Elon Musk Plans To Build Hyperloop Test Track

An anonymous reader writes that Elon Musk wants to speed up the development of his proposed 800-mph tube transport. "Billionaire and entrepreneur Elon Musk is getting more hands-on with the Hyperloop. Musk, who heads up both space transportation outfit SpaceX and electric-vehicle maker Tesla Motors, casually announced via Twitter on Thursday that he's decided to help accelerate development of his vision for near-supersonic tube transportation, first outlined in August 2013. Musk said he will build a five-mile test track for the still-theoretical system for students and companies to use. A possible location would be Texas, he added, where presumably there is plenty of flat land to go around."

Comments

Why build it on earth

[Anonymous Coward]

use the mars colony instead!

"plenty of flat land to go around

[Nutria]

Too bad there's not much flat ground where it would do some good.

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[Immerman]

And where exactly would a five mile test loop do some good? Keep in mind that this is *not* a technology suitable for short-haul applications, the car is probably going to have to do a dozen laps just to get up to speed.

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[jcr]

where exactly would a five mile test loop do some good?

Anywhere it's built, since the purpose of a TEST LOOP is to develop the technology.

Did you really not know this?

-jcr

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[Applehu Akbar]

Which brings up a question: why does Musk insist on running Hyperloop on columns down its entire route in California, even though a lrge portion of it is on the die-straight, perfectly flat median of I-5 through the San Joaquin Valley?

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[Nutria]

What's the purpose of developing a technology which we *know* is WILDLY impractical beyond the Pneumatic Tube Transport developed for local delivery of small items. See the Wikipedia entry on "Pneumatic tube".

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[Alsn]

Why do we know this, exactly?

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[Loki_1929]

This guy has actually designed and built rockets that go to space and can land safely back on Earth. You think he's so out of touch with reality that a fucking Wiki page is standing between what he says and what reality is?

Musk may not ever perfect the Hyperloop, but if he doesn't, it won't be because of anything you think you know. It'll be because he's too busy revolutionizing the automobile, space travel, and power industries simultaneously. What a stunning display of arrogance to sit where you sit and toss trivial criticisms like "we know it's impractical because I read a Wiki article about it" at a guy who launches shit into space for a living while he's not building electric tank-cars or spreading affordable solar power or raising his kids. The day you know more than Musk about -anything- is the day he has a fuckin' tag on his toe.

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[Rei]

If you think this is like a pneumatic tube, then you know absolutely nothing about this.

Hyperloop is a system involving partially evacuated (not hard vacuum) tubes. The reason is that hard vacuum is much more difficult to achieve and maintain. The very low (but not vacuum) pressures offer little resistance, but do present a problem: you can't allow air to build up in front of the craft. Hyperloop solves this by a system of watercooled battery-powered compressors.

A pneumatic tube is propelled by pressurized air behind the projectile expanding, with lower pressure in front of the projectile. Hyperloop involves nothing of the sort - it involves magnetic accelerator segments for propulsion. Only a few reboosts would be needed over the length of an LA to SF run due to the low air resistance.

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[Rei]

There's a few reasons. But the biggest ones involve not having to use new land - not out some sort of idealist reasons, but pure economic practicality. First off, you need right-of-way. This is expensive. Also really ticks off land owners if you have to use eminent domain. These things almost always get tangled up in the courts. For in-town legs it'd be even harder. Secondly, all new projects have to go through a series of impact reviews. If you're building over a highway median, you're in an area that's already passed review - you still have to defend your incremental changes, but you don't have to pass as much of a barrier.

Also, most people overestimate the cost of the columns, comparing them to the cost of rail bridges. Just ignoring that by their very nature rail bridges are generally only built over difficult areas, and are going to be extremely price, It's important to note that one of the key cost-saving measures designed into Hyperloop vs. rail is often overlooked: weight. Hyperloop vehicles are more than an order of magnitude lighter than a passenger train, and only spend a brief period over any given segment; consequently the required structural strength is dramatically lower than for a rail bridge. I did some quick calculations, including tube mass, and found that and Hyperloop loadings should be similar to that of Disney's monorail. So think columns like this, not this.

While I do have criticisms for Hyperloop, I found that a lot of the criticisms levied against it on the net were seriously misguided, using ridiculous cost comparisons (another one is comparing the cost of Hyperloop tunnel boring to that of boring tunnels over an order of magnitude larger). I dug up "comparable" projects for each step of the project, and I really have to say, Hyperloop's numbers don't actually look to be that unrealistic. The keys of right-of-way reuse and low point loadings offer serious cost savings.

That said, I think Musk's positioning of the concept was stupid. By putting it in competition to an already-controversial high speed rail project, he both invited the rage of rail fans (who are used to feeling as if they're under attack), as well as inviting the expectation that it can do everything rail can (including, for example, making many stops along the way). It really is, as it was billed, an intermediary alternative between high speed rail and air travel - in speed, in throughput, in ability to make stops, etc. Consequently he should have proposed the first major project of it to be LA to Vegas. Then he wouldn't have encountered opposition from high speed rail fans, and the route doesn't have much population along the way to service. Plus, he could probably get tons of private backing for such a project, as Vegas is always desperate to better connect itself with customers in California.

I also think that for the current proposal, Musk should have positioned the LA station further into town. He's thinking "airport", and of course you can have local train / bus service to the station wherever it is, but airports are only on the outskirts because they *have* to be, mass transit is really ideally located more in-town. And there's no reason that he can't continue into town - the roads get a bit curvy but there's some nice straight rail lines that they could go over straight into the heart of town, and that'd probably be even easier to get approval for than for over road.

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[Nutria]

if he doesn't, it won't be because of anything you think you know.

I've been around long enough to know when an idea is a crock of shit.

he's too busy revolutionizing the automobile, space travel, and power industries simultaneously.

Wow, you have drunk the Kool Aid!!

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[Nutria]

Hyperloop is a system involving partially evacuated (not hard vacuum) tubes.

The air on the outside is still going to *aggressively* want to rush in through any little crack.

it involves magnetic accelerator segments for propulsion.

Let me see if I've got this straight: we can't build regular maglev trains because they're super-expensive (the engineering, construction and maintenance would be incredibly difficult), so... we'll just make it that much harder by wrapping a (partial) vacuum tube around it???

You've got to understand that as much as Europe loves it's trains, there's a reason why high-speed trains aren't draped across the continent: the tracks have to be *perfect*, and they're always stopping and starting; even the express trains don't get up to full "steam" for very long stretches.

There's a reason that autobahns/Interstates are such a great idea: they combine all the benefits of an express train, with the flexibility of a two lane road (if you're near one, there's an on-ramp close by). And when you get "there", you still have your car to drive around in.

So, no. If maglev was a good idea, it would have already been built.

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[Rei]

I don't see his Solar City work as particularly revolutionary. But SpaceX and Tesla have achieved some pretty darned impressive results thusfar which were widely ridiculed as fantasy several years ago. "Tens of thousands of annual sales of $60k electric vehicles that go hundreds of miles on a charge and getting the highest ranking Consumer Reports has ever given for a car? In your fevered dreams!" "Beating Ares 1 to the ISS for 2% of the development cost, on a rocket cheaper than the Russians and the Chinese, *without* the reuse that it was designed for? Yeah, you believe that, kool-aid drinker!"

Look, Musk is not some sort of demigod. But give the companies credit where credit is due. That's some pretty darned impressive stuff.

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[Rei]

The air on the outside is still going to *aggressively* want to rush in through any little crack.

Air is not magical. You can't put a pinprick in a partially evacuated tube and have it just suddenly equalize. Viscosity on the order of the size of small cracks highly limits the rate at which air can migrate in. A little crack or a leaky seal is simply not enough to overcome an air compressor.

To put it another way: the pressure differential here is approximately one atmosphere. Large trunk natural gas pipelines have a pressure differential of about 13 atmospheres. By your logic, a natural gas distribution infrastructure is utterly impossible because "the natural gas on the inside is still going to *aggressively* want to rush out through any little crack".

Let me see if I've got this straight: we can't build regular maglev trains because they're super-expensive (the engineering, construction and maintenance would be incredibly difficult), so... we'll just make it that much harder by wrapping a (partial) vacuum tube around it???

First off, let's make this clear. Hyperloop is not Maglev. In fact, the design document notes that they could use Maglev, but dismisses it as too expensive: "A viable technical solution is magnetic levitation; however the cost associated with material and construction is prohibitive." Hyperloop uses air bearings - skis operating in ground effect with the pipe.

Maglev trains are expensive for many reasons. The cost of having the track be able to provide forward propulsion however usually represents only the tiniest fraction thereof. First off, you have the reasons that rail is expensive, period (right of way costs, environmental reviews, and all of the other overhead). Then you have to have the entire route be able to lift up a multi-dozen to multi-hundred-tonne train. Not just propel, but actually hold it stably in the air, which is a far more difficult challenge for many reasons than propulsion - you either have to have an extremely precise computer-controlled fluctuating magnetic field in a train with hanging magnets, or you have to have the entire track be magnetized or be able to magnetize, in a manner that resists dynamic instability.

Hyperloop only involves propulsion, and the accelerators represent just a few percent of the length of the track. It's a tried and tested technology, use around the world, and their budget for it is in-line with industry norms. There are all sorts of trains today that use linear accelerators, almost all of which represent way more length of accelerator than Hyperloop needs. Examples include

Airport Express in Beijing (opened 2008)
AirTrain JFK in New York (opened 2003)
Detroit People Mover in Detroit (using ICTS) opened 1987
EverLine Rapid Transit System in Yongin (opened 2013)
Kelana Jaya Line in Kuala Lumpur (opened 1998)
Scarborough RT in Toronto (using UTDC's (predecessor) ICTS technology - opened 1985)
UTDC ICTS test track in Millhaven, Ontario
SkyTrain in Vancouver (Expo Line (using ITCS) opened 1985 and Millennium Line opened in 2002)
Limtrain in Saitama (short-lived demonstration track, 1988)
Nagahori Tsurumi-ryokuchi Line in Osaka (opened 1990)
Toei edo Line in Tokyo (opened 2000)
Kaigan Line in Kobe (opened 2001)

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[Nutria]

In your fevered dreams!"

