIST!"

(you insensitive clod)

Re:And

[Anonymous Psychopath]

Cue the pack of bleating neckbearded Mythbusters-humping assholes screaming "IT WILL NEVER WORK BECAUSE I AM SCIENTIST!" before they go back to their bongs and gripe because there are no jobs and there's no reason to go to college any more.

Now mod it down because you're a butthurt crying bitch.

You forgot the part where some country elsewhere does it first, then we all get to complain around the lack of investments into our own infrastructure. Or, if it succeeds, we get to complain that he's an inventor of nothing and merely stood on the shoulders of others. That's the awesome things about /., we always get to win regardless of the outcome!

Re:And

[Teancum]

America has a tendency of doing things like you are suggesting lately. The Demming methods of "Total Quality Management" was based upon a study commissioned by General Motors but was later set aside only to be followed up by Toyota (and copied by the other Japanese manufacturers)... and led to the Japanese dominance of the automobile industry.

I would not doubt that some Sultan or Emir on the Arabian peninsula would want to connect Abu Dhabi with Mecca (and a spur to Riyadh) so they can perform their ritual prayers at the Grand Mosque at least once a day. If anything, Elon ought to ask them to help build the proof of concept first instead of building it on the I-5 corridor, not to mention that the land acquisition costs would likely be trivial in that part of the world too.

Re:And

[localman]

That's actually a great idea. A slightly smaller version of this is well within the economic and political grasp of a number of middle eastern people. I imagine at least one of them would be far more likely to move on something like this than the ever-whining naysayers that some half of Americans have become. Though even after it becomes commonplace and successful elsewhere we're unlikely to adopt it because a large number of us have decided that change is scary.

Intended usage is for commuting

[Anonymous Coward]

>> "Since Hyperloop travel time is very short, the main usage is more for commuting than for vacations. "

I wish he didn't specify the intended usage of the hyperloop transportation system.
Saying that it's intended for commuting should be omitted from his engineering spec.

Re:Intended usage is for commuting

[harperska]

As the document is a preliminary feasibility study, I think high level analysis of potential use cases is definitely in scope.

Re:Intended usage is for commuting

[holmstar]

A lot of people drive 40 or so miles each way to get to work. Driving a car costs around $0.50 per mile when you add everything up. That's the same $20 each that Musk thinks would be the cost of a ride on the hyperloop. If it were built, it definitely would be used for commuting.

Re:Intended usage is for commuting

[Anonymous Coward]

But the last mile will kill you. You'll still need to do the 40 mile commute from from your home in Burbank to the LA tube station, then another 30 miles from the San Fran station to your job in Sunnyvale...unless you get GREAT local transit options in those two cities, and Elon will have tubes running to Tokyo before that happens.

This is not a good "commute to work from home" solution unless you've very carefully found a condo near the station at one end plus an office near the station at the other.

This *is* a great alternative to flying for business travelers and (despite the proposal's statements) vacationers. A same-day trip to Disneyw ---, er, whichever is the one in LA -- becomes easy for a San Jose family; a night out in SF becomes feasible for folks in SoCal.

Re:Intended usage is for commuting

[rally2xs]

If they build it out so we can do this:

NY to Pittsburgh - 311 miles, 31 minutes. Drive car to next pod.
Pittsburgh to Indy, 330 miles, 33 minutes Drive car to next pod
Indy to St. Louis, 240 miles, 24 minutes. Drive car to next pod
St. Louis to Joplin 260 miles, 26 minutes. Drive car to next pod
Joplin to Oklahoma City, 200 miles, 20 minutes. Drive car to next pod
Oklahoma City to Abilene, 240 miles, 24 minutes. Drive car to next pod
Abilene to Odessa, 160 miles, 16 minutes. Drive car to next pod
Odessa to El Paso, 240 miles, 24 minutes. Drive car to next pod
El Paso to Tucson, 270 miles, 27 minutes. Drive car to next pod
Tucson to Yuma, 210 miles, 21 minutes. Drive car to next pod
Yuma to San Diego, 150 miles, 15 minutes. Drive car to next pod
San Diego to LA, 110 miles, 11 minutes.

and each of those rides is $20, then you can go coast-to-coast for $240 and get there the same day, easy. That's pretty darn good, the price of an airplane ride to do the same thing.

I love the obvious technologies

[EmperorOfCanada]

I love it when simple obvious, and in this case old, technologies blow expensive and complicated technologies out of the water. Let's see, an old pneumatic message system with cars big enough for people. Cheap, easy to build, probably dirt cheap to run and maintain. Wow.

But there is huge problem with this system. Being so cheap and simple there is little room for massive companies to lobby/sell their complicated overpriced technologies. Tubes? How long is the list of companies that could build tubes? Pylons? How long is the list of companies that can build pylons? The train cars are a bit more limited but again not being maglev that list is still pretty long. Land purchases? I suspect that a bunch of insiders had land all lined up to sell.

Then you get other technocrats who don't like that their territory is being infringed. The rail people are probably scared that this might be independently run.

And lastly you get the aviation related interests that are far larger than most people might think. You have the oil refineries who will be unhappy to sell less fuel to both planes and cars, you have taxi drivers who run people to the airports, you of course have the airlines themselves, and you have the airports who will be unhappy to have fewer landings and takeoffs. Plus the no-doubt 50 unions who run the airports among others.

A tube system like this would be pure evil as far as those people are concerned dropping people off right down-town, how dare they.

Re:I love the obvious technologies

[The Cat]

In other words, it will never work.

I loves me some Slashdot fucks who get a zipper-bending erection about anything "scientific," (defined as anything that doesn't involve girls) then scream at every attempt to advance technology with tears streaming down their face about how it won't work.

No wonder nobody listens to you assholes any more.

Re:I love the obvious technologies

[iggymanz]

there is nothing simple about such a system when you are attempting to safely transport humans; you are obviously not an engineer

Re:I love the obvious technologies

[EmperorOfCanada]

I think it can work. I would love it to work. I just think that if it is as cheap as he says it could be then big money and politics won't want it to work.

Re:I love the obvious technologies

[EmperorOfCanada]

What the hell? I am saying simple as in the fundamental concepts are much simpler than the alternatives. If you go to Europe many of the trains have very complex systems for getting energy into the trains. The construction of the tracks is an engineering marvel. Then you have the high speed systems where the level of complexity and precision is much much higher. Few companies can do this without killing lots of people.

This system is wonderfully simple in COMPARISON. No doubt when you go to actually build it many interesting and challenging problems will need to be solved just that when all is said and done the bulk of the system will be tubes on pylons. If you watch modern high speed track being laid every tie has to be laid perfectly. Then you have to lay every rail perfectly. They you have to weld the rails together.... perfectly. That is a whole lot of perfection before you then move another 40 feet and do again... on freshly and perfectly prepared ground.

But with pylons you prepare a series of widely spaced solid bases and then put up pylons where you string the tubes along. A whole lot less work. And less to go wrong.

If anything my engineering knowledge is admiring the principle that separates the great engineers from the rabble. Simplicity.

Re:I love the obvious technologies

[Anonymous Coward]

The right solution is usually simple. Finding the right solution is not simple.

Usually as engineers, we want to make things, so rather than waiting forever for the perfect solution, we think about the problem for a while and use the best solution we can come up with given the time and budget constraints. It usually turns out that there is a better, cheaper and simpler way to do it later.

This is why new things are usually cheaper and better than old things. Sometimes the old thing is simpler and better, but that is not usually because of engineering reasons.

People can do a lot of ridiculous and stupid things, that is marketing's department.

Re:I love the obvious technologies

[Megane]

you have taxi drivers who run people to the airports

And this will affect taxi drivers how, exactly? Hyperloop absolutely, positively, will not run to your front door. There will still be stations that people need rides to and from, and as a bonus, there won't (at least initially) be an airport fee for them to have to pay.

Re:I love the obvious technologies

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey! Some Getty would not be impersonating the Musk also here, would they? Again. Vague old memory...

Re:I love the obvious technologies

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey! My silly comments are gone and they are ALL life or death!!! So I will not subscribe as I want anonymous here sometimes. YOU have a problem! How much money worth to YOU if I say here: what about filling it up with graphite compound gases? How MUCH money for ME if in it if you erase this, eh?

Re:I love the obvious technologies

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, it will never work.

I loves me some Slashdot fucks who get a zipper-bending erection about anything "scientific," (defined as anything that doesn't involve girls) then scream at every attempt to advance technology with tears streaming down their face about how it won't work.

No wonder nobody listens to you assholes any more.

Actually, it's more that your fucking shit-dumb brain didn't understand the point of his post as evidenced by your mindless spewing.

The article talks about sonic booms...

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems to me he has absolutely NO idea about the very real engineering challenges to something like this.

it seems to me you didn't rtfa.

- noise pollution?

And: no sonic boom. With warm air inside the tubes and high tailwinds, the pods could travel at high speeds without crossing the sound barrier. âoeThe pod can go just below the speed of sound relative to the air,â Musk says.

shockwaves/heat and their effect on durability?

Inside the tubes, the pods would be mounted on thin skis made out of inconel, a trusted alloy of SpaceX that can withstand high pressure and heat. Air gets pumped through little holes in the skis to make an air cushion, Musk says.

Magnetic fields for passengers

[TheSync]

The one thing I did not see is what the expected magnetic field levels will be for passengers.

Many folks with implanted medical devices are told to stay away from significant RF and magnetic fields. It is possible that the pod could be magnetically shielded enough, but it would be great if he added that info.

Otherwise, I say scrap the Cali High Speed Rail and build Hyperloop instead!

(The truth is that I bet the Casinos would throw in the first billion to build one from LA to Vegas...they dumped $650 million on the Las Vegas monorail).

Re:Magnetic fields for passengers

[Areyoukiddingme]

Read the paper [PDF] not the article. There are no magnetic fields impinging on the cabin space. The proposal is to use pressurized air as the suspension medium, not magnetic levitation. The turbine used to pressurize enough air fast enough is electric, but it keeps its fields tightly inside itself, as with all good electric motors.

Re:Magnetic fields for passengers

[harperska]

Also, while suspension is an air bed, acceleration and deceleration is done with magnetic linear accelerators - described in the document as electric motors unrolled. It is possible that the magnetic field of those might impinge on the cabin, so it isn't a non-issue.

Re:Magnetic fields for passengers

[ShooterNeo]

If you read the actual article, you'll find out that the "rotor" of the linear electric motors is an aluminum blade that sticks out below the capsule. This is one tricky bit - it has to neatly slide into narrow track of the the stators of the linear motor when it reaches that part of the track at 800 mph. I'm thinking that external stabilizing electromagnets located in the tube itself might be needed to make sure this happens even if the capsule has system failures.

