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Hyperloop Getting Closer To Reality, Groundbreaking Set For 2016
An anonymous reader writes: On Thursday, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) said it would break ground on the futuristic railway in May 2016. The company says it has signed agreements with Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum and engineering design firm Aecom to work on the project. "It's a validation of the fact that our model works," says Dirk Ahlborn, CEO of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies. "It's the next step."
I had to read fairly far through the article to realize it's just a prototype. It will be about 5 miles long, built in central California, along highway 5.
The company that's building it worked on tricky projects before, like the LHC. They seem confident in their ability to build it, they said that the hard part is reducing costs and energy usage to acceptable levels.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
So what happens when the capsule springs a leak and you cannot bre . .a..
Ever ridden on an airplane?
If the cabin air leaks out of a plane at 13,000m, you'll be dead in 6 minutes. If you were in intergalactic space (about as hard a vacuum as you can experience) and the air leaked out of your spaceship, you'd be dead in six minutes. If you were on Mars and your spacesuit was punctured losing all of the air, you'd be dead in six minutes.
1. Let's say it all together: "Hyperloop Is Not A Vactrain". It's like a super-high-altitude aircraft, at ground level, operating in ground effect. It actually needs the (super thin) air it moves through for lift. The air gets built up in front of the capsule and shunted via a compressor to underneath it (for lift) and behind it, to prevent the buildup of air resistance.
2. The difficulties of providing oxygen through masks are no greater in a hyperloop capsule than in an airplane.
3. A hyperloop capsule is a giant air ram which has to work to move its air to behind the vehicle. If you get a leak in the front, you're ramming air into the capsule. If you get a leak on the back, that's where the compressor is shoving the air into. Significant air is also getting compressed into the tiny areas on the sides.
4. In the event of major emergencies, the tube is designed to repressurize, with the cars settling onto their low speed wheels and cruising to the nearest emergency exit. Repressurization can surely be done far faster than an airplane can descend in altitude.
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
Methinks you need to actually read about how Hyperloop works - it's not even remotely like an atmospheric railway. Air pressure no more drives Hyperloop than it drives a train going through a tunnel. A key part of the Hyperloop design is about how to avoid pressure buildup. Hyperloop spends most of its time in free coast. Acceleration (and deceleration) is handled by magnetic accelerator segments, like a big coilgun.
And to head you off: no, it's not a vactrain either. It doesn't roll on rails or float on maglev or anything of that nature - it floats as a ground-effect aircraft, and hence needs some air.
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
Easy. Masks drop from above you and emergency braking and re-pressurization is started. If braking to a safe velocity (say, 300km/h) is limited to 0.5G then it can be completed in about 40 seconds. Then once everybody have slowed down, emergency vents can open and the tube can be quickly re-pressurized to breathable pressures. You will survive even in the case of immediate complete pressure loss and failure to put on a mask.
Depends how fast. If it was more or less instantanious you'd be dead in seconds from your lungs imploding and other massive internal organ damage and internal bleeding.
Only if you tried to hold your breath, apparently.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com/...
Humans hae survived vacuum exposure and lived to tell the tale.
SJW n. One who posts facts.