Said who? It costs the same as a BMW 535i, yet only goes 265 miles. That's *not* revolutionary.

Call me back when he's got a $25K minivan that can go 300 miles at 80MPH while carrying 4 people and a whole lot of stuff. That will be revolutionary! Maybe my teenagers will be able to buy such a vehicle. But I doubt it.

"Beating Ares 1 to the ISS for 2% of the development cost, on a rocket cheaper than the Russians and the Chinese,

Using an engine designed by someone else using taxpayer money is IN NO WAY SHAPE OR FORM revolutionary.

It's great engineering and no-nonsense construction from a company that hasn't (yet) become bloated by sucking on the DoD & NASA teats, but that is *no* revolutionary.

For it to be revolutionary, they'd have to come up with something *really* game changing, like... a fuel better than LH2/LOX which doesn't corrode everything it gets near, or spray radioactive death half-way across the countryside.

Practical, reusable rocket engines (where you don't have to strip down and rebuild the engine every time like they did with the SSME are stupendously important, and I hope SpaceX can get that working.

However, and sadly, getting a booster to land on a floating platform is "mere" engineering: throw enough time, money, sensors, accelerometers, actuators, etc -- IOW, stuff that we already have and know how to use -- that's not revolutionary.

A *real* revolution would be to find

So, while Musk is doing some important work

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[towermac]

"Look, Musk is not some sort of demigod."

Citation needed.

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[Anonymous Coward]

Viscosity on the order of the size of small crack. ..... very wrong physics, but right idea.

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[Rei]

Said who? It costs the same as a BMW 535i, yet only goes 265 miles. That's *not* revolutionary.

Given that the previous longest range before Tesla came around was in the ballpark of 40% that far and was produced by the hundreds, not the tens of thousands, and that the model S outperforms the BMW 535i, and has higher customer satisfaction ratings, and the whole teensy detail that no new US manufacturer that has anywhere near that order of sales for any type of car (let alone a radical new one) has been established since 1925... yes, that is damned impressive.

Using an engine designed by someone else

Where'd you get the impression that the Merlin was designed by someone else? Merlin is the most from-scratch engine design for an orbital launch vehicle in the US since the 1950s. It shares a few parts with older engines, such as the pintle injectors, but the vast majority of the engine is of brand-new design. The engine shares some similarities with work done at TRW, but it's not a TRW engine (doesn't even burn the same fuels). The reason that it's sometimes referred to as a descendent of work done at TRW is because TRW's former chief engineer is SpaceX's head of propulsion. He was tinkering on rocket engines in his garage that he felt he couldn't get support for at TRW when Musk picked him up; he proceeded to use his new position to create what became the Merlin series.

It's great engineering and no-nonsense construction from a company that hasn't (yet) become bloated by sucking on the DoD & NASA teats, , but that is *no* revolutionary.

Nice dodge: let me repeat: #Beating Ares 1 to the ISS for 2% of the development cost, on a rocket cheaper than the Russians and the Chinese, *without* the reuse that it was designed for": how the heck is that not bloody amazing and something to be celebrated? If it's so easy, then why hasn't everyone been doing it? And yes, people like you were all over the place here a few years ago saying they'll never get off the ground.

For it to be revolutionary, they'd have to come up with something *really* game changing, like... a fuel better than LH2/LOX which doesn't corrode everything it gets near

No, something that's "really game changing" is dramatic reductions in the price of getting to orbit, with serious potential for even more significant drops if reuse works out. That is bloody game changing if the term "game changing" has any meaning. The propellent mix is irrelevant. You can have the highest ISP fuel mix on earth and still cost a bloody fortune to get to orbit if it's not economical. The Russians beat the US for the longest time with much lower performance engines for that reason.

However, and sadly, getting a booster to land on a floating platform is "mere" engineering

Any more difficult challenge than that and you might as well just call it "magic". You don't get much harder in the rocketry world than something like that. Rocketry *is* engineering, and adding the word "mere" is just an insult.

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[Applehu Akbar]

This still doesn't address my question. I fully appreciate the value of columns in crossing private land and especially when entering cities, where it could cut costs an order of magnitude. But since Musk intends to use the I-5 median on the long straight San Joaquin stretch, why will he use columns that entire distance?

And given that he will be using columns to save cost in urban areas, why not come right imto the city? Bringing it to the vicinity of Union Station would be a powerful selling point.

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[Loki_1929]

I've been around long enough to know when an idea is a crock of shit.

Arrogant and self-obsessed. When you're around a little longer, you'll come to realize that you don't actually know everything. Or perhaps you won't as some never achieve significant emotional maturation.

he's too busy revolutionizing the automobile, space travel, and power industries simultaneously.

Wow, you have drunk the Kool Aid!!

First to create a workable, marketable, functional-in-the-real-world electric cars and created the first new successful car company in the US in decades to design, build, and sell them. Designed and built reusable rockets that run good reliably to the ISS for a fraction of the cost of any other solution ever devised by man. Also working towards sending people to Mars, which even world governments haven't even seriously considered. And on the Solar City side, they're making solar power so affordable to people that they've become the number 1 installer for residences in the US and the number 2 installer overall in less than 10 years of existence. 4.3 gigawatts of power produced by their installations as of 2013. They're doing all this while bumping up US manufacturing to compete directly with the Chinese. Who else is doing that successfully?

And again, I ask, what have YOU done lately besides read Wikipedia and spout off about things you don't understand? Because Musk, the guy you're criticizing, seems to be busy getting shit done.

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[Rei]

But since Musk intends to use the I-5 median on the long straight San Joaquin stretch, why will he use columns that entire distance?

I'm not sure what you're not understanding here. You have two seven-foot diameter pipes here, where are you picturing they should go if not "up"? I doubt anyone would approve of you eating up the entire median the whole way, if they'd even fit to begin with. If you're thinking about expanding the road, that takes land acquisition and all sorts of added hassle. Also, as straight and flat as the road seems to you, it's not so straight and flat to someone moving at 740 miles per hour. The columns vary in height and how they hold the pipe to compensate for the irregularities in the landscape.

And given that he will be using columns to save cost in urban areas, why not come right imto the city? Bringing it to the vicinity of Union Station would be a powerful selling point.

I do find that a valid criticism, something that one may well pass off to thinking in terms of airports - ignoring that airports are positioned on the outskirts of cities because they *have to be*, not because that's a good thing. That said, I'm sure the people permitting any actual implementation would pretty much force them to go into town - especially if they're also begging for funding. The highways get a bit twisty in town but there's some nice straight railways they could go over on both ends.

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[MachineShedFred]

An amusement park. People pay good money to go on roller coasters, and scraping the speed of sound in a little capsule-tube-thing would be a huge attraction.

Test the tech, and recoup some expense at the same time.

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[Anonymous Coward]

First to create a workable, marketable, functional-in-the-real-world electric cars and created the first new successful car company in the US in decades to design, build, and sell them.
 
Actually, that was Ford but the market didn't exist to support the concept in the short term. Elon just happened to have a ton of cash at the time that the technology matured and other automakers were feeling the bite of a bad economy.
 
  Designed and built reusable rockets that run good reliably to the ISS for a fraction of the cost of any other solution ever devised by man.
 
Standing on the shoulders of giants and it's far from building them himself. I scoff the same way you'd scoff when people claim that Gates is/has ended polio.
 
  Also working towards sending people to Mars, which even world governments haven't even seriously considered.
 
Who's there and who isn't? Maybe he'll "design a death ray" too!
 
  And on the Solar City side, they're making solar power so affordable to people that they've become the number 1 installer for residences in the US and the number 2 installer overall in less than 10 years of existence.
 
By that metric Comcast is also the most amazing ISP ever too.
 
  And again, I ask, what have YOU done lately besides read Wikipedia and spout off about things you don't understand? Because Musk, the guy you're criticizing, seems to be busy getting shit done.
 
Maybe he's been busy putting you fanboys in your place. Your hero worship doesn't make your ramblings true.

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[MachineShedFred]

For what it's worth, the founding of SolarCity with his two cousins have caused a gigawatt of solar to be installed in the last 8 years, and a massive manufacturing plant to be built in Buffalo, NY to create manufacturing jobs in the US, and give China some competition for solar panels.

No, it's not a complete game changer, but it's also not the square root of jack shit.

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[Coren22]

I worship him...therefore he is a demigod :)

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[jfengel]

Thanks for the analysis, but why would it be lighter than a conventional train?

You compare it to the monorail, but at the least it's going to have to support the tube plus the train cars itself. The tube is static rather than dynamic load, which will make things a bit easier, but it still seems like the pillars will have to be a good deal stronger than the ones in the picture. Is it simply that new materials and not having to share tracks with existing trains allow for different, lighter construction? Or the fact that it's passengers and not cargo?

I'm all for Elon Musk, and he's succeeded so often that I'm going to assume he hasn't overlooked the obvious. (I even own a bit of Tesla stock.) But I'm concerned that it might be too optimistic, and that when reality kicks in it will lose the large advantage that's needed to overcome the entrenched resistance.

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[catprog]

First to create a workable, marketable, functional-in-the-real-world electric cars and created the first new successful car company in the US in decades to design, build, and sell them.

Actually, that was Ford but the market didn't exist to support the concept in the short term. Elon just happened to have a ton of cash at the time that the technology matured and other automakers were feeling the bite of a bad economy.

So Ford did not create a workable/marketable electric car then.

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[Applehu Akbar]

The i-5 median is wide enough for most of the distance through the San Joaquin to comfoertably accommodate two tubes of ths diameter side by side, cut-and-covered to just under the surface. In Tokyo (where I once lived) which is ten times as earthquake prone as Californis, buried concrete tubes are the most robust of all manmade structures when a Big One hits. Go ahead and rise the line to columns where it crosses the tectonic plate boundary of the San Andreas, where a really significant horizontal displacement could occur. Bear in mind that the one place a buried transit tunnel pair in the state already does this, the BART engineers were okay with crossing the San Andreas on the bottom of San Francisco Bay .