In any case, I don't think the magnetic fields impinging on the cabin should be any worse than if you sat a few feet above a conventional electric motor. (admittedly a several thousand horsepower motor, but still)

Re:Magnetic fields for passengers

[Anonymous Coward]

The linear motors used to accelerate and decelerate the craft create a magnetic field, but nothing more than a roller coaster. Probably less. The proposal implies that acceleration would be less than a roller coaster ride given the maximum 1g acceleration he specifies.

Re:Magnetic fields for passengers

[Teancum]

There will be magnetic fields produced by what amounts to be a rail gun like structure used for acceleration of the pods. it won't be used for levitation as you are saying, but it will be used for propulsion. Then again, such propulsion technologies have already been used for moving people in amusement parks, so it is a proven technology so far as moving vehicles is concerned.

Either that or they could use a steam catapult similar to how aircraft carriers launch fighters into the ocean. That would get you the acceleration needed to get to several hundred miles per hour in a relatively short distance.

Re:Magnetic fields for passengers

[TheSync]

This is one tricky bit - it has to neatly slide into narrow track of the the stators of the linear motor when it reaches that part of the track at 800 mph.

Elsewhere Musk talks about the pod "banking like a plane" to take the curves, and I'm thinking that it better bank back within a cm of accuracy or the thing is going to blow up when the rotor misses the stator slot!

Re:Magnetic fields for passengers

[TheSync]

such propulsion technologies have already been used for moving people in amusement parks, so it is a proven technology so far as moving vehicles is concerned.

Yet here is a doctor advising not to go on an amusement park ride with a linear accelerator if you have a pacemaker.

Re:Magnetic fields for passengers

[ShooterNeo]

Yeah, it's supposed to either use "reaction thrusters" (basically it would send out little puffs of compressed air from the same onboard supply the skis use) or control moment gyroscopes.

What I'm proposing is you embed some magnets in the walls of the tunnel a mile or so before the stator slot to force the stator into the correct position.

OR, you could have a "guide" made of light plastic a few thousand meters before the actual metal stator. The capsule control systems try to line up the rotor with the stator slot, such that it fits within this plastic "guide". If it fails to do this, the jerk as the rotor cuts through the plastic would trigger an emergency breaking.

Re:Magnetic fields for passengers

[Teancum]

While the linear accelerator is one idea being offered, there are other ways to perform a similar level of acceleration. Besides, the use of a Faraday Cage can mitigate many of the problems involved. This is a question best asked not of a medical doctor who doesn't have a clue about magnetic fields (that is something way outside of his specialty) but rather an electrical engineer. If it would be a "doctor", at least make it a professor of electrical engineering.

I think this particular physician is a bit paranoid, but also keep in mind that the amusement park ride was also not in an enclosed vehicle as well.

Re:Magnetic fields for passengers

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, then you shouldn't ride this train if you have a pacemaker.

There are also people who have medical conditions that make air travel unsuitable, and while that's unfortunate for them, we aren't going to demolish every airport because of it.

Re:Magnetic fields for passengers

[Megane]

LA to Vegas? I-15 is a lot less straight than I-5, but the land around it is basically desert, and shouldn't be too expensive to buy land rights for the curves. I think it could work.

On the other hand, the LV monorail still doesn't reach the airport.

Re:Magnetic fields for passengers

[TheSync]

For slowly varying magnetic fields (below about 100 kHz) Faraday shielding is ineffective.

Magnetic shields can be made of high magnetic permeability metal alloys (Permalloy and Mu-Metal), which rather in magnetic field lines. But I don't know how much weight they would add.

Re:Sounds good until you realize there's no bathro

[Anonymous Coward]

*hands the man his bedpan + suction nozzle* Who said we didn't think of everything?

Remarkably Cheap!

[edelbrp]

The one thing that bothers me is how cheap he estimates it to be. Just 6-7 billion which is about 10 percent of the cost of the competing design. Just the steel for the tube (and being thick enough to not crush under atmospheric pressure) has got to be crazy expensive. He estimates 4 or 5 billion (depending on diameter size), but that seems low? Anybody know the cost of steel on projects of this magnitude?

Re:Remarkably Cheap!

[TheSync]

The Las Vegas Monorail cost $650 million - so yeah, I suspect his numbers are a bit low.

The California HSR spends most money on tracks (44%, $23 billion), followed by rights-of-way (22%, $12 billion), followed by program implementation, systems & electrification, stations and vehicles.

So yes, if you take a big chunk out of the tracks cost, and perhaps can cut a better deal for land with farmers if you go elevated over their land rather than make their tractors drive 30 minutes around a track, that is where the big money can be saved.

Re:Remarkably Cheap!

[Areyoukiddingme]

If you read the paper in detail, you'll find some numbers. Since it's not a really hard vacuum inside the tube, and since it's cylindrical, the tube isn't as thick as you'd think. The tube walls are 20 to 23 mm thick (0.8 to 0.9 inches). That thickness can handle the load of the pressure differential, the torsion of its own weight between pillars, and the loading caused by the passing of the capsules, as well as standing up to quite a bit of seismic activity. Steel is pretty strong stuff. Cost for just the tube in the passenger-only model is $650 million. Upgrade the width to allow it to transport cars and light trucks and the tube costs somewhat less than twice that. $1.2 billion or so. That includes fabrication.

Surprisingly enough, the pillars cost more than the tube. Steel reinforced concrete with height adjustment gear should run around $2.55 billion for the passenger-only version or $3.15 billion for the vehicle version.

I suspect the competing design is spending more on real estate than the entire Hyperloop system. Hyperloop can use much of the I-5 route, saving a fortune in real estate costs, an option not available for heavy rail on the ground.

Re:Remarkably Cheap!

[edelbrp]

Thanks for the info. It's not a 100% vacuum, but it's pretty darn close at 100 Pascals (vs 100,000+ at sea level).

Re:Remarkably Cheap!

[Anonymous Coward]

The tubes aren't steel. Did you even read it?

Re:Remarkably Cheap!

[aralin]

I think that they accounted for everything except for ... a redneck with a gun. At this thickness and with the territory this is supposed to go through, I think it will be eactly 2 weeks before the tube becomes a practice target.

Re:Remarkably Cheap!

[Anonymous Coward]

The numbers are ridiculously low. We just spent 3 billion dollars in Brisbane to build a 7km tunnel.

If his numbers are multiplied by ten, then they might be on the money -- but probably still too low.

Re:Remarkably Cheap!

[Teancum]

I'm curious why it must be aluminum. I suppose Elon is very comfortable with building Aluminum structures given his background building rockets, and the Aluminum does help with making the supporting pylons further apart and not so bulky like would be needed for steel tubes, but I still wonder why it is necessary?

Steel tubes would seem to work just as well, although they would need to be thicker and require more materials to get them to work in the same way.

Re:Remarkably Cheap!

[holmstar]

At .8 inches thick, the redneck would need a pretty powerful rifle to do any damage, but it's still a fair point.

Re:Remarkably Cheap!

[kwbauer]

Two things... 1) How would it be possible for anybody to do something to it with a gun? It is being proposed well inside California where guns are pretty much outlawed. 2) Stop being an ass.

Re:Remarkably Cheap!

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that before or after a "terrorist" threatens to blow up a pillar or section of tubing during rush hour?

Re:Remarkably Cheap!

[localman]

I imagine they'll rely on the same system that stops rednecks from shooting their rifles at airplanes, cars, and trains?

Re:Remarkably Cheap!

[Anonymous Coward]

From the PDF:

The expected pressure inside the tube will be maintained around 0.015 psi (100 Pa, 0.75 torr), which is about 1/6 the pressure on Mars.

For those of who don't live on Mars, that is 0.1% of one Earth atmosphere.

Re:Remarkably Cheap!

[Anonymous Coward]

One simple solution would be to shield the tube with a thick layer foam to slow down projectiles. I would imagine there are numerous ways to get the job done, some more or less effective than others, some more or less costly. It's a fairly straightforward engineering problem to evaluate the options in the "trade space" and pick the "best" one.

[posting as AC to preserve mod points]

Re:Remarkably Cheap!

[dbIII]

That was for digging through fucking hard rock without shaking the foundations of the people above. There's a quarry right near the tunnel entrance for a reason, it's more or less sandstone transformed by volcanic heat which makes it stronger and that's nowhere near the hardest stuff. I also suspect in a few years a bit of padding in the contract will be revealed, considering that Transfield, the engineering company that gave the former Mayor (now state premier) plenty of time to campaign while he "worked" for them is involved.

Re:Remarkably Cheap!

[crunchygranola]

I'm curious why it must be aluminum. I suppose Elon is very comfortable with building Aluminum structures given his background building rockets, and the Aluminum does help with making the supporting pylons further apart and not so bulky like would be needed for steel tubes, but I still wonder why it is necessary?

Steel tubes would seem to work just as well, although they would need to be thicker and require more materials to get them to work in the same way.

4.2.2. Tube Construction
In order to keep cost to a minimum, a uniform thickness steel tube reinforced with stringers was selected as the material of choice for the inner diameter tube...

Please, please, please at least skim the paper.

Re:Remarkably Cheap!

[ka9dgx]

He says steel tubes in his PDF, not aluminum.

too busy deciding to be busy or not

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought Elon cancelled these plans because he was too busy http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/08/08/1334241/elon-musk-admits-he-is-too-busy-to-build-hyperloop

Re:too busy deciding to be busy or not

[artfulshrapnel]

From TFA referenced in that slashdot post you linked to:

Musk said the Hyperloop "can just be out there as an open source design that people can keep improving. I don't have any time to focus on it as I have to focus on SpaceX and Tesla."

He never said he was cancelling the plans, just that he can't do it himself right now.

...the 42-year-old also said that if no progress on Hyperloop has been made in a few years, he might attempt to "make it happen".

Re:too busy deciding to be busy or not

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words:

"I'm too busy to do this. But I'm not too busy to enjoy the free press talking about it gets me. By the way, SpaceX, PayPal, Tesla? ALL ME. Buy my stuff!"

Look Out!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the monorail!

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marge_vs._the_Monorail

CEO of Apple, Google, Microsoft?

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be interesting to see him run a tech company like Apple, Google or Microsoft. He knows computers, and he's willing to try new ideas. I'd love to see him (try to?) straighten out the bureaucracy and in-fighting in Microsoft, and make that company put out innovative products.

Re:CEO of Apple, Google, Microsoft?

[Anonymous Coward]

He might be able to do what Gerstner did for IBM there, but he's no Steve Jobs.

Re:CEO of Apple, Google, Microsoft?

[Shompol]

Steve Jobs brought high(er) quality computing to masses vs. Elon Musk brought us Tesla and SpaceX. While I can understand your preferences, I would not trust Steve with anything requiring large scale mechanical engineering effort.

