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Hyperloop One Announces Opening of Its First Manufacturing Plant (techcrunch.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Hyperloop One is today announcing the opening of its first manufacturing plant. Called Hyperloop One Metalworks, the 105,000 square-foot building in North Las Vegas will be the new professional home of many of the company's 170 employees, including engineers, machinists and welders. These folks will build and test a number of components for the DevLoop, a full-system prototype of the Hyperloop, set for testing in 2017. The project, if successful, promises a half-hour travel time between Stockholm and Helsinki, which is the equivalent of about 300 miles. The company plans to have a working prototype of the Hyperloop by 2017 thanks to this new plant."Hyperloop One Metalworks is the first Hyperloop manufacturing plant in the world," said co-founder and President of Engineering Josh Giegel in a press release. "The ability to have a world-class machine shop in-house gives us an advantage to build rapidly and develop the Hyperloop in real-time."

74 of 128 comments (clear)

  1. Translating for the rest of the world by Edis+Krad · · Score: 4, Informative

    300 miles = 482 kilometers.
    Incidentally, 482 km in 30 minutes is about 960 km/h. Not bad!

    1. Re:Translating for the rest of the world by Edis+Krad · · Score: 4, Informative
    2. Re:Translating for the rest of the world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Which is equivalent to one (1) Stockholm-Helsinki-Distance-Unit. And so we come full circle.

      BTW, it's also 283701 smoots.

    3. Re:Translating for the rest of the world by darthsilun · · Score: 1

      If you're not careful you'll trigger a rant about how we spell Aluminum and how we write our dates backwards.

    4. Re:Translating for the rest of the world by Miamicanes · · Score: 4, Funny

      "International" dates are big-endian.

      British dates are little-endian.

      American dates are VAX-endian.

      Sorry. I've been waiting 20 years for the chance to use "VAX-endian" in a sentence. I couldn't pass it up... :-D

      (for anybody who didn't major in computer science... the way VAX mainframes represented double-precision floating point internally was... er... kind of weird... I think it did something wacky like represent the mantissa as a little-endian bit sequence, followed by a big-endian exponent, so the most significant bits ended up in the middle. Or something like that. I'm not old enough to have had to personally deal with it, but I remember one of my professors mentioning it as a historical footnote during the discussion of big- vs little-endian-ness as an example of how a vendor could completely throw a monkey wrench into the usual dichotomy and make a REAL mess).

    5. Re:Translating for the rest of the world by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 1

      Metric isn't universal for every field either. Aviation (and other forms of navigation) is typically based on nautical miles. The reason why is because they correspond perfectly to minutes of latitude, and because it's considerably easier when doing time/distance equations (and the 60 base scale we use for time happens to easily calculate into navigational figures as well, which is probably why the Babylonians used it for astronomy.)

    6. Re:Translating for the rest of the world by Archfeld · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I worked on PDP's in my younger days. I haven't thought about that in a long time. Another oddity I deal with but never understood why is the difference between International sports hosting order and the US. In the US it Team A @ Team B, while internationally it is Team A hosting Team B. I have to remind myself of that when I am watching UEFA/BPL/La Liga, vs US football or the MLS.

      --
      errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
    7. Re:Translating for the rest of the world by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      The babylonians used and we use 360 degrees and the divisor 60 for one reason:
      By coincident the year is nearly exactly 360 days
      Which means the rise of a star is every day nearly exactly one degree off.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    8. Re:Translating for the rest of the world by dbIII · · Score: 1

      and a lot of assclowns do stupid shit like treat gravity as 3.0 X10^1 f/s^2 or convert mm to inches by dividing by 25

      Only in high school and really shitty hobby coding instead of anything in science or industry.