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[slashdotwannabe]

What is the square root of jack shit?

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[Rei]

but why would it be lighter than a conventional train?

The main reason is that hyperloop isn't designed to achieve throughput by bundling everyone together into (proportionally) rarely launched trains, but by frequently launching smaller trains fully under computer control - spacing on the order of a few minutes instead of a half hour or so. There's only 28 passengers per pod. That launch rate is easier than many other computer controlled transportation systems, mind you, because there's no intersections - the only thing you could possibly hit is the car in front of you or the car behind you, and only by doing something really ridiculous (it's also more than enough time to stop if something goes wrong, as per the calculations, and the numbers look quite realistic).

but at the least it's going to have to support the tube plus the train cars itself

The tube isn't actually as heavy as you might think. Unfortunately I dont have my numbers on me right now, but it works out to not materially change the picture.

Is it simply that new materials and not having to share tracks with existing trains allow for different, lighter construction?

The real enabling technology for this is high launch rate, and the enabling technology for that is computer control with a simplified control problem (one way, don't hit the car ahead of or behind you). Yes, they'll use modern materials to try to keep things light, but that's not the key factor; the key factor is spreading out the load. It also adds a great deal of convenience for passengers - near constant departures and quick to get in and out of. The proposal really has more in common with a roller coaster ride than with a train: frequent small cars, quick loading and unloading, computer control maintaining spacing, etc.

But I'm concerned that it might be too optimistic

In the beginning I did too. But I've read the proposal and cross-referenced the numbers, and I'm sold. The cost figure is totally different from rail because it's really nothing like rail. For example, the track construction is far more like pipeline construction (really, it *is* a pipeline construction), so you need to compare to pipeline construction costs, not track construction costs. And it actually favors comparably with most types of pipeline, like oil pipeline, which are bogged down in environmental regulations and almost always lots of lawsuits, plus face high construction costs from having to generally go through wilderness areas, and a ton of other things. In most aspects oil pipelines have a far tougher time of it; the only thing that Hyperloop has harder is establishing and maintaining tolerances (but they have some very good proposed solutions for achieving the them quickly and affordably).

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably a complex imaginary number.

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[Anonymous Coward]

"just happened to have a ton of cash"?
How does that "just happen", hmmm? Did he inherit? Nope. Did he steal it? Nope?
So he, completely by accident over 5 years founded TWO successful online businesses that "just happened" to net him $185 million. Somehow, a big chunk of that accidental cash was used to cause a company called SpaceX to spontaneously erupt into existence and Musk, not happy with the various coincidences in his life, including being the father of twins AND triplets was out for a walk, tripped over an engineering whiz named JB Straubel - and a ton of cash ( minus the 1/2 ton invested in SpaceX).
And so Tesla Motors was (accidentally) born.

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[Rei]

It's funny, but there's really three analogies I use to explain the "whats" and "whys" of the hyperloop concept, and one of them is a roller coaster (the other two being the "super-high altitude airplane" analogy and the "building a pipeline" analogy).

Compare a roller coaster ride with going on a train. Are roller coasters built suchly that you have to wait half an hour or more between rides because they haul many hundreds of people at once? Do you have to spend 5 minutes boarding and later 5 minutes disembarking because of the scale? Does a pilot have to take the controls to maintain spacing and occasionally handle the risks of merging traffic and the like? And the tracks massively heavy and expensive to support these giant roller coaster cars?

No, of course not. Roller coasters are well optimized. Roller coaster cars are small, maybe two dozen or so riders at once. Because of this, they load and unload quickly. They're predominantly computer controlled with only a bit of human "central control" to send craft on their way and the like. They're all "expressways", no intersections, so all the computer has to do is make sure that it's not too close to the cars ahead of or behind it. Because the cars are small, the track can be made light, which makes it a lot cheaper.

Hyperloop implements the roller coaster paradigm to a tee.

That said, the current stage they're at, I wouldn't put people on it. They need to make sure that things are going to go as expected. Most of what they're doing is mature tech, but a few of the things, like the air-bearing skis, are going to need a lot of testing to prove their reliability. Right now they need a proof of concept and to iron out the basics. The next step up, where they have to prove the predicted reliability, repeatability, throughput, economics, maintenance etc, that would be more of the stage where an amusement part ride would be a possibility. Though I'd personally prefer that their next testing stage be built as something that, if it goes well, one could just expand into an actual hyperloop route. Maybe several dozen kilometers here - that should be enough room to accelerate up to top speed, coast a bit and deal with some curves and the like, then decelerate back down. And if it works out well, I have trouble picturing that some Vegas casino magnates wouldn't pay to link it up between them and LA. 6-ish billion dollars to enable millions of people in the LA area to pop over to Vegas in half an hour for $20 and unload a couple hundred dollars in the casinos? The amount of additional traffic they'd get would pay that off in a heartbeat.

Although... hmm, you know, they designed Hyperloop to limit passenger vertical acceleration to 1G and lateral acceleration to 0,5Gs, for reasons of passenger comfort - but not reasons of structural integrity or acceleration capability. So you know, even on actual routes, they actually could potentially let people purchase tickets to a... ahem... less G-force limited experience. ;) It'd require more car spacing, so the tickets would cost more, but when your base price is only $20... Plus, you'd get there a little faster. ;)

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[Anonymous Coward]

no, that only proves you are a fool

and Mr T pities you!

actually, has anyone seen Mr.T and Elon Musk together?

Re:"plenty of flat land to go around

[jfengel]

Thanks for that. That really helps improve the perspective.

Nevada

[Anonymous Coward]

Nevada would likely be a better choice than Texas because of it's high altitude and large flat areas. Of course there are likely other states that would be even better.

My guess is he's trying to get Texas to let him sell Tesla's directly in the state. That's why he's dangling this carrot in front of them.

Re:Nevada

[Immerman]

What does altitude have to do with anything? When you're shooting for a relatively strong vacuum a drop of a few percent in the ambient pressure isn't particularly useful, especially after you add in the human-exposure safety margins.

Re:Nevada

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, I never thought I'd see the day when all of the following were included in a rant about new transportation technology:

1. Americans are stupid
2. Immigration
3. Obama complaints
4. Castro complaints (and by extension, communism)
5. Putin complaints (see above)
6. Pelosi complaints

Re:Nevada

[jcr]

Congratulations on learning to type. Now, go away and work on coming up with something worth saying.

-jcr

Re:Nevada

[Anonymous Coward]

The hyperloop doesn't use a strong vacuum. It uses a weak vacuum, avoiding the Kantrowitz limit by using fans to move air from in front to behind it.

And the original proposal was for a route which would run from the NoCal to SoCal. There are only a handful of places in the country where such a system could possibly be economically feasible. That route runs mostly at sea level, as do most routes where this might make sense--Northeast, Texas, Florida.

Re:Nevada

[vix86]

Another angle people need to keep in mind is that Texas is a prime target for a hyperloop in general. Some of the documents put out by the Hyperloop Transportation Technologies group, say that a loop between Dallas, Huston, and Austin would be very profitable. If the test track works then it could entice Texas to let them build a real one.

Re:Nevada

[KingMotley]

Actually, a great location would be fermi-lab in Batavia, IL. Plenty of space there considering they built it for the large collider, in fact, he could probably build it right above the collider ring and there should be very little no/resistance and no environmental impact. Not to mention the near access to some of the countries best minds right on campus.

He didn't say that

[towermac]

"where presumably there is plenty of flat land to go around"

Other states have plenty of room for a 5 mile test track. I'd bet a dollar that Rhode Island could find room for it. I wonder why California didn't pop to mind, especially since he lives there.

He said Texas because they will be glad to see it, and get him some building permits quickly. In other states, some more than others, it takes a long time to get approval for these things. Not just business-wise; impact studies and environmental studies and social studies... And a good chance that your project would become a political football in the meantime.

It wasn't because of flat land.

Re:He didn't say that

[oic0]

Louisiana for example you would likely run across some ditch classified as wet lands. California you would probably cut down a tree with an endangered mosquito colony... etc... I could see Nevada or New Mexico though.

Re:He didn't say that

[monkeyzoo]

Quick! Tell California to stop the groundbreaking on their $60B high speed rail boondoggle which is only $10B funded right now.
Don't get me wrong, I support the idea of high-speed rail, but this project is "off the rails" and multiple studies have shown it will neither be economically viable nor a practical solution for its intended purpose of getting people off the highways (mostly because of the complete lack of the all-important "last mile" solution in California).

Re:He didn't say that

[TheSync]

I wonder why California didn't pop to mind, especially since he lives there.

Looking at CA solar plant permitting processes, it generally takes about 2 years to get a permit now - unless you get turned down.

Re:He didn't say that

[Ichijo]

multiple studies have shown it will neither be economically viable

Those studies were funded by people who hope it won't be economically viable, so their findings aren't surprising.

nor a practical solution for its intended purpose of getting people off the highways

That's true. Creating an alternative to driving won't necessarily reduce driving. The real purpose of HSR is to be a vastly cheaper way of moving people around than highways and airports. For example, spending $68.4 billion on HSR will fulfill the same transportation demand as spending $119.0 billion for 4,295 new lane-miles of highway plus $38.6 billion for 115 new airport gates and 4 new runways.

Re:He didn't say that

[hamburger lady]

get him some building permits quickly

and more importantly, look the other way if the whole thing explodes killing a dozen people.

all he has to do is promise to load up the location with a few thousand pounds of explosive fertilizer and texas will give him a huge tax rebate.

Re:He didn't say that

[HornWumpus]

All you have to do is assume 100% utilization of HSR, no HSR ongoing subsidies, HSR coming in on budget, no switching to larger airplanes and not allowing existing lanes to carry more traffic.

Talk about getting what study funders want.