Inconel

[bugs2squash]

I hope they're planning to make the passengers out of inconel. With no windows, astronaut-like accommodations, no bathroom for when it breaks down and leaves you stranded for hours the passengers will need to have "the right stuff" and possibly Nowak diapers too. The travelling public in general are not noted for being level headed and calm in a crisis - ask any cabin crew member for their top ten encounters with crazies.

Re:Inconel

[Spykk]

If you are traveling at 800mph on a cushion of air I suspect that bathrooms will be the least of your worries when it breaks down.

Re:Inconel

[Anonymous Coward]

No, bugs2squash is right. The proposal is short on how to get people out of jammed capsules, and that's a scenario that needs to be mitigated no matter how much we calculate it's unlikely. The document's pat answer is basically, "if a capsule gets stuck, well it should just keep going!". OK, we put an "assertion failed" message on the infotainment screens and expect that to make everyone happy? Meanwhile the air is getting stale and the temperature is rising from the solar heat load.

The doors (as shown, hinged at the top) obviously can't open within the tube, the front of the capsule is all fan and the rear is a big battery compartment. Most likely the rear is the better option for an emergency access for rescue personnel and assisted passenger egress; I'm thinking a tube big enough for rescuers to get in and then to slide a person on a backboard out. But that's going to require intermediate access points into the tube, maybe one every few miles, with a mechanism to get some kind of in-tube rescue vehicle in.

Also I'm skeptical of load/unload times. The as-built project would need to accommodate passengers with extreme size, weight and mobility conditions. I'm thinking that it would be acceptable (legally, socially) to have some percentage of the capsules being specially accessible, so that someone with special needs could call ahead and reserve a spot on one of them.

These are not showstoppers; they are engineering problems whose solution will cost some money and result in some quantitative compromises to operating parameters. I can easily believe that the cost and safety estimates are within some reasonable ballpark of being right.

Launch System

[Jhyrryl]

We don't need to build all the intervening tubes, do we? Just get it up to speed, then launch it every 5 miles or so; I'm sure we can catch them safely.

Re:Launch System

[Time_Ngler]

The g forces of such a system would make passengers sick.

Re:Launch System

[Required Snark]

RTFA moron.

These bend radii have been calculated so that the passenger does not experience inertial accelerations that exceed 0.5 g. This is deemed the maximum inertial acceleration that can be comforta bly sustained by humans for short periods. To further reduce the inertial acceleration experienced by passengers, the capsule and/or tube will incorporate a mechanism that will allow a degree of 'banking'.

As I posted to another slow-wit, stop wasting electrons until you learn to read.

Re:Launch System

[Time_Ngler]

Maybe you need to learn what "Re:" means. It means reply. In the context here, it means that I was replying to the parent poster, who was suggesting a system where the capsules would be lobbed 5 miles in mid air between each other. In such as system, a lot of acceleration would be necessary to hit the next station 5 miles away, and during that airborne vault, the user would feel 0 g.

Re:Launch System

[gazelam]

A rather obscure book by Robert Heinlein included this very thing. The book was called "Starman Jones" and was published in 1953. There was a kind of transport that electromagnetically launched a capsule along a trajectory between rings. I don't recall the name they used in the book, but that's the first thing I thought of when I heard about Musk's announcement.

Re:Launch System

[Anonymous Coward]

Great idea. De-pressurizing the air between the launch and landing sites can't be that hard.

Re:Launch System

[Jhyrryl]

The original poster was being sarcastic. ;)

He said "up to 4,000 MPH"

[Anonymous Coward]

Any speed of travel would meet his vague promise. This man is a successful businessman. He knows how to run his mouth and brag while never actually committing himself to anything. He is not a liar, but his kind is everything but that. People like him are the reason the middle class no longer exists.

Re:He said "up to 4,000 MPH"

[c9brown]

People like him are the reason the middle class no longer exists.

...They all got up and made successful internet startups or car companies or space companies? Is that where the middle class went?

Or do you mean they no longer exist because they all stopped working at North American factories like Tesla or SpaceX?

Or do you mean they went somewhere else because they were no longer were inspired to be entrepreneurial because no-one had the spirit anymore or could prove it was possible to grow a successful business?

Musk seems likely to build a prototype

[Beeftopia]

FYI: Link to Bloomberg video. Seems like Musk was vacillating but now is going to build a prototype.

Re:Musk seems likely to build a prototype

[Teancum]

The problem is that Elon Musk is busy with trying to get a new automobile product line released (he is working on the Model X right now) not to mention rolling out the "version 2.0" of the Falcon 9 rocket. Either one would be a full time job by itself, and here he is doing both? And you think he should be building a high speed transportation system between LA and SF too?

Heck, I don't think Buckaroo Bonsai ever did something that insane.

So..security?

[Anonymous Coward]

What happens the first time one of the pylons supporting these tubes is damaged? Moving along at 800MPH when suddenly the track collapses...seems a bit risky to me.

Re:So..security?

[BKDotCom]

I'm no actuary, but I don't think that happens very often.
I'd say the risk is very very low
Driving your car is exponentially riskier.
But but but, what about earthquakes? Yes, earthquakes are dangerous. During an earthquake I'd take my odds in that tube over my odds in just about anything else.

Re:So..security?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a longstanding problem that new technologies are, in practice, held to higher standards than the ones they replace. You know, and I know, that highway travel is the most bloodthirsty killer that mankind has ever invented; but folks love it. Air travel fatalities are so low you can't even show them on the same graph scale, and yet it remains a top 10 phobia...and there are tons of folks who take the train over air travel on putative safety grounds, even though rail travel is proportionally deadlier.

Musk's proposal has a lot of bits that push people's fear buttons -- you're basically in a coffin, with (ick) OTHER PEOPLE, and sealed in a steel tube to boot. There are any number of scenarios in which you'd happily trade places with trapped miners, who can at least walk around and find a dark corner to take a piss in. The mitigation to several scenarios involves hours (MANY hours) of waiting or trundling at low speed, probably in stale hot air with dead entertainment screens and dimmed lighting.

The upshot it that a great many scenarios which are objectively non-life-threatening, and really no worse than being stuck in an elevator (which happens to lots of people annually, and hardly makes the news) will be portrayed as tortuous horrors, owing to the scary newness of the thing.

(Do people piss in the corner when they get trapped in elevators for hours? I'm sure I would.)

Rails, tubes and all-nighters...

[Macchendra]

The tubes will be decorated to look like rolled $100 bills.

easy on paper

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy say on paper, its another thing to build across long distance, city permits, environment impact studies, labor cost and relation
and - insurance

Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[Karmashock]

to a massive state/federal boondoggle that is way over budget and was a terrible idea in the first place.

California doesn't need high speed rail between san francisco and LA. We have "planes"... they're faster, go to more locations, are much cheaper, and involve very low comparative infrastructure.

Both the train and hyperloop would require building this thing. Why would we do that?

Are airports terrible? Yes. Thank you 9/11. Airports are terrible. The TSA is terrible. But that doesn't mean we go back to trains. It means you fix the f'ing airports or consider building more mass transit in LA that ACTUALLY connects to LAX.

A major issue throughout the US is that mass transit frequently doesn't connect to airports. Why? Taxis. They get a license to run their taxis in the cities and its a lot of money. And when push comes to shove... the cities would rather keep the taxi companies happy then give people reliable mass transit.

Now... Assuming you can but a muzzle on the TSA. Assuming you can ACTUALLY build mass transit to the airport hubs... Why would that not be superior to the high speed train/hyperloop idea?

It would be superior. Planes are faster, cheaper, more flexible, involve less infrastructure...

Passenger trains make sense over very short distances. In distances over 200 miles they stop making sense for PASSENGER travel. Now, cargo trains... that's a different story. But guess what kids... the distance between SF and LA exceeds 200 miles... its a dumb idea.

At this point, the only people supporting the high speed train in California are the ignorant that don't know enough to have an opinion and the corrupt feeding like boated ticks on the stimulus money.

No one else supports it.

As to the hyperloop... sounds like a good idea... in a cartoon. In the real world?.... comically awful for so many reasons. Stick with the planes.

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[Gavagai80]

Passenger trains can still be cheaper than planes at times. I took an amtrak train from Sacramento to Vancouver a few years ago, because it was a $198 round trip and a plane would've cost hundreds more. Granted that was 50+ hours in the train round trip, but when you're poor that's an acceptable trade off.

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[fearofcarpet]

Having lived in both the Bay Area and LA and commuted between them frequently, it was almost always less hassle to drive than to fly. Sure the flight itself was short, but the traffic getting to/from the airports, parking, car rental, standing in long lines, being fondled by a stranger in a uniform, etc. was no match for the tedium of sitting behind the wheel for five hours or so. Making air travel anything less than the dehumanizing punishment that it is now may be impossible, given the inertia of the entrenched interests, but I-5 isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Traveling between pretty much any two European cities (of reasonable size), where you have efficient mass-transit on both ends and no TSA, is basically what you propose for California, and it would be truly amazing... but as you point out, it would require building a mass transit system and linking it to the airport. And if BART and the LA Subway are any indication, that is a pipe dream for a fantasy world where politicians aren't corrupt assholes.

Much like Africa sort of skipped over landlines and went right to mobile, maybe California can pioneer a new form of medium-distance travel that is--and I think this is the most compelling argument Musk makes--sustainable. If this thing can really be powered entirely by solar panels on the tubes, then it could be a nice alternative to (medium-distance) air travel, which is currently the most carbon-intensive mode of transportation.

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[Karmashock]

Yes, tsa is terrible. Yes, the mass transit doesn't connect to the airports.

What is easier... reforming the TSA which has to happen in any case since it is a national problem AND moving mass transit to ACTUALLY connect to airports....

OR building a high speed rail line from LA to SF?

The question is rhetorical. The TSA needs to be reformed. And the mass transit situation is a disgrace.

We do not need a line from these two points. We need our air network fixed.

As to european cities... the US operates on a completely different scale and density. Most major european cities are closer together then they are in the US. Which is why passenger rail makes less sense here.

Air is faster. Air is cheaper. Air is more efficient.

The problem is the buses and trains do not connect to the airports due to corruption with the taxis AND the TSA is run by people that think the point is to waste everyone's time as much as possible rather then simply screen out the .00001 percent of travelers that need to rubber roomed.

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[localman]

Actually his numbers indicate it would be faster and cheaper than planes for cities closer than about 900 miles. He mentions the plane comparison specifically. You may not agree with his numbers, but then you should say that and give your reasons rather than just spouting the first thing that comes to mind that makes you feel clever.