    9. Re:Translating for the rest of the world by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 3, Funny

      It's worse for everyday use because shit is based on 10 which doesn't divide as evenly as things like 12, 36, 5280, etc.
      This is a ver dumb argument, and wrong btw, a foot is not evenly divideable by 36.
      Secondly: no one cares if a measuring can be diveded evenly (I assume you actually meant: diveded by integer division without leaving a reminder?)
      Thirdly: it helps you absolutely nothing that a foot is 'evenly divedeable' by 2, 3, 4, 6, 12 because 9 feet 1" e.g is undevideable by any of them, so is 9 feet 9" and plenty of others.
      I for my part extremely rarely work with stuff that exactly x (unit)'s long where dividing it up leads to nice rational numbers or natural numbers even. More interestingly: the situation that I have to divide something up like that rarely occures.
      In real life my meassures are odd (and have a decimal point) all the time. So are yours.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    10. Re:Translating for the rest of the world by Dog-Cow · · Score: 1

      Aluminum? No such word unless you count published typos.

      Are you ignorant or stupid?

    11. Re:Translating for the rest of the world by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Wow amazing advice. Pick what unit you want, convert and divide away however you feel, and don't worry about significant figures.

    12. Re:Translating for the rest of the world by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      That's because in Europe, it's much more viable. And we've already reached the Civ tech of electrified railways, so we're not skipping tech levels. ;)

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    13. Re:Translating for the rest of the world by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Exactly. As long as the Brits continue to state their body weight in "stones" (whatever TF that is), then shut up about us commonly using non-metric units.

    14. Re:Translating for the rest of the world by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      All metric unit conversions can be done with NO complicated, useless, and perfunctory math.

      The thing you're missing is that common people almost never do unit conversions?

      Quick, how many inches in a mile? Answer: who cares. Regular people driving to work never need to figure that out. How many inches in 473 feet as in your example? Again, no one cares, they don't need to do that. Go find some housewife who's cooking something and ask her how many cubic inches are in a gallon. Guess what? She doesn't care, she's never needed to do that.

      Easy unit conversions with metric units are really convenient when you're working in science or engineering. If you're an accountant or a manager, you never, ever need to do stuff like that. This is why in America, the scientists and engineers all use metric units at work (unless they work in defense), and switch back to conventional units when they leave the office. There simply isn't any need for it.

    15. Re:Translating for the rest of the world by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      For the aluminum thing, *you're* doing it wrong. Aluminum was the original word, before some idiots decided to change it for no good reason.

      If you disagree, you're a hypocrite, because all the other old latin element names, and some others, are the same: cuprum, ferrum, aurum, plumbum, argentum, hydragyrum, platinum, molybdenum, etc. In short, if you're not also insisting on calling Pt "platinium", then you're an idiot and a hypocrite.

    16. Re:Translating for the rest of the world by sexconker · · Score: 1

      Christ almighty did someone buy this troll account? Usually the angel'o'sphere retard's posts are at least readable.

      It's not a dumb argument, almost all measurements are made to be practical and divisible. Look up acre, for example.
      A foot is not divisible by 36, and I didn't claim it was. A yard is, however. It's also divisible by 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 12, and 18.
      A pound is 16 ounces so you can repeatedly halve it. This is important in common tasks, such as cooking. People didn't have digital scales back in the day. And most in America still don't today because they're not needed. Cups to pints to quarts to gallons follows similar logic. When we do need different things for different tasks we use them. See teaspoons and tablespoons - both the items and the units of measure.

      Many people care if things can be divided evenly. Maybe Europeans don't, I don't know. And if you have to "assume" what someone means when they say "divided evenly" then you're a clown. It literally means to be divided into equal parts. Metric units are less amenable to that. It's 2, 5, 10 all day long.

      For your part you're a clown.

    17. Re:Translating for the rest of the world by sexconker · · Score: 1

      No, I'm advising people to use whatever they want and to IGNORE significant figures unless they know how to use them. Most people don't.
      They should ONLY be used for specific measurements where precision of the measuring device is known, NOT on any calculations or conversions thereupon.

      The way it's taught, the lowest precision measurement is applied to every damned term and every intermediate calculation.