HSR project should proceed by buying right of way. Not starting to build.

It should end at the furthest spur of existing local rail (cal train or capital corridor amtrak for SF for example) and not run to city centers.

Politics make that impossible. Billions must be spent running HSR (at low speeds) into the centers of cities to get votes.

Re:He didn't say that

[towermac]

I live in FL. Rick Scott turned down that money and you guys were 2nd in line.

Basically, he said it would end up being a curse. Was he right?

Good luck.

Re:He didn't say that

[Anonymous Coward]

This doesn't make sense at all. Roads and airports require continuous subsidies, and have the same budget issues that any large public works project does, including railways. Larger airplanes require additional airport facilities.

Re:He didn't say that

[HornWumpus]

Every commercial airport in the USA pays its own way and spins off significant local payments. You are simply wrong about that.

For decades gas taxes more than paid for roads and also paid for amtrak etc. That has changed recently with better gas mileage cars and needs to be fixed. Don't believe the BS, I've seen morons claiming gas taxes are a road subsidy.

Gates are typically built to handle the largest airplane the runway can handle. In any case just assuming the same mix of airplanes then claiming to need many new runways is lying with statistics.

Re:He didn't say that

[Anonymous Coward]

Rick Scott is a convicted felon, who cares what shit comes out of his mouth. Of course if you prefer Marco polo rubio's method of bringing more goddammed H1-b's in faster than a muslim swimming up the rio grande than i guess you like taking it in both ends.

I don't think this is the end of America. I mean, why mess with a good scam?

Re:He didn't say that

[DNS-and-BIND]

Let's not forget environmentalists and other anti-free market activists who oppose ANY development on principle. They'll do their best, spend cash, whatever it takes, to stop whatever you're doing.

Re:He didn't say that

[Ichijo]

Every commercial airport in the USA pays its own way...

Does any airport pay property taxes on land used for airport operations? In fact, did any airport pay for the land it sits on? Has an airline ever built an airport?

Re:He didn't say that

[towermac]

Well, he's the elected governor here, and has the power to turn down big Federal money for high speed rail (and that's all it can be used for).

So we care. And some of us, that want to see reality for what it is, and not what the news tells us it is; are now curious if he turns out to be right in saying no thanks. It was a big deal here.

Re:He didn't say that

[hawguy]

Quick! Tell California to stop the groundbreaking on their $60B high speed rail boondoggle which is only $10B funded right now.
Don't get me wrong, I support the idea of high-speed rail, but this project is "off the rails" and multiple studies have shown it will neither be economically viable nor a practical solution for its intended purpose of getting people off the highways (mostly because of the complete lack of the all-important "last mile" solution in California).

I thought it was supposed to compete with airlines where the "last 20 mile" problem has already been solved -- the HSR is even better in that it can go closer to downtown areas.

I'd be more likely to take the train to LA rather than fly if it really makes the trip in less then 4 hours. It takes me 30 minutes to get to the airport (an hour early to make sure I can get through security), then 90 minutes to make the flight (add 30 minutes if I checked a bag), then an hour to get to my destination from the aiport (only about 10 minutes from one of the proposed stations).

As it is now, I usually drive since the gas costs less than the plane ticket, and even though it's couple hours longer to drive, I have the convenience of having my car when I get there... and I can leave when I want to, I don't have to leave my aunt's birthday party early to catch a flight -- which would also be the case if there were frequent train services, a 1000 passenger train doesn't sell out as quickly as a 200 passenger airplane.

Re:He didn't say that

[hawguy]

It should end at the furthest spur of existing local rail (cal train or capital corridor amtrak for SF for example) and not run to city centers.

Why add an hour+ to HSR by stoping in Gilroy instead of downtown SF and make passengers transfer to already crowded commuter trains? Unless your goal is to kill HSR, that seems unreasonable -- people don't want to transfer among 3 modes of transit (which is inconvenient and adds unnecessary time).

I'd be a lot less likely to take HSR if I had to fight commute hours loads on Caltrain with my 2 suitcases.

Politics make that impossible. Billions must be spent running HSR (at low speeds) into the centers of cities to get votes.

HSR must be run in the center of cities to get passengers.

Re:He didn't say that

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm almost positive gas taxes never paid for construction of the road network, which was the discussion here, even if they did mostly, some of the time, cover some of the maintenance costs.

The fact that no private entities (e.g. airlines) ever propose or build new airports also belies your second point.

Re:He didn't say that

[Anonymous Coward]

It was also because he's lobbying Texas to allow direct sales. He teased Texas with building the battery factory there, and needs something to make Texas lawmakers feel like they're voting for a home company.

Re:He didn't say that

[Anonymous Coward]

http://my.teslamotors.com/advocacy_texas
Under the current Texas Occupations Code (TEX OC. CODE ANN. 2301.476), Tesla is unable to sell its vehicles directly to the public because it has no franchised dealer relationships in Texas (or anywhere else in the U.S.). This regulation not only affects Sales, but also Service of Tesla vehicles for existing customers.

I think he chose Texas to build goodwill in the state.

Re:He didn't say that

[Gavagai80]

The real purpose of HSR is to be a vastly cheaper way of moving people around than highways and airports.

The problem is, HSR tickets are likely to be more expensive than plane tickets or gas money... and that means few people are going to use it, which means you still have to pay for the highways and airports.

Re:He didn't say that

[Anonymous Coward]

In principle I agree with you. But the original proposal required bulldozing substantial portions of downtowns on the peninsula to add the extra trackage. It proved politically untenable. The compromise was to stop short of San Francisco, but to _upgrade_ the existing CalTrain. This has been the impetus for CalTrain to fund electrification, and it's why CalTrain will be extended to run underground to the new TransBay Transit Center being built near 1st and Mission.

I live in the Outer Richmind, and while I support HSR, what I really care about is not having to spent 45 minutes to an hour on the bus, *each* *way*, commuting to and from downtown. Theoretically I chose to live in the city so I didn't have to waste so much time commuting. (Until recently I lived close enough to downtown to walk to work.) The Geary Bus Rapid Transit project isn't schedule to begin service until 2019, and it's still going to be at least 30 minutes downtown. WTF!? Build a mother-fscking subway underneath Geary, already!

Personally, I think MUNI is dragging their feet because the 38-Geary probably makes MUNI a ton of money. It's the most crowded line in the city, and packed night and day. The 38 pays for MUNI to keep running all their smaller routes elsewhere around the city. From their perspective, why touch something that is working for them revenue wise, especially when it means diverting development funds? Yes, there are a ton of unhappy 38 (and 1, 2, 5, and 31) passengers commuting from the Richmond, but the money-to-pain ratio works in favor of keeping their focus elsewhere.

Anyhow, Geary Blvd is like the most obvious place in the whole mother-fscking country to put a subway. If DC was finally able to build the Silver Line, why can't SF build the Geary subway? Driving or taxiing to Dulles definitely sucked, but it's not like the Silver Line will drastically improve the daily lives of tens of thousands of human beings overnight. If anything the Silver Line will make Blue- and Orange-line commuters lives' even more horrendous.

Re:He didn't say that

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Not that I necessarily agree with his decision, but Florida is not California.

Travel between Northern and Southern California will continue growing enormously.

But there's little room for expansion of the major airports in Northern and Southern California because they're already surrounded by heavy commercial and residential development. LAX, SFO, and OAK are expanding into the water, but it's still very expensive, much more so than if they had more space. LGB is at capacity. Jet Blue's development of the LGB market is what drove down prices to ridiculously cheap levels during the 2000s (at one point it was easy to find a $50 airfare between San Francisco and LA), but now that LGB is full and the other airports are maxing out their capacity to accommodate budget carriers, prices have rocketed up.

I-5 can be easily expanded in the Central Valley. But the problem is that most people will begin and end their journeys deep in the Bay Area and Los Angeles metropolitan areas, and there's like no room whatsoever to expand highways there.

HSR makes a _ton_ of sense in California, at least on paper. Whether it works out will come down to execution. It would be really nice if we got rid of term limits and kept Jerry Brown as governor-for-life.

I grew up in Florida. Honestly, I'm definitely skeptical of high-speed rail in Florida, although I grew up on the panhandle, which skews my perspective. But as a Californian with half a brain, HSR makes all the sense in the world to me. You have no idea how common it is to travel the 500 miles between the two metropolitan areas. Family and business ties keep people moving back-and-forth constantly, 24/7. While I-5 is rarely backed up, it's still _heavily_ trafficked at all hours of the day and night. Not even I-95 through New York City is that busy at nighttime. It's crazy.

Re:He didn't say that

[HornWumpus]

Airports must be built in the center of cities to get passengers.

Do you see how stupid that is?

HSR going into the cities is a payoff, pure and simple. After the cities burn through 'their share' of the money the plan will go back to existing routes.

Re:He didn't say that

[towermac]

I'm in the Tampa Bay area. They were considering Orlando - Clearwater, as a beach is the only thing Orlando doesn't have.

"skeptical of high-speed rail in Florida"

So was I. Why did we need a ultra modern and expensive bad-ass foreign train that got there in 45 minutes, when a regular train for a fifth of the money would get you there in an hour and a half? One has all kinds of strings attached to years of smothering debt; the other, anybody could build, and possibly make money, although they would have already, if they thought so.

So, maybe a little help from the state, would get us a cool train that cut down on beach traffic and improved quality of life. A good value to subsidize the train operator so he makes a profit. But no, it had be billions and billions (and matching funds too); or nothing.

So far, we got no train of any kind. Perhaps we didn't really need it. For sure, CA can use it. I wonder now why they dangled it in front of us in the first place. Could it have just been political theater, again? Because Rick Scott really did come off looking like an asshole there.

Re:He didn't say that

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, air travel definitely doesn't pay its way. I used to think it did, until an academic who actually studied the subject corrected me.

For starters (and I'm googling as I go to verify stuff I remembered being told):

1) Fees don't come close to covering the cost of actually building the gates, runways, and other airport infrastructure. Airports are built with tax dollars using municipal bonds. At best fees cover ongoing maintenance.