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[Karmashock]

Except for its not cheaper because the rail is subsidized which means basically someone else is paying part of your ticket fair. You could obtain the same result by subsidizing your airplane ticket. Only it would be cheaper because maintaining a rail system really is quite expensive.

Rail makes sense over short distances or if its cargo/freight rail... but passenger rail over long distances makes no sense and is always more expensive unless you're maintaining the rail with slave labor. And even then it is questionable.

Airplanes are inexpensive. Much of their cost is actually airport fees. That is, the airport charges planes for the privilege of landing there. And those costs radically increase ticket prices. When you go from one high cost airport to another you may effectively pay this fee twice.

Rail doesn't have that issue. You don't have expensive and cheap rail stops. You're charged basically by the distance traveled and nothing else. If you did the same thing with airplanes prices would be a good deal lower.

Part of the problem with that is that the airports are owned by cities. In many cases the airports run at surpluses. That is the airport makes more money then it costs. And the city puts that money into the general fund to spend on "anything"...

Consider what would happen if airports didn't do that. If instead, costs were based upon what it actually cost to run the airport and the administration of the airport were run not by the city but rather by the airlines.

Costs would be MUCH lower. Cities won't give that up because they make money. But it tells you where the problem is here.

Stupidity and greed.

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[fearofcarpet]

As to european cities... the US operates on a completely different scale and density. Most major european cities are closer together then they are in the US. Which is why passenger rail makes less sense here.

To be clear, I meant flying between any two European cities works basically how it would if American cities connected mass transit to their airports in a meaningful way. Passenger rail in Europe is usually more expensive and slower than flying except, obviously, over distances too short to fly.

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[Karmashock]

As to numbers, I can only assume he's basing his projections on long commute times to airports which his system wouldn't have because the transit lines would link up properly... and is assuming that the TSA will remain a problem where as his hyperloop won't have a TSA policing it.

Both points create a false premise.

1. You cannot count the poor commute time against airports since there is nothing intrinsic about them that makes them bad for commuting. They are bad for commuting because the cities have systematically starved them of mass transit links to force you to use a cab/taxi. If you want to compare Musk's hyperloop you'd have to do it under equal conditions since it is not the plane's fault that the city sabotages the link.

2. Why does an airplane need the TSA but his tube doesn't? Can you image what a bomb would do in that thing? Not only would it kill people but you'd shut the whole system down until it was fixed.

How many airplanes need to crash to make air travel impossible?

All of them.

Airplanes are a more robust medium less vulnerable to terrorism.

As to spouting the first thing that comes to my mind to make myself feel clever... not required. I am smart. Probably a lot smarter then you... no offense. Just felt the point needed to be made since you presumed to brow beat me.

My argument is sound and self evident. Airplanes are VASTLY superior in so many ways.

Cheaper.
Cheaper.
Cheaper. Saying it three times because the cost difference is immense.
Faster. Planes put bullet trains to shame.
More flexible. Any airport in range of the fuel VS a linear track forwards and back.
More reliable. The air network has redundancies built in. A plane is down for mechanical problems, another takes up the slack. Train dies on the track... whole line is shut down until a maintenance engine can move it off the track. And then all the passengers are bused to their station of choice.
Less infrastructure. An airport in every city/major town versus thousands upon thousands of miles of track with various stations along the way.
Less land usage. All that track sits on land that has to accommodate the train now. Property values fall etc.

The high speed rail idea between LA and SF is a stupid idea designed to trick stupid people into funneling cash into a boondoggle. The hyperrail by comparison is an amusing joke mostly because it won't get built. That is the punch line... its less nutty then what we're doing now and it won't get built.

Totally predictable.

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[Karmashock]

Misread you then.

Exactly. In trips over 200 miles air beats everything.

And over shorter distances... cars are typically better even then trains... assuming the roads aren't horribly snarled by decades of idiot transit planning that starved roads to feed under used and unwanted rail lines that don't handle 1/10th the traffic.

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[localman]

> I can only assume

Yes, that seems to be the case. Which explains why your arguments are aimed at your speculation of what is in the paper rather than the actual content. Musk and his engineers anticipate the issues you bring up and more, and offer probable solutions. The end result being, in contrast to your assertions, a system that would be both faster and cheaper than planes for trips under a certain length, and could optionally provide features that neither planes nor trains offer today.

You seem to be deeply stuck on your hatred of bullet trains and your love of planes. By not reading and understanding the paper you've created a straw man to argue against, and missed the opportunity to learn about a new type of transportation, different than those you already know: a transportation system with some unique characteristics that could prove to be valuable tools in the infrastructure toolbox.

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[dbIII]

The Japanese got their shit together in 1968 and proved you wrong on all counts and have been doing it ever since. Just because the Californian government are incapable of almost anything does not by some magic render air travel better, it just means they haven't been able to fuck it up.

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[Karmashock]

wrong.

Density in japan is different and the distances are mostly shorter. So... wrong.

Planes travel at about 500 mph. The japanese bullet train travels at LESS then 200 mph.

Planes win. Suck it.

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[Magius_AR]

Cheaper. Saying it three times because the cost difference is immense.

How do you figure? Most airlines can barely stay profitable because of the economics of air travel. And according to the paper, due to the solar powering, this thing will have barely any operational costs (obviously the bulk would go to upkeep and maintenance). Fuel (particularly jet fuel) ain't cheap, and planes are exposed to the elements (read: more maintenance), and weather is an issue (which Hyperloop is immune to).

Faster. Planes put bullet trains to shame.

Howso? Commercial airlines don't travel much faster than the Hyperloop (~500-600 mpg cruising speed). Supersonic travel in a commercial jetliner isn't economical.

More flexible. Any airport in range of the fuel VS a linear track forwards and back.

Why is this relevant? Most long-distance travel in a given country occurs between a handful of major hubs. At any rate, if what you said was true, why do we still use rail?

More reliable.

Somewhat true, somewhat false. The already mentioned "weather effects" are a nod in favor of Hyperloop. The question is how often one of these shuts down (which doesn't seem like it would happen often given the fact it's battery powered and 90% of the trip is spent coasting). More than likely there would be plenty of juice stored up in the system to safely get people through the tube, and at best the system would simply be unusable for the duration of the outage (but honestly, how different is this than an airport delay or a flight cancellation due to weather?). Additionally, an airplane is a _far_ more complex system than the one he is intending here, so reliability and maintenance cost likely favor the Hyperloop.

Less infrastructure/Less land usage

Both reasonable points. Though the gains from this 5th mode of transportation seem well worth the tradeoff. At the very minimum, it gives a viable means of long-distance travel during extended inclement weather. The long-term cost savings favor the Hyperloop (since the bulk of the cost is the upfront commitment).

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[Karmashock]

airlines are not subsidized. they actually fund themselves through ticket sales.

Your train will do no such thing. It will be predominantly funded with federal subsidies and state tax dollars.

Further, suggesting that the operating costs will be nil is simply ignorant. The track will be expensive to maintain. The trains themselves will need to be serviced and replaced which tends to be quite expensive especially since there is a smaller market for high speed trains then airplanes... therefore they're comparatively expensive.

The engine car on a regular train can run up to around 5 million dollars. A new passenger jet plane costs about 7 million for the whole plane.

Planes win when it comes to passenger travel over 200 miles.

Now if you want to talk about freight trains, that is a totally different story. Freight trains are great. But they have entirely different business models and are rarely subsidized which tells you their business model is ACTUALLY healthy.

As to the hyperloop going 400-500 miles per hour... I'd have to see that to believe it. And beyond that, I'm mostly talking about california's high speed rail program. That train will go LESS then 200 mph. Less then half the speed of planes.

As to travel occuring between major hubs, you confuse the constraints of the transit system on what people ACTUALLY want to do. Just because people route through international airports for example doesn't mean they actually have any interest in that location. Likewise with rail, just because I get on and off at certain stops doesn't mean those stops have anything to do with my destination. They're merely the best I can do with that system at that time.

A good example of an even more dynamic transit system is the automobile... does everyone route through transit hubs when they're traveling by car? No. They use major highways of course but they try as best possible to get directly from origin to destination which often has nothing to do with transit hubs.

As to weather effects, I'll grant that the hyperloop will be less susceptible to weather. However, it will be entirely dependent on that tube being clear and operational. Air travel networks have no such requirement. A given airport might be closed for weather but 10 miles away everything is fine. The whole network doesn't shut down because there is a problem at one spot. The hyperloop would shut down entirely if part of the tube were damaged or a car got jammed in it or whatever.

As to the hyperloop being superior for California because it operates in all weather conditions... its california. I live in california. We do not have weather issues screw up our airports very often. San Francisco does have a lot of issues mostly because of fog. But 5 miles away from that airport everything is fine. Honestly, Oakland is a better airport. Its a lot cheaper, a lot more reliable, and its not a big deal to commute to it. Whenever I go to SF, I try to land in oakland or some other outlying airport because SF's airport has problems. LA on the other hand does not have weather problems.... ever. So that's a non-issue.

Look, here is my stance on all three modes of travel:
The air system maintains itself without subsidization. That is the standard. I am fine with any alternative system which can fund itself entirely through ticket prices and fees placed on tickets without digging into general tax revenue or relying on federal hand outs.

If you idea requires huge sums of outside money not only to build it but to maintain it... then it is not acceptable to me. If the idea is actually useful and needed then you should have no trouble doing that. If you can't then clearly people don't need or want it badly enough to pay for it unless its costs are hidden.

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[rally2xs]

Make those airplanes run on electricity at 720 mph and we'll talk. Meanwhile, we're _still_ running out of petroleum fuels and they don't do anything but get more expensive. And look at Figure 1 in Section 3, and see that airplanes consume the most energy per passenger mile and this system consumes the absolute least energy per passenger mile.

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[rally2xs]

The TSA needs to be abolished. What they do is in absolute violation of the 4th amendment, among other reasons. The airlines can do what they do if they so desire because they are not gov't, but the gov't can't search and / or seize without probable cause of the commission of a crime.

We need to get back to being a constitutional republic, not the dictatorship that this country is turning into. Since when can a president change a law to his liking, and delay its implementation just on his own say-so? He can't, not legally, and that's dictatorship, and needs to stop yesterday. We keep rushing headlong toward Thomas Jefferson's prediction that the tree of liberty must from time to time be watered by the blood of patriots and tyrants...