    18. Re:Translating for the rest of the world by microbox · · Score: 1

      Hyperloop sounds like snake-oil to me. It will never work with anything remotely like existing technologies. Think about how much heat expansion you'll get on the tubes. That means you'll have to have lots of joints for expansion. Each of these will have to have perfect seals. It will be under 10 tons of pressure per square metre, and any rupture will cause air to rush into the tube at about the speed of sound. Tons of air. Thunderf00t has a takedown video. It is worth watching, just to consider the points he brings up -- although I find he comes across as a bit of an ass.

      --

      Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
    19. Re:Translating for the rest of the world by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Sorry, you are mistaken.

      The fact that 90% of the planet uses the metric system clearly proofs: no one cares about dividing evenly.

      There is no reason they should.

      See teaspoons and tablespoons - both the items and the units of measure.
      And, what is the point? Both vary greatly in size, it is unclear how high the salt/sugar etc. is piled in the spoon, it is only somewhat "equalized" when you measure liquids, and as a cook you are supposed to use your own judgement if you consider the spoon in your hand a big one or a small one and decide if the recipe says: 3 - 4 spoons if you rather use only 3 or go for 4. Or you use your experience, considering that you usually use either the same spoon over a long time, or at some point find one which suits you.

      almost all measurements are made to be practical and divisible
      No they are not. They are random results of habits or natural phenomena.

      To comfortably work with your "favoured" unit system, you would need a different number system, which does not exist anymore. (Hint: read about old celtic number systems, babylonians, or the maya systems. And frankly I hope you are not a programmer, you would be really pissed if you had to work on a machine with 24 bits double words and 33 bits address bus.)

      I suggest to fuck sake read something about the matter instead of insulting fellow slash-dotters.

      With your argumentation your are shooting yourself into the foot. A yard is not dividable by 36. The next smaller unit is feet, not inches. With your argument I can tell you 150cm are perfectly dividable by 30, 50, 3 etc. However strictly speaking the next smaller unit is dm. Or I could tell you: 1000 is perfectly dividable by 8, yielding 125. Hence everyone know that 100 / 8 is 12.5, wow ... that is not even dividable but every school kid can divide 100 by 8 without thinking. It is even super simple dividable by 16 ... because that is just half of 12.5 :D 6.25 ... and so on. If you missed that particular "subsection" of the small/great multiplication "matrix" ... you still can catch up.

      No one cares if a measure is easy divided without rest into an odd or even number. People have arbitrary sizes. And no one is going to divide the size of people.

      Sexconquer can be dived evenly by 3 into angel'o'sphere's ... makes no sense at all.

      70Fahrenheit can be perfectly easy divided into ... what ever. And Celsius can't ... wow, how stupid is that?

      My car is not 4 meters long, to be dived by 4 into perfectly 100cm long 1m pieces. My car unfortunately is 4019mm long. Not dividable by anything reasonable. And it would not be dividable by anything reasonable if it was 4 yards, 2 feet, 2 inches and 3''' ... and no one cares. We only care if the parking slot is bigger!

      Why the funk is your bank account filled with the metric system? Makes no SENSE! Why don't you demand a (5,280/1,760)-3-12 system? And ... what would you pick for the 3rd position? Feet or Yards? Well, s e talk about money, perhaps "bushels" would be the best "unit" for the third position from the right? Why does your Dollar is divided into 100 cents and no longer in 8 shillings to 12 pence each? Oh, my bad ... that was the evil empire and not the glorious gods own country.

      Or as we at it, why don't we write numbers "right"? Instead of:
      ___10 - ten
      _1010 - thousand and ten

      We should write it as it is correct in our writing system:
      01 - ten
      0101 - thousand and ten
      ------
      0201 - thousand and twenty

      You see, how neatly without effort the numbers are aligned to the left and can easily be added?

      Do you even know why we write numbers in the wrong order?

      Ah, if you want to know why a foot is 12 inch, and can't be bothered to read wikipedia ... a foot originally was literally the size of the foot o

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    20. Re:Translating for the rest of the world by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 1

      By coincident the year is nearly exactly 360 days
      Which means the rise of a star is every day nearly exactly one degree off.

