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Does Elon Musk's Hyperloop Make More Sense On Mars?

Posted by Soulskill on from the researching-future-tech dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Elon Musk's Hyperloop project has its challenges in places that have air. But in places with little air and no fossil fuels, where you can't fly and there's little drag, it makes a lot more sense. Post-doc researcher Leon Vanstone thinks the Hyperloop may have more of a future on Mars than here on Earth. He says, "Conservative cost estimates for building a single Hyperloop track from Los Angeles to San Francisco come in at US$6 billion. Taking the technology nationwide would cost hundreds of billions of dollars more. When you consider that normal, boring airplanes already travel at about 500-600 mph – about two-thirds as fast as the Hyperloop’s predicted speed – you might begin to wonder if an extra 200 mph is enough of a payoff for those hundreds of billions of dollars. ... Well, Elon Musk is no idiot, and he certainly has the money to hire some of the best and the brightest. ... A high-speed, safe, self-powered transportation system will be vital to connect Martian settlements – likely to be few in number and separated by large distances."

7 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. Wow by philmarcracken · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A train system designed to reduce friction has better metrics in a vacuum environment?

    You don't say.

    1. Re: Wow by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 3, Insightful

      A train in a vacuum is called a 'train', not a hyperloop. Nobody outside of journalism students thinks Musk was the first to have the idea, but perhaps he has the methodology to get it built.

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    2. Re: Wow by gstoddart · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There's also no passengers either.

      So, in the same way a roller coaster at the bottom of the Marianas Trench would be novel and have no competition ... debating how effective the hyper loop would be on Mars is kind of pointless.

      We've never put a human on Mars. Let's not start planning the transportation grid.

      Sorry, this is someone doing their post-doc work on science fiction, so I'm afraid I fail to see the point.

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  2. The cost of a single Airport. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Its easy to throw around big numbers to scare away people, US$6 Billion is the average price of an airport.
    You have to put things in perspective.
    Furthermore, how long is that of Iraq war? A few days? Hours? What's more important, to invest in our infrastructure or to wage illegal wars halfway across the globe?

  3. This is going nowhere by prefec2 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hyperloop is too expensive on earth and we will not be on Mars for at least 30 years. Before we have two cities on Mars which are that far away that a Hyperloop would be needed to reduce travel time, it will most likely need 100 or more years.

  4. The cart is so far in front of the horse... by Karmashock · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ... I think the cart is in the f'ing future...

    This is like asking if maybe telepathy would work better on Uranus. Lets build the stupid hyperloop and see if it works anywhere... or build something on mars that you'd need high speed transit between... and then we can ask these questions.

    As of now... the question baffles me.

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    1. Re:The cart is so far in front of the horse... by dave420 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So you assume there is absolutely nothing of value in examining Hyperloop? Comparing it to telepathy is strange, as telepathy requires a complete rewriting of the sciences in order to exist, whereas Hyperloop is not doing anything particularly novel, it's a combination of well-tested techniques and technologies.

      You don't sound very rational.