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[rally2xs]

No, this system beats EVERYTHING in cost and in time:

NY to Pittsburgh - 311 miles, 31 minutes. Drive car to next pod.
Pittsburgh to Indy, 330 miles, 33 minutes Drive car to next pod
Indy to St. Louis, 240 miles, 24 minutes. Drive car to next pod
St. Louis to Joplin 260 miles, 26 minutes. Drive car to next pod
Joplin to Oklahoma City, 200 miles, 20 minutes. Drive car to next pod
Oklahoma City to Abilene, 240 miles, 24 minutes. Drive car to next pod
Abilene to Odessa, 160 miles, 16 minutes. Drive car to next pod
Odessa to El Paso, 240 miles, 24 minutes. Drive car to next pod
El Paso to Tucson, 270 miles, 27 minutes. Drive car to next pod
Tucson to Yuma, 210 miles, 21 minutes. Drive car to next pod
Yuma to San Diego, 150 miles, 15 minutes. Drive car to next pod
San Diego to LA, 110 miles, 11 minutes.

Total tube time of 272 minutes - 4 hours and 32 minutes, and with 1/2 hour of comfort stops at every other transfer, that adds 2 hours, with 5 minutes for the remainder of moving from one pod to the other adding about another 25 minutes, for about 6 hours and 55 minutes NY to LA. OK by me, I'd take that ride, esp. when arriving with my car. I don't have to rent a car, and nothing I could (reasonably) rent moves like my WRX, which I thoroughly enjoy. This system could put the airlines totally out of business for domestic travel. With hub-and-spoke, "you have to take a connecting flight" nonsense we have now, this would STILL be faster as most of the air travel available between most travel departure-arrival pairs, especially when you consider the advantages of leaving when you want to (1 AM if you like, find a plane that leaves at 1 AM), not screwing around with the TSA (there's no REASON to inspect PASSENGERS because the way to blow this up is not from the inside, but from the outside - drive a big truck full of, say, TATP, underneath it on I-5, "boom", and the tube collapses - no need to carry a bomb on board the train), .And supposedly a ride on that tube is $20 for each 300 mile excursion. That's about $240 to go across the country, about the same as a plane, but you get to arrive with your car. No car rental beats riding an airplane. If each ride were $50, that'd still be only $600 to get from NY to LA with your car - you can't drive it for that when you consider the nights in motels (about $70 X 4 = $280) and gasoline (3000 miles / 22 mpg X $4.00 / gallon = $545).

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[rally2xs]

"2. Why does an airplane need the TSA but his tube doesn't? Can you image what a bomb would do in that thing? Not only would it kill people but you'd
shut the whole system down until it was fixed."

Because... the way to blow this up is not from the inside, its from the outside. Run a big truck full of explosive underneath the tube on I-5, boom, and the tube collapses. There's no way the TSA can do a D thing about that. Its why AmTrak doesn't attempt to search everybody, either, there's no point to it.

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[dbIII]

Not thinking about this much are you? Air travel is such a huge fucking hassle that the speed difference is eaten up unless it's a long flight. I've spent more time getting to and from airports than in the air on quite a few occasions.

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[Karmashock]

yes, that is because airports have problems. That has NOTHING to do with airplanes. There is no reason why an airport couldn't be as efficient as a train station.

What you are NOT understanding is that the problem with airplanes has NOTHING to do with airplanes but rather government regulation OF airplanes. Fix the regulation and enjoy the plane. Or pretend that the government regulation is harder to fix then the laws of physicals and fail.

Choice is yours.

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[Karmashock]

All your electricity is coming from coal power plants in Arizona so your little co2 argument is laughable. No offense.

The best hope for low emissions power in the US was nuclear power. But the illiterate throwbacks that protest against such things have succeeded in shutting down the nuclear power plants.

Fine. Coal it is...

California is littered with the ghost towns of failed green energy projects going back 40 years. Go out to the desert and you'll see them. Rotting monuments to the ignorance and stupidity of people that thought some wind mills could compete with a real power station. They can't. They didn't. Its not a matter of opinion. Its history. Its fact. Its what happened.

Look at all the green energy projects pushed in the last 10 years. How many of them have turned out to be scams or just failed outright due to incompetence? Nearly 100 percent.

Learn from that. Electricity means power. And power means generation. And generation means somewhere there is a power plant.

Again, you're going to tell me solar is great. Well, if its so great how come not a single solar power plant in the world powers its own operations with solar power?

Exactly.

That might change in the future. But i'm familiar with the current technology and its not ready for prime time. Its too expensive, too fragile, and frankly our other energy sources are just better.

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[Karmashock]

wrong. amtrack doesn't check because there was no public safety outcry about terrorism on trains.

The TSA is 90 percent security theater. Its a show put on to cover the asses of politicians.

Would the TSA have stopped the 9/11 hijackings? No.

What will prevent future terrorist take overs of planes is that the passengers will riot and kill the terrorists. Government had nothing to do with that and has done nothing to make our planes safer. We made our planes safer about 40 minutes after the first hijacking at no cost and without creating any additional infrastructure. All that was required was for the American people to understand that the terrorists would crash the planes and kill the passengers. THat's all we needed to know. Had the passengers on 9/11 known what was happening they would have killed the terrorists before they took control of the cockpits. They would have been beaten to death with women's shoes.

The TSA is a waste of time. We can make the airports much more efficient towmorrow simply by reforming airport security.

You control airport security not by xraying every person but instead by actually knowing who is getting on the plane in the first place. The Israelis have a very efficient air network that works in a much more hostile environment. It works because they know who bought tickets before they even arrive at the airport. If you're on a list you might get searched or turned away from the airport. If you're not... you flow through the system like it isn't even there.

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[dbIII]

Ah yes, should have known. The problem is people or large groups of them such as governments getting in the way of rugged individuals who want their flying car given to them now.
I think we've lost a generation here and have to hope the next one can get their shit together instead of waiting for things to be handed to them on a plate and running off their mouth at anyone that actually suggests doing something.

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[Karmashock]

I'm not asking for anything to be given to me, sport.

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[dbIII]

Yes you are. That hated government gave you the internet that you are using now.

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[Karmashock]

And where did I ask for the government to give me the internet? And what's more the government didn't build the internet so much as it was invented as an inter department communication system for universities and was adopted by the telecommunications companies.

Pound for pound how much of the internet is the government? What percentage? Very little. And despite the NSA building a big server farm... they're a smaller portion of the net every day.

You want to pretend you're better then me because you give a rubber stamp to any government project no matter how stupid? You want to pretend you're better because I make a civic attempt to understand and evaluate what my government is doing? Outright idiocy.

And what makes your comments even more stupid is that I was actually asking the government NOT to build things because its ideas of late have been wasteful, stupid, and corrupt. And yet like some idiotic ideological tape recorder stuck on "you damn kids" you presume to judge me?

Kill yourself. You are now wasting oxygen. Bacteria will use your biomass more efficiently.

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[dbIII]

Now a call for me to kill myself? Classy! Thanks for the entertainment. Do you do balloon animals at parties?
We've failed as a society with you. Maybe if we get your kids early enough something can be done with them instead.

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[Karmashock]

You're a moron.

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[dbIII]

A reply as expected considering the sociopathic rubbish you've spouted over such a trivial issue as trains. Just another sad rogue male that can't get any of the females in the herd to pay him any attention and decides to take it all out on the herd instead.

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[Karmashock]

Wrong.

I presented a logical argument and you responded with mindless drivel.

At which point I told you to kill yourself. When you expressed indignation at being judged for spouting idiocy, I merely reminded you that you are actually a moron.

You're an idiot. Get over it. I am.

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[dbIII]

While I reminded you of the sad consequences of sociopathy. Poor little boy grown old that cannot get laid taking it out on the world - so sad.

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[Karmashock]

You're still spouting prerecorded insults that have nothing to do with me. You're a tape recorder. A human parrot.

And that's why you really should just kill yourself. You're not a thinking sapient individual and thus contribute nothing to human society.

Unless you can fetch? Can you fetch? Or roll over? Shake hands?

Good boy. :D

Again, you're a moron so I'm going to just have fun with you.

Re:Yes its cheaper COMPARED

[dbIII]

Again, you're a moron so I'm going to just have fun with you.

Haven't you worked out that is what I've been doing for the last few posts? Are you that slow as well?
Have you learned anything yet about responding with "suck it" against reasoned arguments and then exposing irrelevant, boring and frankly sociopathic political baggage for no good reason?

combine it with falcon 9

[strack]

what he should do, is point that tube up the side of a mountain, load a falcon 9 or falcon 1 variant into it, shoot it out the top at about mach 5-6 in the thin mountaintop air, and have a reusable single stage to orbit linear accelerator assisted rocket launch. but then, maybe this is part of his plan to get something developed along those lines.

Re:combine it with falcon 9

[jayrtfm]

He talks about this in the Bloomberg interview. He says it's a stupid idea, just make your 1st stage booster 20% bigger to get the same effect.

How do you breathe in it?

[tygt]

As far as I can tell, TFA doesn't mention breathing air. Do we assume that there is bottled air provided on-board?

Re:How do you breathe in it?

[ShooterNeo]

The actual PDF with his plans does mention this briefly. It has a massive air compressor in the front, and the air that's in the hyperloop tubes is just ordinary air that leaked in. There's compressed air tanks inside the front of the car, and so basically some of that compressed air gets injected through tiny holes in the skies, and some of that air is pumped into the cabin, with the exhaust air pumped out the back.

If the car loses pressure, those exact same plastic masks that fall from the ceiling they use on airliners would come down, and the oxygen would come from those chemical oxygen generators that they also use on airliners.

Re:How do you breathe in it?

[BKDotCom]

The same way you breath on-board an aircraft. With your lungs.
It's a pressurized cylinder
come on people READ THE ARTICLE

Re:How do you breathe in it?

[tygt]

Sure, it's pressurized - but pressurized with what? GP says it's like an airplane; but passenger jets are flying in pretty thick air compared to these tubes - the tube is almost a vacuum. As soon as your capsule is loaded, they essentially evacuate the airlock, and we've got to wait until that front-end compressor is sucking enough of that almost-vacuum to pump air through the capsule? So we're going to just accumulate CO2 and hope that somehow there's enough exchange somewhere (not mentioned) to replenish the O2 in the partial vacuum of the tube? I can't consider this one answered yet. I don't doubt it's a fairly simple problem (bottle a bit of air), just that it wasn't really talked about. If you were going to fly a hypersonic plane, I kind of doubt you'd be relying on external air for breathing, and this is basically the same deal.

Re:How do you breathe in it?

[Gavagai80]

Passenger tickets are $1. Air is $50 a pound extra if you want any.

Re:How do you breathe in it?

[localman]

Thank you for bringing the first intelligent criticism of the system to this thread. Doesn't seem like a showstopper, but it does sound more complicated than I would have thought at first.

Re:How do you breathe in it?

[BKDotCom]

The man builds spacecraft for a living.
Is CO2 accumulation still an issue on aircraft or has that been solved?

Re:How do you breathe in it?

[tygt]

I don't doubt he's considered the issue; my point was that it's not mentioned in TFA. However, there's a lot of minor points not mentioned as well, because, well... they're minor.