      No, that's not why. The Babylonian number system was base 60 as opposed to our base 10 system. The fact that there are 365 days in a year is coincidental. The number 360 would be represented as the number 60 if done in their base unit and converted to our numeric symbols. This means that you can divide by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30, and 60 without the need for representing as fractions, decimals, etc, which is very convenient. Just how convenient? Well, take for example the fact that we have pi up to several million digits at this point and we still can't accurately model a circle of infinite size no matter how many digits we solve pi to...in other words, it's an irrational number if your numeral system is base 10.

      However in Babylonian math, pi is simply the number 3. That's it. No 3.14159blahblahblah. Just fucking 3. Much easier to calculate equations involving circles, isn't it? That's the whole point.

    21. Re: Translating for the rest of the world by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Your point?

      Some elements end in -um, some in -ium. If you complain about aluminum, then you're a hypocrite for also not complaining about all the others. Americans aren't complaining about all the elements ending in -ium; we have no problem understanding that some are one way and some another, it's only a bunch of dickheads who seem to think they should all end in -ium and complain about this even though a bunch of them don't, and haven't for millenia.

    22. Re:Translating for the rest of the world by lucien86 · · Score: 1

      "How many 'metric degrees' do you think there are in a circle?"

      Did you really want to ask that? The answer of course is :- 2 x pie, or 6.283185..etc. The specific SI unit is the radian, a full circle = 2 x pie radians..
      Of course 360 degrees is also an acceptable SI unit, so its a bit of a redundant question. :)

      --
      Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
    23. Re:Translating for the rest of the world by lucien86 · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't recommend trying to build anything that involves circles using that notation. Not unless you allow an extra 0.141 'overlap' on each axial piece.
      BTW the numbering system should not affect the value of pie. There basically is no (sane) way to make pie rational.

      --
      Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
    24. Re:Translating for the rest of the world by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      No, that's not why. The Babylonian number system was base 60 as opposed to our base 10 system.

      Sigh ...

      and the Babylonian number system is based on 60, because of:
      By coincident the year is nearly exactly 360 days
      Can't be so hard to grasp.

      However in Babylonian math, pi is simply the number 3.
      That is wrong.
      It is still 3.1495...blah

      To have "3" as the value of PI your number system would need to have instead of a 1 a special "1" that is PI/3.

      That's the whole point.
      Seems you missed the whole point and you are bad at math (or history, or both)

      The value of PI used by the Babylonians btw. is 25/8=3.125.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    25. Re:Translating for the rest of the world by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Ah, forgot to mention:
      The american Wikipedia article is misleading with its "true place positional value" statement and the reference to sedecimal.
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      Every "place" actually was written in a decimal system :D or at least in a from decimal derived system.

      E.g. 360 is 6 times 60 + 00
      In pseudo Babylonian that would be 0-6-00 (dashes used to separate the places).

      So what is a more interesting number? 51 perhaps, or 52. We would write that obviously like this: 0-5-1. In Babylonian script it would be 0-0-51. But how did they actually write the 51?

      Actually they had only two "signs" for digits, lets use k (for ten) and y (for 1). So 51 is written kkkkk y. 52 would be kkkkk yy and 59 would be kkkkk yyyyyyyyy

      So at every position of a sedecimal "digit", they used a ten based 2 digit system to write the number. So in their brain they where calculating likely in a decimal system.

      360 in decimal translates to:
      yyyyyy -(nothing here) -

      and e.g. 412 (360 + 52) translates to
      yyyyyy - kkkkk yy

      and 714 (11*60+54) translates to
      k y - kkkkk yyyy

      Perhaps you find it interesting to read a bit about it :D

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  2. This could change everything... by 110010001000 · · Score: 3, Funny

    ....just like the Segway did.

    1. Re:This could change everything... by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      ....just like the Segway did.

      It's going to carry mall cops to Cinnabon at 960 km/hr? Saul is not going to like this.

