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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."

11 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 Dutch+Gun · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Also... because every single sci-fi movie *ever* has shown domed cities with tube-based vehicles shuttling people between them. It's not exactly the biggest mental leap to make.

      --
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    2. 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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    3. 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?

    1. Re:The cost of a single Airport. by halltk1983 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Also, a single Boeing 777 is $320 million (source: google it. It's in huge numbers at the top, with a link to this USA today article: http://www.usatoday.com/story/... ).

      A small airport hub's actual cost is $5.8 billion and a large one can be as much as $55 billion. Source: http://www.aci-na.org/static/e...

      In short, AC is right. We've spent hundreds of billions on airline travel, why would its replacement be significantly cheaper? Why are we more worried about the approximately equivalent financial cost, and less worried about the significant positive impact on the environment that this would have?

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

      For SFO to LAX we'd probably fly in a 737 not a 777 because it's more optimized for short haul. Published fuel economy for a 737 is 2.31 liters/100 km/passenger or about 102 mpg.

      We'll ignore the fact that airplanes are not always 100% full. We'll ignore the fact that an LAX to SFO trip won't realize that fuel economy--need a longer haul flight for that. We'll ignore all the other inefficiencies, like taxiing, routing, traffic, missed approaches, etc. We will also round up the distance from LAX to SFO from 543 km to 550.

      At 2.31 l/100 km x 180 pax x 550 km we get a minimum fuel burn of 990 liters for one flight or 267 gallons. While this is certainly better than us all driving there in our SUVs, it's already half the efficiency of us all getting in Prius's and making the trip (fully loaded Prius at 50 MPG/vehicle = 200 mpg with 4 pax).

      Hyperloop would almost certainly exceed the efficiency of our fully laden Prius. So if the infrastructure cost is the same, why wouldn't we want to build the more efficient choice? Hyperloop will have the advantage of dispatching in much smaller batches, so the occupancy factor should be higher than air travel. The convenience factor should be higher too. It's easy to imagine hyperloop sending a 'train' every 5 minutes. And since we don't need a massive airport with 2 mile long runways, hyperloop stations could be built in or near downtowns and main streets. Bury the last few miles of each line and you get the convenience of a subway, but it takes you directly to the downtown of another city. It's like European train travel, but better.

      Bring the future brother Elon.

  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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  5. Unless you sell the idea to... by DrTJ · · Score: 3, Funny

    the Mars One people. They'll have it up and running in 2017. Heck, they may event skip the rockets, why not build this thing from Los Angeles to the first city on mars?

    Thake the tube to mars. How difficult can it be?

  6. Ok, and? by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "Conservative cost estimates for building a single Hyperloop track from Los Angeles to San Francisco come in at US$6 billion."

    Is that supposed to sound expensive?

    SFO's two terminals cost well over $1 billion each in inflation adjusted dollars. The new tower was $350 million. I can't find numbers on the physical plants, like the runways, but I suspect they're similar. I think $5 billion for the entire airport is not unreasonable. LAX is significantly larger and more expensive; they're spending $270 on elevator repairs alone.

    A six-lane highway costs between $10 and $26 million per mile. It's 380 miles from LA to SF, so that's $3.8 to $9 billion.

    The F-35 program is one trillion and counting.

    Sorry, but this number seems fine to me.