An airplane flying at 30,000' has plenty of air available to pull in (about 0.3 atmospheres), and the composition of that air is similar to the air at sea level. The action of the plane flying through it, and the people respirating the O2 and producing CO2, basically doesn't affect the air.

The hyperloop tube on the other hand is about 0.01 atmospheres, and unless they're deliberately exchanging what little air is in the tube with outside air, it's essentially a closed tube, so using that air (pressurized by the front-end compressor presumably) for respiration will eventually deplete the O2 content.

Obviously it's a fixable problem - but it is nonetheless a problem.

Don't forget passenger comfort

[__aazsst3756]

If there are not windows, its a no go, this solution forgets that you are moving people.

A mere 300mph is fine if it has car like comfort, Instead build:
    - Some type of track that can handle a small 2-4 passenger pod at 300mph, and transfer energy to the electric drive.
    - Elevate track for reasons given by Musk
    - Build canopy over track covered in solar cells to get as close as possible to zero net energy
    - Track canopy protects track from most weather
    - Cars that can handle a 300mph crash without killing occupants (big crumple zones)
    - Side windows, and a big screen in front for entertainment and possible operator interaction
    - On / Off ramps and terminals about every 30 miles. You are never more than 6 minutes or so from a terminal.
    - Computer can space cars for airflow efficiency (think Nascar drafting), and make gaps when cars need to switch tracks.
    - Build a hub and spoke network across the US, with the first track from the East Coast to the West Coast.

Select a route with an app on your phone or touchscreen in a terminal. It shifts the nearest empty car to you (think elevator). You get in, select your in car entertainment. If you need to stop for bathroom just let the computer know, or perhaps push a button, and your car will stop at the next terminal. When you are ready you get back in and continue your journey. All the while watching something close to low level flight out the window.

This is doable today.

Re:Don't forget passenger comfort

[Goonie]

Have you ever flown in a widebody jet? They may as well have no windows. And people fly in military cargo planes without passenger windows all the time.

Re: Don't forget passenger comfort

[Anonymous Coward]

They both have one thing in common, space. Enclosed does not feel constraining given enough space.

Re:Don't forget passenger comfort

[BKDotCom]

It's a 30 minute trip. Windows for the rarity someone will their eyes off of their smartphone or tv screen in front of them?

Re:Don't forget passenger comfort

[DrFalkyn]

Not everyone cares about sightseeing. Alot of people just want to get from A to B as quickly as possible and with as little hassle as possible. Look at how many take the red eye flying from the West Coast to the East Coast.

Re:Don't forget passenger comfort

[Zouden]

It's not uncommon to spend 30 minutes on a packed train in the London Underground. That has windows, but there's not much to see.

Re:Don't forget passenger comfort

[AmiMoJo]

The Japanese are building a 300MPH system (maglev) but it will be using trains that carry hundreds of people, leaving every 15 minutes. It just isn't worth trying to carry 2-4 passengers per car, the amount of energy required per person is ridiculous and if you built the tracks on routes where only a few people an hour want to travel you built them in the wrong places anyway.

Japan Rail looked at doing enclosed tubes for their trains to reduce noise. Lack of windows was a big issue, and they even considered replacing glass with large LCD screens showing what you would have seen. Where is that transparent aluminium we were promised?

Re:Don't forget passenger comfort

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is that transparent aluminium we were promised?

Currently still merely translucent, and expensive as hell.

Re:Don't forget passenger comfort

[Anonymous Coward]

Your ideas seem like stuff you'd expect in a long plane ride. A trip in the proposed route will only be about 30 minutes; I think people can last 30 minutes on a commute without having to worry about going to the bathroom.

If there are not windows, its a no go, this solution forgets that you are moving people.

To compensate for not having windows, the paper states the capsules will have monitors that will display images taken from outside the tube.

Re:Don't forget passenger comfort

[catprog]

Do Sapphires count?

from wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapphire#Common_applications
A common use of synthetic sapphire is in sapphire optical windows. The key benefits of sapphire windows are:

Awesome post!

[Okian Warrior]

Dude awesome post. Thanks for that.

And How Much LSD Will $69 Million Buy

[Anonymous Coward]

This portents to be the greatest idiocy story of 2012 from the greatest, at last count Obama is a close second, idiot with a very big addition to LSD.

The $69 million is the kicker for El as that is the money California will put up for a winning "new" transportation proposal. What El did was to line up his other LSD junkies in Sacramento, Sans Fran and Lost Angels to "grease the skids" and viagra his way to the Governor's Mansion.

Fat Chance, i.e. 0 in hell.

LSD Wishes and Viagra Dreams El.

The semi problem

[Anonymous Coward]

What happens when a big rig goes into the median and takes out a pillar?

Re:The semi problem

[BKDotCom]

In Russia, the pillar takes out the semi!
heh heh heh!
Seriously. you don't think there will be barricades?
What happens when a big rig hits the pillars of a bridge?
What happens when a big rig goes into on-coming traffic?

Re:The semi problem

[kwbauer]

Because that happens about 10 times a day already? What about this proposal would cause the pillars to become Peterbilt magnets?

Re:The semi problem

[rally2xs]

Looks like you better build a concrete wall around the support so that doesn't happen, eh?

Re:The semi problem

[rally2xs]

What big rig? With the cargo-carrying capacity of these tubes, once they're built-out nation wide there will be no big-rigs, all cargo will move on these tubes.

Old pulp magazine.

[hendrikboom]

reminds me of a Popular Science magazine from the 50's. It had cylindrical cars ahot through long tubes form one city to another. A vacuum in front, air pressure behind to keep them going.

Different in detail, updated by 60 years, but much the same.

Maybe feasible now. Maybe Elon Musk has a good collection of old pulp science magazines.

-- hendrik

Re:Old pulp magazine.

[BKDotCom]

Or saw "The Living Daylights"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AzJ5_8Cqdc

Re:Old pulp magazine.

[localman]

Yeah, it's interesting. As I read it, it seemed like it was taking a basic old idea and applying little bits of extra thought to improve it and clear up the challenges. Some of the details are clever, but nothing jumped out as being exotically difficult... except getting people to work towards it rather than snipe at it.

Serious question since I wasn't there: did so many people sit around naysaying the moon mission back in the day? Has our nation's vision become as pitifully limited as it seems? Or was it always like this, and progress happens in spite of all the armchair naysayers?

This has a huge up side.

[Required Snark]

Unlink 99% of the responders, I read the full PDF. I think it is doable, economically justifiable, and has significant benefits,

Feasibility: No new technology needs to be developed. It uses no exotic technology or materials. Think about the components: steel tubing, concrete pylons, solar cells, batteries, compressors, conventional electromagnets (no superconducting or rare earth magnets). It is an engineering and system integration problem. It is no where near as hard as what SpaceX and Tesla have already done. Tesla can supply the expertise for batteries and linear motor design based on their current experience.

Economy: The claimed price is $6 billion US. The price could be off by a factor of 3 and it would still cost half as much as the existing rail proposal. More then enough room for cost overruns. Musk experienced this already on SpaceX and it did not kill the company.

Benefits: It leapfrogs all existing high speed rail technology. It's a complete game changer. A successful outcome would immediately generate a world wide demand. There is a staggering amount of money to be made. In addition, it is ecologically very sound. The worst aspect is likely the amount of energy required for the concrete pylons, and that seems less then an equivilant roadway. Plus solar power is getting cheaper, so some of the price will go down in the long run.

If the US had any real capitalists around, they would jump at this opportunity. I expect without Musk it will go nowhere, because most big capital expects automatic government guaranteed profit. Although there have been some modest examples of innovative capitalism in the last couple of decades, for the most part capitalism in the US is non-existent, except for a few lone individuals.

Re:This has a huge up side.

[localman]

I wish this was like reddit and I could upvote you.

Re:This has a huge up side.

[Anonymous Coward]

It leapfrogs all existing high speed rail technology

But it doesn't leapfrog the flexibility, lack of required point-to-point infrastructure, and MUCH cheaper mode of air travel, which we have in spades today. Need to get from LA to San Fran RIGHT NOW? Take a fucking plane.

This is one more idiotic "long distance people mover" that simply doesn't need to exist, and has no realistic ROI. We've had high speed rail all over Europe and Japan for years now. How much "world wide demand" has been generated as a result?

Yes, we COULD build it. Yes, it COULD work. No, it will not work any better than existing, already-built infrastructure.

Re:This has a huge up side.

[period3]

The only problem I see with it is that it doesn't appear to be particularly resistant to stupid people. What if someone decides to actively sabotage it - e.g. blowing up a section of tube just before the car arrives at 1300 km/hr. Now imagine they do that somewhere downtown.

Re:This has a huge up side.

[taiwanjohn]

Need to get from LA to San Fran RIGHT NOW? Take a fucking plane.

Right. Take the plane and you'll spend more time in the airport than in the air. Oh, and you'll also spend an order of magnitude more for the ticket than Musk's expected price.

But other than that.... yeah, what an idiotic idea.

Re:This has a huge up side.

[Anonymous Coward]

The claimed price is $6 billion US. The price could be off by a factor of 3 and it would still cost half as much as the existing rail proposal. More then enough room for cost overruns.

Or 6 / 18 days of the war in Iraq.

Re:This has a huge up side.

[crunchygranola]

The only problem I see with it is that it doesn't appear to be particularly resistant to stupid people. What if someone decides to actively sabotage it - e.g. blowing up a section of tube just before the car arrives at 1300 km/hr. Now imagine they do that somewhere downtown.

Right. It could kill all the passengers in a capsule. All 14 of them (the ones behind will be able to automatically brake to a halt). Today it is impossible for saboteurs to kill that many people of a train. Oh, wait...
London Tube Bombings
Madrid Train Bombings.

Re:This has a huge up side.

[rally2xs]

Capitalism in the US is non-existent because the gov't comes tromping thru the door every year and wants 35% of everything you made. Repeal the income taxes and this too would be more than possible.

Additional pylons

[Anonymous Coward]

will obviously have to be constructed!

prerequisite: a more stable society

[ridgecritter]

Probably within the realm of affordable engineering. Fragile, easily wrecked with lots of knock-on economic damage like 9/11. Doubt there's enough adventurous investment capital to get it going within the next couple of decades.

Re:prerequisite: a more stable society

[BKDotCom]

$70 billion has already been approved for the high-speed-rail boondoggle.
as a target for sabotage. Just about anything else will yield more death and destruction. Say for example. high speed rail, a bus, subway, or a pipeline filled with natural gas.

A Bee on the 405?