2) It costs the FAA $10 billion per year for air traffic control and safety regulation of the airlines alone. Taxes and airport fees don't pay for that crap because those funds are depleted paying for other stuff, like security. By contrast, the Federal Highway Budget is $50 billion. And although gas taxes aren't enough, they still cover a substantial portion of that $50 billion. I dunno how useful this metric is, but people traveled 581 billion miles on domestic commercial airlines in 2012. By contrast people traveled about 4.3 trillion miles on the highways. Even if you include state highway budgets, I'm fairly sure highways come out ahead in terms of cost+benefit.

3) TSA budget is $7 billion. They only take in $2 billion in fees. By contrast, in 2005 (the only year I could easily find relevant numbers) the California Highway Patrol's total budget was about $1.5 billion, and they took in about $500,000 in traffic fines alone (i.e. not counting commercial vehicle taxes and fees). And on a passenger-mile basis CHPs is arguably providing much more benefit than the TSA.

Anyhow, as you can see, we were both woefully wrong about how "free market" air travel is. It's no better than highways, and perhaps even worse.

Re:He didn't say that

[Anonymous Coward]

That should be $500 million in traffic fines, not $500 thousand.

Re:He didn't say that

[hawguy]

In principle I agree with you. But the original proposal required bulldozing substantial portions of downtowns on the peninsula to add the extra trackage. It proved politically untenable. The compromise was to stop short of San Francisco, but to _upgrade_ the existing CalTrain. This has been the impetus for CalTrain to fund electrification, and it's why CalTrain will be extended to run underground to the new TransBay Transit Center being built near 1st and Mission.

I believe the plan is to run HSR on the Caltrain tracks all the way to the new Transbay building, which does require electrifying and upgrading caltrain tracks (and tunnelling up to the Transbay Terminal).

I live in the Outer Richmind, and while I support HSR, what I really care about is not having to spent 45 minutes to an hour on the bus, *each* *way*, commuting to and from downtown. Theoretically I chose to live in the city so I didn't have to waste so much time commuting. (Until recently I lived close enough to downtown to walk to work.) The Geary Bus Rapid Transit project isn't schedule to begin service until 2019, and it's still going to be at least 30 minutes downtown. WTF!? Build a mother-fscking subway underneath Geary, already!

It takes the Muni Metro L line at least 15 minutes to travel underground from the Forest Hill station to downtown and that's not nearly as far as traveling from the outer Richmond, so even if they spent billions of dollars digging a light rail subway for the 38, you're still not going to see much better travel times than 30 minutes to get downtown.

BRT is the way to go, building a new subway is hugely expensive, and doesn't buy much over BRT -- and light rail bstops tend to be more spread out because the stations are so expensive, so you might trade in 5 minutes less travel time for 5 minutes of extra walk time to the station.

Personally, I think MUNI is dragging their feet because the 38-Geary probably makes MUNI a ton of money. It's the most crowded line in the city, and packed night and day. The 38 pays for MUNI to keep running all their smaller routes elsewhere around the city. From their perspective, why touch something that is working for them revenue wise, especially when it means diverting development funds?

I don't think Muni cares about saving a few billion ollars in (mostly grant funded) capital costs, but they likely can't afford to take on any work on a new subway line while they still build the new line to Chinatown, and Richmond residents like yourself probably don't want to wait a couple decades for a better transit methord, BRT is not only cheaper but it's much faster to build.

Besides, when BRT breaks down, you're not stuck in a dark tunnel with no where to go, at least you can get out of the bus.

Re:He didn't say that

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing about HSR is that it can go into city centers not at high speed, but at 80 MPH. Why on Earth would you change to Caltrain in Gilroy when the train you were already on can just keep going up the Caltrain tracks to San Franscisco? Which is basically the plan here.

Re:He didn't say that

[hawguy]

Airports must be built in the center of cities to get passengers.

Do you see how stupid that is?

HSR going into the cities is a payoff, pure and simple. After the cities burn through 'their share' of the money the plan will go back to existing routes.

Airports are fundamentally different than trains. When a plane takes 90 minutes for a trip and a train takes 4 hours, getting the train to where the people want to go (or start from) is what's going to get them to take the train. If you stop the train at the far end of existing transit lines and the trip takes 6 hours and requires making 2 connections, few would take it, especially when it only takes about 6 hours to drive.

The only way people will take transit is if it's more convenient than the alternative.

Re:He didn't say that

[monkeyzoo]

Airports must be built in the center of cities to get passengers.

Huh? Most big city airports I can think of are 30-60 freeway driving minutes from the city center.

Re: He didn't say that

[Anonymous Coward]

The tunnel from embarcadero to west portal is 5.5 miles, and its 17 minutes including stops.

The distance from 25th Ave & Geary Blvd to Market St & Geary Blvd is 4.5 miles. It just seem farther because you spend an eternity on the bus!

I'm sorry, but unless you live in the Outer Richmond, you can't speak for us.

As for BRT, I enjoyed the Quito, Ecuador BRT for two months. However, less than half of the Geary BRT route will be on dedicated lanes. Furthermore, they're going to stop the limited service. Unless they drop a ton of stops, Geary BRT will not be that great. But anything would be an improvement over the current situation.

Re:He didn't say that

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly the point he was making to the person who claimed that a HSR *must* be built all the way into the center of cities to get passengers. They actually *don't* need to be built that far, they just need to have a convenient method to get people to the station.

Re:He didn't say that

[MachineShedFred]

Someone should tell the airlines that commercially available passenger flight will never work because of the complete lack of the all-important "last mile" solution.

That's been solved already, long ago.

Re:He didn't say that

[HornWumpus]

Is jumping from one train to another really that much of a problem? As you say the big $ train will be delivering CalTrain like performance in SF anyhow. You do it to get to south Oakland (better to get _out_ of S Oakland) on BART for fucks sake.

I think after SF exhausts 'it's share' (on endless environmental and NIMBY lawsuits) that's where it will end anyhow. Like I say, a payoff for support.

Re:He didn't say that

[HornWumpus]

Airports are paid for using parking fees from the passengers. They are built with bonds, usually issued by a non-profit airport authority, not the city. $10/day parking is the largest source of revenue for airports. They do typically get a law preventing private parking operators from undercutting them and make public transit access a low priority.

Any study that only looks at landing fees is obvious BS serving an agenda. Same as looking at CHP cost vs tickets while excluding the most expensive tickets they issue.

Making TSA employees federal employees was a disastrously bad decision. Talk about guaranteed cost inflation.

Re:He didn't say that

[hawguy]

Is jumping from one train to another really that much of a problem? As you say the big $ train will be delivering CalTrain like performance in SF anyhow. You do it to get to south Oakland (better to get _out_ of S Oakland) on BART for fucks sake.

Have you ever used public transit or trains? Changing trains *is* a big deal... for most of the same reasons people avoid connecting flights, I'll happily pay more money to avoid a flight connection.

First, it makes the trip longer (even if the connecting train is waiting and ready to go, the dwell time is limited by the slowest person to make the transfer, so figure at least 15 minutes for everyone to gather their luggage and move across the platform). But, and probably worse, it interupts whatever you're doing on the train, whether you're sleeping, working playing cards, whatever, you'll get an announcement 30 minutes before arrival to prepare to transfer so you wake up, get the family and luggage together, unplug your laptop, etc, then you carry everything to the new train and have to get all set up again with whatever you were doing (and if you were sleeping, you may not get back to sleep at all before you arrive in SF). And since Caltrain has no reserved seating, you may not be able to sit together with your party, and may not even get a seat at all and have to stand.

Transit connections suck, they are unavoidable in many cases, but convenient transit should not require them unnecessarily.

I think after SF exhausts 'it's share' (on endless environmental and NIMBY lawsuits) that's where it will end anyhow. Like I say, a payoff for support.

Caltrain needs to be modernized and electrified regardless of whether HSR travels on their tracks or not, so what different does it make if HSR trains travel along the tracks or not?

Re:He didn't say that

[monkeyzoo]

Often with trains from the airports to the city center.

Re:He didn't say that

[HornWumpus]

The SF peninsula is a dead end (short of dedicating a couple of lanes of the golden gate; which only gets HSR on to more super expensive real estate). HSR should eventually proceed more or less up the I-5 corridor. Eventually making it to Seattle and Vancouver. SF is a sideshow, truer words were never typed ;-).

Everybody is going to change modes at the end of their journey anyhow. Putting the terminus in downtown SF on makes things more convenient for residents of downtown. Is that worth billions? SF has reasonable well developed transit. There is no reason to go any further than the end of Caltrain and everybody knows it. The billions being paid are just a payoff to SF politicians.

Re:He didn't say that

[Anonymous Coward]

Here are some real numbers for a real airport:

http://media.flysfo.com/media/sfo/about-sfo/annual-operating-budget-fy1415-fy1516.pdf

Parking fees bring in less than 2% of revenue. Landing fees bring in over 8%.

However, I see that SFO does pay over $300 million to service debt. So they do seem to be paying their recent expansion without help from the city. But according to this (http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2005/01/24/daily29.html?page=all) SFO has one of the most expensive landing fees in the nation. I wonder how they're going to pay for the new runways and terminal expansions that will be necessary going forward.

According this (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/fitch-rates-san-francisco-intl-163600449.html) SFO is still carrying about $4.2 billion in debt, same as in 2005. That seems to be some kind of cap. The question is, is that level of spending sufficient to handle the necessary growth in intra-state travel without public financing?

Re:He didn't say that

[MachineShedFred]

Or those silly rental car counters. And bus / taxi service. Or someone you know having their car in a close-by parking lot. Because none of these things happen thousands of times a day at airports.

Finally

[amRadioHed]

Finally a use for that giant abandoned circular tunnel that's been sitting out in Texas for the last few decades.

Re:Finally

[SeaFox]

What location are you speaking of?

Re:Finally

[hamburger lady]

the "SeaFox Home For Retarded People".

he's referring to the SSC. it was kind of a big deal.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Here ya go - http://www.amusingplanet.com/2010/12/abandoned-remains-of-superconducting.html

Re:Finally

[Immerman]

Except that it's over 10x too long for the proposed test track.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

SSC

And everyone is supposed to know what that SSC stands for? I do not understand why people insist on using acronyms without first defining them. While I know there was a collider that was being built in Texas some time ago, even I do not know what SSC is supposed to stand for. The collider is not even remarkable enough to stand apart from the other SSC's on the SSC disambiguation article on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSC . How anyone is supposed to get Superconducting Super Collider from SSC without having an idea what it means beforehand is beyond me. Hell, for all I know, I could have guessed wrong myself and you may have meant this SSC, since that is kind of a big deal to some people as well.

Re:Finally

[hamburger lady]

dude, this is supposed to be a tech site. if you can't figure out what "SSC" refers to in regards to "a giant ring in texas" you need to have your head examined.

i dunno, maybe you're 13 years old. in which case congratulations on discovering the internet! please be careful.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, Obama...

Re:Finally

[bobbied]

Except that it's over 10x too long for the proposed test track.

That and I don't' believe the tunnels where completed all the way around... Anybody know?

Re:Finally

[SeaFox]

the "SeaFox Home For Retarded People".

he's referring to the SSC. it was kind of a big deal.

I apologize, asshole.

Some of us aren't as obsessed with basement structures as you, and I don't make a point of remembering every failed government project.
Especially ones that are a almost a decade gone.

Re:Finally

[Immerman]

Build it anyway, we could get a supercollider yet!

Re:Finally

[Gizan]

Dunno if its relevent, But my uncle still owns the first and last 6 Inches of the SCC here in texas!

Re:Finally

[SeaFox]

Thanks AC.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

if you can't figure out what "SSC" refers to in regards to "a giant ring in texas" you need to have your head examined.

That sounds pretty kinky, so I guess I was right with second assumption. Otherwise, IDNH ATA to ATQ.

But maybe I went about it all wrong. Perhaps I should have just went with the first thing I get with a search on Google: http://www.ebarassc.co.jp/ . Is the Shounan Sports Center in Texas? I am not a geographicalologistopher, so I have no idea.

dude, this is supposed to be a tech site.

Why would you talk about kink or a sports center then? This is much too confusing.
 

But seriously, if you know all the acronyms for aboslutely everything discussed here without ever having to look anything up, bravo. However, not everyone has your acumen for absolutely everything that exists, has ever existed, or does not yet exist. There are far too many subjects discussed here that I am fairly certain that the majority of people who come to this site cannot possibly know them as well as you apparently do.

Even technical papers define acronyms before using them as a matter of course, and that includes cases where the intended audience has a high probability to know what an acronym means and which version of the acronym is meant. It is simply better to say what you mean instead of assuming others can figure it out.

Re:Finally

[rubycodez]

it's only almost a third of a circle, they stopped at 14.6 miles out of 51

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

But now we can't lord our superior knowings. For shame.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Here you go, as linked by this guy.

Unless the test track is planning on being circular, it does not matter that the ring is incomplete. And considering this is just the first step to something that might be used for traveling long distances at high speeds, a long test track or two that simply is used to go back and forth may be better anyway.

It is probably cheaper and more useful for testing purposes to use land above ground though.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

30 year old here, have to agree with GP, no idea wtf SSC is.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy crap! We had chemistry class together!

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

30 year old here, have to agree with GP, no idea wtf SSC is.

Don't worry about hamburger lady, s/he's just a pissed off old Texan, now get off his/her lawn you young whipper-snapper!

Re:Finally

[N1AK]

If you need to be obsessed with something to remember something this notable then you've got memorisation issues. Just because hamburger was a dick responding to you, doesn't mean that the SSC wasn't big enough that it's reasonable to expect people to remember it.

Re: Finally

[hamburger lady]

That's funny, googling "SSC Texas ring" brings up pages of links all about the superconducting supercollider. Nothing about any sports complex.

Re: Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

That's funny, I thought you knew everything? Nice little filter bubble you have got there. My own gives Japanese results before English: the Shounan Sports Center sits right at the top, followed by the Japanese version of the SSC disambiguation page on Wikipedia.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

No, judging from hamburger lady's other posts on this site, I am pretty sure he/she/it thought it was hilarious to insult someone who did not know everything that he/she/it does. He/she/it was likely trying to get modded as funny, but instead just showed that he/she/it is just a complete ass. Even 4chan bans shitheads like hamburger lady for being toxic.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

If you need to be obsessed with something to remember something this notable[citation needed] then you've got memorisation issues. Just because hamburger was a dick responding to you, doesn't mean that the SSC wasn't big enough that it's reasonable to expect people to remember it.

There are many uses for SSC, and more than one of them are related to technology. How is someone supposed to determine which SSC is being talked about?

Not everyone remembers everything they are exposed to, let alone things they are not exposed to. Hell, I have lived just north of Dallas for the last 20 years, and I am fairly certain this is the first I have heard about a cancelled collider project being south of the city.

Digital Age?

[rtb61]

I thought in the digital age we were meant to be working on less reasons for travel. Tourism, sure fun and nice and an economic bonus when it is not let get out of hand because tourism is really kind of a bad idea. You know, sucks up huge amounts resources and generates large levels of pollution, denies access to locals at the tourist venues and is only seasonal creating an abandoned work force or another immigrant workforce, for 'er' way poorer tourists. Want to invest money in something new, consider the Arcology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A..., a place where many can live, work and play, year round with minimal total impact and where people do not feel the need to escape from a regular intervals. The arcology is really cool because of course it is the needed stepping stone to a space colony. The importance of recycling, conservation of resources, energy balancing, habitability, nutritional sources, safety issues, leisure activities all can be tested in the arcology. Stop looking to tweaking the past and start looking to preparing for the future and virtual digital travel is far more likely the future, rather than trying to pretend you are the idle rich for only two weeks in every year.

Re:Digital Age?

[vux984]

Want to invest money in something new, consider the Arcology ...

I'd definitely want to visit it, maybe spend a week, see how it works, perhaps take a tour. Why I bet you'd be able to fund it with tourism.

("your head asplode")

Re:Digital Age?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Humans like to explore. Those who never leave home (or the Arc) get labelled "provincial" for a reason. Those with the means to travel do, and it expands their cultural horizons, and the ones who don't get labelled as closed-minded. Those without the means but with enough pluck and drive become migrants (corollary: immigrants aren't the lazy ones). Travel has been a human thing since the first shaggy proto-humans left the Rift Valley, and space colonies, the goal of GP's teleological narrative, are just the newest variation on the theme. "Digital travel" doesn't cut it: looking at pictures on the internet in your Mom's basement is about as rewarding as jacking off to porn or watching sports on TV instead of playing them: neither is the real experience, and you don't get the benefits by doing it virtually.

Yes, it costs some resources to travel. It costs resources to eat and breathe and exist as well. Life comes with costs. We labor, we use some of the rewards of that labor to sustain ourselves and the rest to enrich our souls: if you have two loaves of bread, sell one and buy hyacinths, dude. If you don't know what that means, don't look to the digital or to a closed community for explanations. On the other hand, some people sell hyacinths, and even Soleri's Arcology takes in tourist revenue: the resources used for travel don't just disappear, because not much actually leaves the planet, which is pretty much a closed system except for incoming solar radiation. Don't feel guilty: feel enriched, maybe grateful, for the opportunity to travel.

Re:Digital Age?

[rubycodez]

bullshit, less than 14% of humans travel outside their country.

Re:Digital Age?

[towermac]

Past provincial, I'd go hermit, if I could get a window apartment in that arcology. But then, everybody would want one.

So apartments are in 4-plex pods that rotate, giving each apartment 6 hours of frontage. Or maybe 5, to break it up and everybody gets a sunrise now and then.

That'd be cool.

Re:Digital Age?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought in the digital age we were meant to be working on less reasons for travel.

I'm all for reducing unnecessary travel - better urban planning to put the houses and apartments next to the jobs and stores, eliminating bizarre immigration laws that require certain people to travel to certain places at certain times for no coherent reason, etc.

Tourism, sure fun and nice and an economic bonus...

But there's also something about the experience of looking out the window of your taxi at a ragged little five year old girl standing just a few feet away in the pouring rain in the middle of a busy intersection trying to sell a few wilted flowers just so she'll be able to eat that day - that you don't really get from flipping casually through an issue of National Geographic. Or if you have the opportunity to actually walk through a poor neighborhood in a developing country - the stifling tropical heat, and powerful smells of exhaust fumes and sewage from the channels along the walkways, and people looking out of the entries of the cramped little dwellings all jammed together. On one hand, the experience may haunt you for the rest of your life. But on the other hand, it may also give you a perspective that you couldn't get from CNN or Fox News.

Certainly there are people who have traveled the world who eventually decide to settle down to a profoundly selfish lifestyle. But, for others, international travel provides a unique opportunity to develop a more compassionate and understanding world view - something that is much needed, IMHO.

Re:Digital Age?

[rtb61]

Windows are grossly inefficient, poor insulators and not enough light. What was needed to make it work was very large screen high definition displays in every main room, so you get a view of your choice. Realistically the external skin would be used for solar panels and air-conditioning heat exchangers and the lowest levels for waste treatment and methane recovery and combustion and energy generation. Add in aquaponics for fresh locally produced food and you are part way there. Then you add in the correct mix of light industry, commercial, retail, entertainment and residential accommodation. Tourism is mostly out as it really does not mix in all that well with residential accommodation, so really only limited to guest accommodation related to visiting staff and potential residents and guests of residents.

Re:Digital Age?

[Toshito]

Want to invest money in something new, consider the Arcology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A..., a place where many can live, work and play, year round with minimal total impact and where people do not feel the need to escape from a regular intervals.

The digital age should give us the opportunity to live anywhere on earth, even in very remote areas, and still be able to do productive work. Not pile ourselves like sardines. If that's the future I don't want to be part of it.