[Anonymous Coward]

So I've bought my Hyperloop ticket early on and I'm bringing my car. Get to the station early to avoid lines and to pass security check. 30 minutes to L.A.!!!! I can't believe it! I hop into my car and spend the next hour and a half stuck on the 405. But wait.....a bee just passed me! What's a bee doing on the 405.....?

YES! Text AND Tube all I wamt

[Provocateur]

YES!

LA to SF, who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

The engineering is easy enough on this one. I don't see anything in particular that couldn't have been built 20 years ago.

The problem with this is just like all forms of mass transit it's hard to beat an automobile.

He talks about each car having room for 4 ppl and their luggage.

So start with a family going for a 4 day weekend to SF. It takes 1+ hours to get across LA. 1 hour to check in, 1 hour to get through secuirity, and an hour to get into the hyperloop car get to SF and get out. Another hour to get go get a rental car and an hour to drive to the final destination. So you are now in the hole 6 hours of time. I can't see this being cheaper than air fare so you are also have to pay $125 per person to fly plus $250 for the car rental. So $750 and 6 hours of time to enjoy your weekend.

Now let's set up the same trip by car.

Get in the car and drive to SF, we'll even be generous and do it in our fuel sucking SUV that gets 15mpg on the highway at 70mph. 5 hours drive time, plus 1 hour break/refuel, and 26 gallons of gas ($104 each way, so $210).

Round trip

Hyper loop $750 12 12hrs

Old fashion auto $240 & 12 hrs.

Things for them to overcome. Passenger ticket price needs to be $50 or less, not seeing that ever happen, and the newer fuels standards will destroy that price model, and the time savings needs to be greater. If they ever release self driving cars that would absolutely bury mass travel within 500 miles (8 hrs of night driving while you are asleep) He says that it wouldn't be practical for greater than 1000 miles, but personnal I don't see how it would be practical for less.

LA to St Louis by hyperloop 2.5 hrs, by car 26+hrs.

LA to New York by hperloop 3.5hrs, by car 40+ hrs.

Those seem like more practical numbers.

Besides just like someone living in Ohio never wanting to visit Kansas, why would anyone in LA ever want to go to SF (other than some business ppl and on the holidays for family) when ever thing you could want to see or do in SF is similarly located in LA.

Google Map FAIL

[Anonymous Coward]

No it doesn't. It stops near Ft Lauderdale in Hialeah. The only highway going to Key West is US1/FL5

why not start smaller?

[stenvar]

Building a hyperloop from San Francisco to Sacramento, or San Francisco to San Jose, would be useful and much shorter and cheaper.

Re:why not start smaller?

[DrFalkyn]

Unless you willing to go underground, there's no where to build it, and they already a rail line from SJ to SF - CalTrain. The bullet, which has ~5 stops between SJ and SF takes ~1 hour. Yes, they could improve on this, but its not worth it. SJ to SF is more of a regional system where you are going to have to stop frequently anyway, in order to get enough passengers

  I don't think there would be enough traffic to justify a SF to Sacramento only route.

Re:why not start smaller?

[localman]

I don't think this first draft plan rules any such thing out, and indeed there would probably be many small scale steps along the way. I think it's good he showed an example of how it could work on a larger scale, though, indicating it is a technology that has some legs.

Re:why not start smaller?

[stenvar]

Unless you willing to go underground, there's no where to build it, and they already a rail line from SJ to SF - CalTrain.

There is plenty of room going down 280, not to mention all the public lands adjacent to it.

I don't think there would be enough traffic to justify a SF to Sacramento only route.

I don't think there is enough traffic to justify any of these investments. Los Angeles to San Francisco has 3 million passengers a year; at a cost of 12 billion or more (and that's what hyperloop is realistically going to cost) plus operating costs, that's going to take a long time to pay back, and it probably would never pay for itself. It would be useless since it wouldn't be relieving congestion. (High speed rail is even worse.)

For the SF-Sac or SF-SJ routes, public transit would at least relieve some road traffic. And with systems like hyperloop, you can have stops all the way along the track, so people can board and exit at intermediate locations without holding up traffic.

Re:why not start smaller?

[DrFalkyn]

There is plenty of room going down 280, not to mention all the public lands adjacent to it.

And 280 is far away from the population centers in the Valley. If you were planning on making feeder lines, I don't this system is designed to support cars entering and exiting the tubes frequently .

Re:why not start smaller?

[stenvar]

The only places where 280 doesn't run through populated areas is the stretch between Redwood City and Palo Alto. And there, you could simply route the tube a little to the east; it doesn't have to follow 280 slavishly. Such a plan would also give a nice second public transit corridor as an alternative to Caltrain.

(You could also put the tubes on stilts in the bay.)

SECONDED!

[Anonymous Coward]

I look forward to the day that you commute via trebuchet and your parachute doesn't open, you fuck.

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

Was going to post that, but you beat me to it. Thanks.

Missed Opportunities.

[VortexCortex]

Tesla Coil > Hyperloop

If not for passengers

[Anonymous Coward]

This could be an interesting way to ship products.

This is a really old idea

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vactrain

It's been around for a century. It's 100% un-doable for the same reason that driverless cars are un-doable...

And the award goes to...

[MachineShedFred]

And the award for the biggest vaporware announcement that has ever been, or ever will be; goes to... Elon Musk, for his Hyperloop press conference, where he even admitted that he won't be building it.

Seriously, this is news? I'm pretty sure a boy at age 6 somewhere saw the drive-up bank tubes and had this idea too.

Nothing new under the sun

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.swissmetro.ch/en

The idea is rather old (1974), it is only a matter of money. The project failed because of the economic crisis.

Marco.

great idea

[slashmydots]

"not interfering with land needs because it would essentially follow major highways"
That makes them MUCH easier to blow up with a roadside bomb or car bomb. How convenient. And I thought the terrorists would have to go hiking out into some field to do it.
Anyway, if this lovely idea has the same customer satisfaction rate and successful service rate as Paypal (also Elon's), people are going to be landing on the damn moon the hard way quite often when this thing malfunctions.

Beautiful simplicity

[sl4shd0rk]

The beauty in the design is how simple it is. It's frictionless and rides on "air bearings" to keep it aloft. One big potential problem is running out of air at 800mph for the skis. TFA doesn't say, but at that speed, it's difficult to imagine what happens to Inconel when it contacts aluminum; Gamma Ray Burst is all that comes to mind at those velocities. But, it's Elon Musk so rest assured he's worked this all out. He's no Boeing.

L. Neil Smith - The Confederation

[TrentTheThief]

Mr. Musk merely parrots the evacuated tube and capsule transport systems detailed in novels by L. Neil Smith and Robert Heinlein some decades ago.

I'm not impressed.

Utter waste of money.

[Anonymous Coward]

Better spend them on high-speed train, like TGV and so. But if Elon REALLY wants to be a cool dude, he will build MAGLEV train, like the one operating from Shanghai Airport.

hyperloop logically costs more

[peter303]

Each section of high speed rail is a very high quality track. Each section of a hyperloop is an encompassing tube, elevated at that. The tube vehicles however are much cheaper.

Juicy Target For Terrorists

[assertation]

It seems all some terrorist has to do is sabotage some small portion of track to create a massive, highly visual, costly accident -- just the kind of thing terrorists go for.

Maybe if the "tracks" are all underground that might help, but for hundreds -> thousands of miles?

It would be interesting to read how the security of the rails/tracks/tubes would be maintained. It seems at some point they are going to have miles and miles of the stuff that would be impossible to guard.

Re:Juicy Target For Terrorists

[Areyoukiddingme]

It seems at some point they are going to have miles and miles of the stuff that would be impossible to guard.

We already have those. They're called railroads and interstate highways.

Why are you so worried about the boogieman in your closet?

driverless cars

[bugs2squash]

they should instead re-purpose the HOV lane to be a driverless car lane operated at 250MPH. Anyone who owns a car that meets the eligability criteria and operates under autonomous control can get past the barrier and the car's computer will automatically merge it with traffic in the lane. Sure it will take 90 minutes to make the SFO-LA trip, but there's no check-in, you have your own car when you get to the destination and aside from adding a wall alongside the HOV lane and adding the automated entry barriers and lanes the infrastructure is essentially already in place. I would have thought Tesla would be more interested in building the first compatible vehicles.

pylons

[More Trouble]

The PDF touches on security, but only alludes to faster lines. I wonder how you'd protect the 25,000 pylons? Seems like the answer is "not bother".

very silly idea

[Anonymous Coward]

(1) They plan to suck the tube down to an equivalent altitude of 155,000 feet. No common-carrier safety agency would ever approve putting people at risk of being exposed to that. They'd all have to be in full spacesuits. Even the DOD puts U-2 pilots in full pressure suits and they only go up to around 78,000 feet.

(2) The capsules are supposed to run on an air bearing 10 to 50 thou thick. Do you know how hard it is to make 350 miles of surface that is that flat? And keep it that way? What happens if there's some debris on the floor, maybe 20 thou thick paint flakes from the previous capsule?

(3) The capsules have only like 45 minutes of battery power. What happens if a capsule gets stuck? What happens to the people in it after 45 minutes and to the people in the capsules behind it? How do you get the people out of this tube?

(4) Has anyone asked: Would you ride through 350 miles of pipe, 21 miles of bored tunnels, in this tiny capsule? The main reason we don't have "flying wing" planes is that people have been asked, and no, they won't sit 12 seats away from an exit door. Try asking them to go 700MPH though a dark tube.

excellent criticism from knowledgable rail expert

[call -151]

There is a great discussion from Alon Levy at Pedestrian Observations. Alon is a mathematician who is very knowledgable about transit issues and rail alignments in particular.

In stark contrast to most media (which seems incapable or disinterested in addressing the engineering issues and is basically repeating a press release) he has a number of specific issues:

• The cost per mile of construction estimates are way too low, probably by a factor of 10.
• At the planned speeds or even a fraction of them, the alignments would result in much higher passenger G-forces than any existing transit (although lower than many roller coasters) (.5g allegedly for Hyperloop, although it isn't clear how they could keep it that low, versus less than half that for Shinkasen and less for European HSR.
• The throughput is completely unrealistic
• The energy use estimates are not fair comparisons
• The increased speed would not result in significantly faster times than traditional HSR to downtown destinations, due to Hyperloop ending in Sylmar, quite a distance from LA.

maybe seen before?

[Anonymous Coward]

I first saw a proposal somewhat along this line at my college (www.rpi.edu) when I took fluids in 1974? The fluids professor had a drawing of a proposal that was similar as best I can remember after all these years. I think the one I mentioned in fluids was actually underground via tunnels and probably had other differences. There has been some technology changes since 1974 ;)

uhoh

[gzuckier]

Nothing that comes out of an allnighter is going to be good.