Looks like a prison to me. I would rather die than live in one of these abomination.

Re:Digital Age?

[ToddInSF]

Two unrelated things misrepresented as an either-or issue. Are you sure you're not a politician ?

Re:Digital Age?

[rtb61]

It is about easy access to everything you need. Work, play, food, leisure activities and people are not sardines, even for me an introvert they are still fun. So it really just represents the ultimate in walk ability and as I said an essential in space colonisation. Don't want to be part of it, simply don't more into one, I really don't understand your problem. They will not be cheap and it's very unlikely they will ever fit into the welfare accommodation category or low income either accommodation or employment.

Re:Digital Age?

[towermac]

Windows are very efficient at letting me look outside. And my skin making vitamin D is a more valuable use of exterior walls than a few free electrons.

In the land of arcologies, electricity needed to be cheap in the first place.

Los Angeles to San Francisco in 28 minutes.

[Narcocide]

It would sure beat any other form of public transportation...

Re:Los Angeles to San Francisco in 28 minutes.

[HornWumpus]

To be fair, you should be comparing it to other fictional forms of transportation.

Re:Los Angeles to San Francisco in 28 minutes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong.

My teleportation system easily will beat outdated vacuum tunel.

Re:Los Angeles to San Francisco in 28 minutes.

[wbr1]

We need voter friendly measurements. Instead of "Los Angeles to San Francisco in 28 minutes.", we need "like crossing 20 Olympic swimming pools in 13 parsecs."

cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was hoping Elon would be content to just publishing his idea. Lots of people have thought about low pressure transportation tubes, for over a century, and none have been built for a reason. It will be very expensive.

High speed rail is just 2 steel rails, on top of cement blocks, on top of a bunch of rocks. Now, they are all high quality, and precisely laid. But the point is that, in spite of using cheap building materials, instead of something like titanium, double track, high speed rail lines are at least ~$40 million a mile. Imagine how much a vacuum tube, that carries people, will cost per mile.

But, high speed rail ultimately wins on volume. A high speed rail line can run 30 trains per hour. Each train could carry 1,600, or more people. Can hyperloop reach those volumes? Will the hyperloop tube stay intact for decades? Will hyperloop be too expensive to maintain?

I personally think Elon Musk is overhyped. I argue that the SpaceX cofounder, Tom Mueller, was more important that Elon Musk. If Mueller had the money, he could have founded SpaceX.

Re:cost?

[Atomic Fro]

I personally think Elon Musk is overhyped. I argue that the SpaceX cofounder, Tom Mueller, was more important that Elon Musk. If Mueller had the money, he could have founded SpaceX.

Overhyped or not, at least the man is using his money to move humanity forward towards the future we as children believed we would have been a part of by adulthood. The United States government would rather waste it on fighting undeclared wars around the globe than invest in good science. The other 1% would rather "fight" malaria, buy up entertainment companies, or let it sit in offshore accounts or floating around in the stock market where in reality its not doing anything productive.

If more of the 1% were like Musk, society would be much better off.

Re:cost?

[towermac]

"Imagine how much a vacuum tube, that carries people, will cost per mile"

Huh. A lot of plexiglass, some plastic, steel and concrete. No titanium needed. Caulk, air pumps and valves. Big fans maybe. But decently expensive (to develop, not to mass produce) electronics; granted.

I imagined it. It's not that much. The third one is practically cheap.

Re:cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Vacuum systems are really really really really expensive. How much is a railway? A little concrete, some steel, maybe some wires. And a highway? That's just some asphalt and paint!

Re:cost?

[w_dragon]

And hyperloop could, theoretically, move people and goods at several times the speed of sound for cheap, once the vacuum is established. Much faster than any other current method.

As to Musk being overhyped, he sold a game he programmed at age 12, was founder or co-founder of zip2, PayPal, spacex, tesla, and is credited with the concept of SolarCity. The only other person I can think of with that kind of diversity is Richard Branson. Maybe Paul Allen, but everything he's touched since Microsoft has failed. He certainly isn't always right, but he seems to have a knack for founding companies that work in areas that are just ahead of the curve.

Re:cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

*coughseahawkscough* *coughvulcancough* *coughttrailblazerscough*

Re:cost?

[Areyoukiddingme]

Vacuum systems are really really really really expensive.

Really? And that does 75 microns. Which translates to slightly better than a 99.99% vacuum. The Hyperloop is expected to operate at about 1000 microns. The extra superlatives apply when you're trying to build a giant particle accelerator, but Elon Musk specifically chose the point on the vacuum pump curve where that reduced pressure is achievable without falling off a cliff in terms of cost. Expensive, yes. But not vastly more expensive than any other part of the system.

Re:cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are confusing the hyperloop with a full vacuum tube. The hyperloop has air in it. Therefore it will never allow pods to travel faster than the speed of sound.

Re:cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

No doubt it will be expensive -- but it may just be economical because it is slightly different than other vacuum tube designs. It does not require a full vacuum, which is expensive and dangerously fragile.

Most of the hyperloop consists of a steel pipe. Steel pipe is not cheap, but that is all that is there. Compare that to the infrastructure required for a high-speed rail line. And the big cost of high speed rail is the wide swath of land that has to be purchased. Hyperloop would generally be on pylons -- also not cheap, but cheaper than purchasing land.

The key to the capacity of the hyperloop is the ability to send pods in quick succession. This raises the capacity to levels that compete with (affordable) high speed rail. Also, it does not require queuing to achieve capacity like trains and airplanes. So walk in to a station and jump on a pod with a dozen people within 15 minutes.

Re:cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not the pumps, it's sealing everything. If you need to place, power, and maintain, a $100 pump every 5 meters down all of California, it is not actually cheap.

Re:cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

A high speed rail line requires steel rods -- cheaper than pipe, no? You could also put it on pylons if you wanted. People don't, in general, because putting it on the ground is way cheaper. There are exceptions to this -- some of the Chinese lines are elevated, I think -- but it's fairly rare.

The thing that is just completely insane about this is that we have a perfectly well-known technology (high-speed rail) that has been successfully deployed all around the world for many years, that is completely straightforward, and integrates well into the existing transport network. Then we have some techno-utopian pipedream that betrays a total lack of understanding of civil engineering or planning (did you know a ton of people live in the central valley and might not want to be bypassed?) and that some financier wrote on a napkin. Why do we talk about these things as comparable again?

It's just another manifestation of Silicon Valley's amazing levels of narcissism, of a piece with Uber's we-can-run-an-illegal-cab-service-if-we-pretend-we-are-a-tech-company nonsense.

Re:cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

You wouldn't travel faster than the speed of sound, but the speed of sound changes depending on the temperature of the air. And as you go up, it gets colder. So even though the speed of sound is ~760 mph at a normal 20 deg C, it's lower temperature and lower speed up at commercial jetliner cruising altitude, down to ~660 mph. So just by being warmer, you can gain 100 mph over jets. Not enough on its own, but the hyperloop idea does have other benefits.

Re:cost?

[Rei]

If you need to place, power, and maintain, a $100 pump every 5 meters down all of California, it is not actually cheap.

Congratulations, Citizen, I have good news! You don't have to put a pump every 5 meters all down California! Even the *pylons* are, as per the design, 100 meters apart. And the tube is only even *capable* of being opened once every several dozen kilometers. The positioning for the pumps is described as "several locations" (aka, not millions like you're picturing), and the total estimated cost for the pumps for the whole system, at current market rates, is $10m. Two tenths of a percent of the tube construction cost estimate.

Re:cost?

[jklovanc]

Notice that the pump you reference has a 2.5 CFM air capacity. The tube will have leaks and the pumps will have to be powerful enough to move enough air.

Re:cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Rail is expensive because you have to buy a lot of land in premium locations, and deal with NIMBY crap.

Hyperloop is mostly above ground, bypassing these problems.

Re:cost?

[Rei]

Even more, the air in the tubes passing through the compressors is going to heat it. Now, you've got a lot of uninsulated surface area for the tube... on the other hand, air at such low pressures is itself a pretty good insulator. I wonder if you'd have a measurable impact on the air temperature? Or, if you wanted to, whether you could *deliberately* (and practically) raise the air temperature (insulated tube, etc)?

Re:cost?

[Rei]

A high speed rail line requires steel rods -- cheaper than pipe, no?

Yes. But the cost of the steel in the track in a high speed rail project is only a tiny fraction of the total costs. BTW, you can double check Musk's tube estimate (I did), they're quite realistic compared to other "large pressuretight steel tube" project costs. He's basically building a pipeline, but instead of pumping oil or water through it, he's shooting people through it.

You could also put it on pylons if you wanted. People don't, in general, because putting it on the ground is way cheaper. There are exceptions to this -- some of the Chinese lines are elevated, I think -- but it's fairly rare.

As per my comment earlier, this is an erroneous comparison. Rail spends 99% of it's time unloaded, then for 1% of its time is loaded very heavily, an order of magnitude higher than the peak loads for Hyperloop. Consequently you have to have dramatically stronger pylons for an elevated rail line. Think monorail pylons, not conventional rail pillars.

we have a perfectly well-known technology (high-speed rail)

Unfortuantely, one of the things we know perfectly well about it is that it's ridiculously expensive. I'm not saying this to be mean, it's just a fact.

Compare this project to an oil pipeline.