Americans Already shun public transport

[Anonymous Coward]

I get that the hyperloop is new and hip technology, but Americans have been rejecting public transport for the past fifty years. What would make this any different?

Re:Sounds good until you realize there's no bathro

[rally2xs]

The whole ride is about 30 minutes. No need for bathrooms.

remember Micronauts Rocket Tubes?

[Jefftoe]

Reminds me precisely of this toy I messed with as a kid. 1970's. remember Micronauts Rocket Tubes? http://2warpstoneptune.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/micronauts-rocket-tubes.jpg

Most difficult part of making this work

[ganv]

Since reading the paper on the proposed Hyperloop when it was posted, I have been wondering what piece of the research and development will turn out to be the most difficult. Everyone focuses on the costs and political difficulties of getting this actually built. But at least on /. we should be able to contemplate the engineering without worrying about the biggest problems for these systems which is that foolish humans have to build and use them. :)

It seems to me that maintaining alignment of the tube might be the most difficult challenge. To maintain accelerations below 1g at 350 m/s (782 mph) you have to have a radius of curvature more than 122 km (a=v^2/r). That means the variation from a straight line of only 3.7 mm over the 30 m between pylons will produce 1g. And it takes 0.085 seconds to travel this distance, so it has the potential to produce one hell of a bumpy ride. Now I think they could maintain alignment of a few microns over 30 m and a good suspension could probably remove most of the bumps, but it could be a tough challenge. Since day/night temperature differences and many other things will probably move the pylons on these scales, they are going to need active feedback to maintain alignment.

The alignment will need to be measured and corrected over scales up to at least tens of kilometers. What kind of a system would you use to measure alignment with accuracies of microns over tens of kilometers? What kind of actuators would you use to position a steel tube 2 cm thick and 2.3 m in diameter with accuracy of microns? What failure rate can be tolerated with 25000 pylons? How much would the tube bend if one pylon had its actuators fail or if a semi truck ran into a pylon?

When I first thought of how to build a prototype for this system, I thought of using a circular loop since it would allow a single induction motor to accelerate a cycling capsule many times until it reached full speed, just like a cyclotron. But then I calculated the radius necessary to maintain moderate accelerations, and realized how straight this tube is really going to have to be. Maybe they can use a circular loop to test low speed operation, but even a circle of 10km radius can only go to 70 m/s (158 mph) before going above 1g. In a 1km radius circular loop at 350 m/s you have 122g. So the high speed tests are going to have to be in a straight test facility with linear motors capable of taking the capsule up to full speed.

Re: Most difficult part of making this work

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is real, but you are off by a factor of ten (or 9,8).
The formula a=v^2/r will yield the acceleration in m/s^2 if you use SI units, and 1g is then 9,8m/s.

Your calculation at 160mph should have tipped you off. Thats a reasonable speed (on i.e. the autobahn), and certainly doesn't require 10km radiuses.

But the test loop will still need to be very very large.
Or go in a straight line. Accelerating at 1 g, you arrive at 350m/s in 36 seconds, and a bit over 6km... And the same to brake. More than 12km if you want any cruise speed at all.
I guess for a test, you might go for 2g accelerations, which would cut the accel/decell distances by two. Then a 10km straight tube would give you 18 seconds acceleration, 10 seconds cruise and 18 seconds deceleration. Less than a minute total! I'd suggest giving the passengers a 5 seconds break at this point, before shooting them, backwards through the inverse sequence. Rinse and repeat, name it the vomit express (unless NASA TM'd that), and sell tickets for an amusement part. You could just have the test tube start in an existing park.

Re: Most difficult part of making this work

[ganv]

Yes, you are right. I made a basic mistake. I did 1 m/s^2 rather than 1 g. 350m/s at 1g has a turn radius of 12.2km. Much more manageable. That also gives you 3.7cm misalignment over a 30 m section for 1g which will be much easier to maintain. However, you probably want less than 0.1g rapidly varying acceleration, so alignment at mm or better tolerances may still be required. I think high speed rail are already aligned to mm tolerances without active feedback. It seems like a critical cost question will be whether a good suspension and good static construction methods can maintain adequate alignment or whether they need active feedback. Seems the active feedback would be expensive and difficult.

air travel?

[noh8rz10]

I read halfway down the 450+ comments, and I didn't see one person mentioned air travel. I can fly from SF to LA in an hour on a flying bus that goes 550MPH and carries 200+ people. There's wi-fi, it costs $100 if I book ahead, and I can get a free drink if I have a coupon.

all this to say, the hyperloop looks like a solution in search of a problem.

hivemind, what problem is solved by the hyperloop?

Re:air travel?

[gordo3000]

seriously? after having to get to the airport early, check in, and get felt up and scanned to get on the plane, you can do it an hour from your house to destination?

The comparison is the high speed trains in Japan, you find up to 3 hour trips beat planes, and that is a train that goes 200 mph, not 600 (and that is a country where youc an arrive at the airport a half hour before your flight and actually have time to get a beer after checking in and getting through security).

you are out of your mind or willfully ignorant of the time involved if you think you can do LAX to SF that fast.

Re:air travel?

[doom]

I spent a few minutes on a web search, and I see it's supposed to be faster and pollute less. (A terrible thing, reading 450 slashdot comments and not being able to find out what you want to know.).

Your estimated flight time of an hour doesn't include travel to or from the airports on either end. Train stations are usually closer to city cores than airports.

Re:air travel?

[noh8rz10]

$6b to save 30 mins and some pollution? depends who's paying - the govt? no thank you, kma. you're right to look at door-to-door travel time, which turns an hour flight or half hour tube ride into 3-4 hours. so the time savings of the tube is even more minimal! for the city cores thing, most people don't live at a city core and they are surprisingly inaccessible. making it real - you can't park at transbay terminal in SF or union station in LA, and the traffic is a nightmare just to get there! also, why would you think the hyperloop could go to the existing rail stations? if it's all new infrastructure, they'll need a touch down point where they have clear access. you know, kinda like an airport.

Re:air travel?

[doom]

most people don't live at a city core

You need to think a little more about what a "city core" is.

There is a high-speed rail project already in the works coverning the same territory that Musk is looking at. This is actually an idea that's very popular with voters. Come to think of it, reducing pollution is a popular idea also.

So, I hate to tell you this, but you're essentially a hick from the sticks, with barely a clue about what's going on.

Re:air travel?

[noh8rz10]

most people don't live at a city core

You need to think a little more about what a "city core" is.

what does this even mean? I live in LA and have lived in SF. I know what the "city cores" are like in both of those cities. I know how inaccessible they are. i don't get your point here.

There is a high-speed rail project already in the works coverning the same territory that Musk is looking at. This is actually an idea that's very popular with voters.

are you suggesting that the govt SHOULD pay for hyperloop, and its ok because the govt is paying for HSR, and everyone apparently likes HSR? All is bollocks. HSR was approved at the ballot box when it was a $6b project. If we could vote again i'm sure it would be canceled. actually that's kind of a cool idea, we should get this on the ballot box. also, if musk is a billionare, he can build his pet project boondoggle if he wants to.

Come to think of it, reducing pollution is a popular idea also.

maybe a little bit, but to what degree, and at what cost? 95% of the pollution from HSR won't affect anybody because nobody lives near it. so spend $6b to cut the HSR pollution by 5%? retarded.

"but what about evil ghgs?" At $40 / ton (internaltional peg price), the money for the hyper loop could offset 150 million tons of CO2, which is 2OM greater than the HSR would produce over its entire lifespan.

So, I hate to tell you this, but you're essentially a hick from the sticks, with barely a clue about what's going on.

Actually I live in LA, so I have quite a good idea of what's going on both in terms of the cities and the HSR project. Unlike you, who is some sort of armchair know-it-all from god knows where.

Re:air travel?

[doom]

most people don't live at a city core

You need to think a little more about what a "city core" is.

what does this even mean?

Cities are regions of high density, where many people live. You're apparently convinced that you are Normal, and that no one (who matters?) lives in cities. If you're interested in minimizing average trip times between SF and LA, putting the terminals near the center of SF and LA makes quite a bit of sense.

I know how inaccessible they are.

SF is "inaccessible" only if you plan on traveling by car there and parking in front of the door.

There is a high-speed rail project already in the works coverning the same territory that Musk is looking at. This is actually an idea that's very popular with voters.

are you suggesting that the govt SHOULD pay for hyperloop, and its ok because the govt is paying for HSR, and everyone apparently likes HSR?

I'm suggesting that the government should consider paying for projects like this, yes, but more to the point, I think you need to face the fact that you are not the world, your opinion is not law, and that there are many people out there who actually care the issues the hyperloop scheme claims to address. But hey, if they disagree they must be retarded, so off with their heads.

So, I hate to tell you this, but you're essentially a hick from the sticks, with barely a clue about what's going on.

Actually I live in LA, so I have quite a good idea of what's going on both in terms of the cities and the HSR project.

From the 'burbs ye have come, to the 'burbs ye shall go, and at the pearly gates you will whine that there's not enough parking.

Re:air travel?

[noh8rz10]

Cities are regions of high density, where many people live. You're apparently convinced that you are Normal, and that no one (who matters?) lives in cities. If you're interested in minimizing average trip times between SF and LA, putting the terminals near the center of SF and LA makes quite a bit of sense.

. god, you're a fuckhead. if you're flying to LA, would you rather go from palo alto to SFO or palo alto to downtown SF? what if you lived in san jose, or oakland? the hyperloop wouldn't just serve hipsters in the mission. if you tried to minimize travel time across all the bay area population, I assure you the station would not be in downtown san francisco. exact same argument for downtown LA. Of course this points out another benefit of air travel - there are three big bay area airports to serve the population, but this hyperloop would just have one terminus.

From the 'burbs ye have come, to the 'burbs ye shall go, and at the pearly gates you will whine that there's not enough parking.

gotcha. you're a hipster urban dweller who thinks anybody who lives differently is stupid. well, i got a big can of fuck off for you to drink.

PTT

[Anonymous Coward]

cf. Pneumatic Tube Transport (Wikipedia)

Yes - by running fiber along their rights-of-way.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Can these tubes also be used to carry the innernet?

Yes - by running fiber along their rights-of-way along with the tranport tube.

Which is exactly how SPRINT got started.

The name is an acronym for Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Network Telecommunications, and dates from the time they upgraded their own along-track communication from microwave to fiber and took advantage of the recent demonopolization of long distance telephone, driven by MCI, to enter the long-distance phone service. But they were already selling other messaging service along their microwave network, as Railroads have been doing since the initial deployment of the telegraph.

Power companies occasionally do this, too.

When you already have a right-of-way and your own communication along it, adding more bandwidth to sell is FAR less expensive than setting up a communications-only standalone company by buying signal-line right-of-way and installing equipment from scratch.