* Loadings (weight) on the supports in oil pipelines will be *far, far* higher.
* Environmental approval in an oil pipeline will be *far, far* harder, and environmental constraints on construction will be far more severe.
* Oil pipelines generally move through wilderness and private land, rather than above already-prepared and already permitted land, and are often built in remote (read: expensive) areas.
* Both require the occasional pump or other regularly spaced infrastructure (honestly, an oil pipeline's is more complicated - you have to also maintain its temperature within a certain range, you require a lot more sensors, oil pumps are more expensive than vacuum pumps, etc)

We'll leave the terminals out of this for now. Given that, one would think that an oil pipeline of the same diameter would cost several times as much? Well, let's see, what's the average rate for oil pipeline construction these days. This says $200k per inch per mile, a 3-fold increase in 8 years driven in large part by "new industry regulations and practices to reduce right-of-way and minimize environmental effects" (again, reinforcing that oil pipeline should be far costlier per unit distance to build than hyperloop track). What would an oil pipeline the diameter of hyperloop this cost? $6B each way, or $12B total. Hyperloop's track is expected to cost $4B. How is this not a reasonable estimate? Even if you go with the full cost of an oil pipeline over that difference, despite the orders of magnitude difference in loading and huge difference in environmental regulations and right of way problems that have tripled oil pipeline production costs in recent years, you still end up with a hyperloop track that costs way less than HSR.

Every number in Musk's proposal that I've cross-checked I've come away feeling it's probably realistic. It looks by all standards like they consulted industry experts to come up with their figures. The only way it looks "ridiculous" is when you make inapplicable comparisons like when people claim that the cost per mile would be like the per-mile cost of a rail bridge over a canyon and whatnot.

Re:cost?

[Rei]

To make the loading difference clear: here's the max loading for a 100 meter span (the spacing of the pillars) for different techs:

* Hyperloop capsule, loaded: 26 tonnes
* HSR train, loaded: Several hundred tonnes (caltrain locomotives alone weigh 190 tonnes)
* Oil pipeline: 332 tonnes (850kg/m * 100m * pi * (2.23m/2))

By spreading the loads out into many smaller, fast moving capsules, Hyperloop greatly reduces its track's required structural strength.

Re:cost?

[Rei]

Hmm, apparently Slashdot eats "to the second power" marks also. Hooray for Slashdot's excellent unicode support!

Re:cost?

[Sepulep]

on the other hand - compared to an oil pipeline, you need to maintain the alignment to a much greater precision for a hyperloop system, probably you need some way to actively compensate for thermal expansion, uneven heating, ground movement, wind buffeting etc..if you look at oilpipelines they are not straight at all and are probably free to move about a bit... dunno if this is included in the cost estimates

Re:cost?

[GauteL]

"I was hoping Elon would be content to just publishing his idea."

Why? It is hardly your money he is spending on testing this idea.

Re:cost?

[Rei]

Hmm, another thought: if instead of air you maintained a sparse methane atmosphere, you could get a 140% the speed you could in air. More challenging to maintain such an environment, of course, since leaks into the pipeline would be air (unless the pipeline was surrounded by a thin methane sheath). At least it wouldn't be flammable - at such low partial pressures, there's no amount of air that could leak in that would lead to a flammable mixture.

Ammonia has similar performance to methane, but it's corrosive, so methane would probably be a better choice than ammonia. Neon also has similar performance to methane, but is way more expensive.

For the excellent performers, helium has a speed of sound 3x higher than air, and hydrogen 4x higher. But helium is rare and increasingly expensive, while hydrogen embrittles steel, leaks through almost anything, and leaks into the atmosphere have adverse consequences to the ozone layer. So I imagine both of those options are out.

If one scrubbed oxygen from the pipeline, with any sort of easily-oxidized material placed regularly in the pipeline, you should be able to get a couple percent boost in max speed, nitrogen has a slightly higher speed of sound than oxygen. But whether that would be worth it, probably not, unless the oxygen is problematic in other ways.

All of that said, I think the best option would be water vapor; at such low pressures, any water in the tube will automatically vaporize. Such a low partial pressure should pose no rust risk (that's actually very dry!), it's cheap, and most importantly, your vacuum pumps can simply discharge it and you can just feed more into the pipeline as needed, there's no need to filter it out or neutralize it first or anything. The more you approach a 100% water vapor atmosphere, the more you approach having 150% the max speed that air would give you. Instead of the 1190 kph/740 mph that the current Hyperloop design tops out at, you could potentially go upwards of 1790 kph/1110 mph. The downside is of course the increased pumping effort to try to keep the atmosphere as close to 100% water vapor.

If one could achieve a practical average 1000mph then that's 2 1/2 to 3 hours New York to Los Angeles, depending on how straight the line would be. For an express that stayed in the countryside, that is; each stop along the way would cost time. Hopefully the system would be smart enough to let passengers bundle together into "express" pods and let them bypass stations they don't want to stop at (although the lower in-town speeds would still be a hindrance)

Re:cost?

[Rei]

True. Although to be fair oil pipelines often have to be built in places where the ground is terrible - for example, permafrost, bogs, etc, vs. the median of an already-built highway.

Hyperloop does have deflection calculations worked into the proposal. The uniformity of the interior surface proposed to be accomplished by mounting a rotating buffing disk to a pipe-crawling robot (like those already in use for sewer and water pipe maintenance), having it grind and polish out the welds and any irregularities in the steel as it goes. Since pipe-crawling robots are on the market today, I don't see this as a serious hurdle. Certainly way cheaper to accomplish then fighting protracted legal battles over environmental regulations ;)

Either way, the people saying that Hyperloop should cost many dozens or hundreds of billions of dollars are clearly out of the ballpark. That's just not what long elevated steel pipes and associated hardware cost.

Re:cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, apparently Slashdot eats "to the second power" marks also. Hooray for Slashdot's excellent unicode support!

Some character entity references do work (for example, ae ligature: æ), but neither ² () for superscript 2 nor Þ () works.

Texas!

[Anonymous Coward]

He could build it in the Super Conducting Super Collider. That's already dug out and a giant circle, right?

Re:Texas!

[bobbied]

He could build it in the Super Conducting Super Collider. That's already dug out and a giant circle, right?

I don't believe the tunnels where fully finished and as another poster pointed out, it's about 10X what he is looking for in size.

As a resident of Texas, I'd be more than wiling to let him have it though...

Re:Texas!

[Guspaz]

They had only dug a little more than a quarter of the ring when it was cancelled.

Re:Texas!

[Anonymous Coward]

He could build it in the Super Conducting Super Collider. That's already dug out and a giant circle, right?

I don't believe the tunnels where fully finished and as another poster pointed out, it's about 10X what he is looking for in size.

As a resident of Texas, I'd be more than wiling to let him have it though...

Link someone posted earlier said it's available for a mere $20M, I'd buy it if I had the cash.

Texas

[Anonymous Coward]

He could build it in the Super Conducting Super Collider. It's huge and circular and already mostly built right?

Re:Texas

[rubycodez]

no, no it's not mostly built. but if you want to accelerate people hard for 15 miles around an arc that dead ends, for the sake of hilarity....

an almost SuperSonic 5 miles?

[turkeydance]

might be for 40 feet.

Option to carry cars

[myid]

I hope the hyperloop will eventually cars like the Eurotunnel Shuttle.

Suppose you fly or take a train someplace. You have to get a ride to the station, or find a place to park your car at the station. Then you have to transfer your luggage (including presents at holiday time) to the plane or train. When you get to your destination station, you have pick up your luggage, then either rent a car or get a ride to your destination.

Now suppose you had the option of having the hyperloop carry your car. You and your spouse, kids, luggage, and presents all stay in the car. You drive to the hyperloop station, and drive your car onto a shuttle. When you get to your destination station, you all drive off in your car to your destination. And you have your own car to drive in - you don't have to rent a car. Much more convenient.

You'd have to pay for the hyperloop to carry your car. But you wouldn't have to pay for car rental, or for parking or transportation to the station near your home.

Re:Option to carry cars

[Anonymous Coward]

Totally agree here. I think this is the killer app of the hyperloop. Imagine being able to "drive" anywhere in the country in six hours.

Re:Option to carry cars

[Cochonou]

Personally, I would rather rent a car than have the train haul the mass of the car around. For an energy saving point of view, this does not make a lot of sense. However, the convenience does attract people, as about half of the chunnel passengers are transported in a car shuttle.

Re:Option to carry cars

[Rei]

There are two proposals in the initial Hyperloop document. One is for a passenger-only version. The other is for a passenger + vehicle version. The passenger-only version's estimate is $6B, while the passenger + vehicle version's estimate is $7,5B.

The estimated ticket price for a seat in the passenger-only version is $20 (amortizing the $6B cost over the number of passengers). No cost for transporting a vehicle is mentioned, but we can attempt to calculate it: if they have to amortize an extra $1,5B and there's 28 passengers per pod, plus 3 vehicles per pod in the extended version (as per the proposal), then each passenger-only pod is earning $560, so the vehicles need to earn an extra $140, so about $50 per vehicle, plus $20 per passenger who comes along with their car. So about $70.

Re:Option to carry cars

[Coren22]

Better price than Amtrack's VA to FL car train, that thing costs more than driving and paying for the hotel half way.

I love this man.

[Karmashock]

Really.

Here's 54 miles of hole in Texas...

[Richard Kirk]

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

The columns are engineered for earthquakes

[hamjudo]

An earthquake might move the ground north of a fault to the west, and the ground south of the fault to the east. The tube has to stay straight enough that the train can come to a complete stop safely. This means a whole bunch of columns will have to bend.

I have some concerns about this project...

[almitydave]

1) I would imagine this train would be quite loud.
2) How strong will the track have to be? Is there a chance it could bend?
3) So many primary roads are in a terrible state of disrepair, with cracks and potholes.
4) How will this program benefit those of us who lack a college education or proper hygiene?
5) Was Elon Musk sent here by the devil?
6) The ring came off my pudding can!

Florida Needs Musk

[JimSadler]

We have a huge issue with surface, high speed trains in Florida. There are plans to build an obnoxious express train from Miami to Orlando and Ft. Lauderdale to Orlando which would disrupt many other towns as they intend to run 35 high speed trains a day through these smaller towns. We have flat land and an ideal place to drill tunnels. What would be required is about 220 miles of high speed train tunnels in pretty much a straight line. The one issue that i do see is parking lots large enough to hold the thousands of cars that the train passengers would take to the rail head. Tampa to Orlando would be a smaller path and could be built with less expense.

futurama was right!!!!

[jakesyl]

Its finally here!