    2. Re:This could change everything... by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

      ....just like the Segway did.

      Except you could actually build the Segway, and they did. And no, it's didn't change everything, it barely changed anything.

      This hyperloop bullshit is technologically impossible to construct and maintain, let alone protect against the simplest of threats or malfunctions.

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    3. Re:This could change everything... by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 1

      I'm curious how much it will change given it seems like such a ripe terrorism target. I mean think about it, it's a really big evacuated tube that houses an object that moves very fast. I can't help but wonder what kind of hell a well timed explosion could cause.

    4. Re:This could change everything... by OolimPhon · · Score: 1

      This hyperloop bullshit is technologically impossible to construct and maintain, let alone protect against the simplest of threats or malfunctions.

      Exactly what they said in 1900 about the airplane...

    5. Re:This could change everything... by nukenerd · · Score: 1

      There's nothing impossible about HyperLoop. It's just impractical, completely unnecessary and solves no problem

      You forgot "expensive". The hyperloop is going to need some massive civil engineering unless it can be built on an almost flat and empty plain. That is because changes in direction (in either the lateral or vertical planes) will need to be very gradual to avoid large g-forces on the passengers. So think in terms of a lot of tunnelling, viaducts, and property demolition (no-one will want to live under this thing). Some people would have us believe that it will cost no more than a large oil pipe line - that's just, er .. Hype.

      Stockholm to Helsinki in 30 minutes? OK. But we can already do that. It's called airplanes.

      Having said the above, railways (and the Hyperloop is one, albeit with funny rails) have an efficiency advantage over planes for a heavy traffic route. Whether Stockholm-Helsinki is heavily trafficked, and whether the Hyperloop can ever be enginered to carry more than a minority of premium passengers, I do not know.

    6. Re:This could change everything... by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

      Exactly what they said in 1900 about the airplane...

      A few well-known people at the time scoffed, but the majority of technical people at the time realized it was indeed possible.

      One cool thing about airplanes is that, unlike the hyperbullshitloop, when one of them has a failure, it doesn't kill everyone else in every other plane flying that route.

      The temperature-contraction of the tube issues alone make this unworkable, but don't let physics get in the way of your fantasy. Producing a high vacuum environment in that size of a vessel is also wildly impractical, and I speak as someone who worked with high vacuum extensively for over a decade early in my career.

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  3. What a coincidence! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative
    1. Re:What a coincidence! by Fwipp · · Score: 2, Interesting

      What a trash video. He basically says "um have they considered that you'll be going fast and that crashing is bad?"

      He's not even consistent - he claims in one breath that any crash would breach the outer walls and that repressurization would be catastrophically fast, and in the next that humans couldn't possibly survive until the tube repressurized and would die nearly instantly from being exposed to vacuum.

      He also doesn't really know how anything works and throws in meaningless stats constantly. Like when he compares the mass of the air in the tube about 20 minutes in - irrelevant to anything. It's like saying the water pressure in my shower is somehow increased by the mile of plumbing between me and the water tower.

    2. Re:What a coincidence! by Citizen+of+Earth · · Score: 1

      Have you ever heard of a "fluid hammer"? The mass of the hammer matters there.

    3. Re:What a coincidence! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Have you ever heard of a "fluid hammer"? The mass of the hammer matters there.

      Only for incompressible fluids. Not air.

    4. Re:What a coincidence! by guruevi · · Score: 2, Informative

      A crash or compromise of the internal vehicle would expose the occupants to the vacuum, a crash or compromise of the outer shell would cause a rush of atmospheric air at the speed of sound to hit the vehicle. That is to say given you can even plausibly get a vacuum that large. It hasn't been done before and requires a lot of engineering including vacuum seals that don't even exist yet. The current design as marketed doesn't even account for the steel tubes expanding and contracting.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    5. Re:What a coincidence! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      including vacuum seals that don't even exist yet.

      I've worked on vacuum vessels that sealed a door large enough to drive a car through, yet pumped down to the ultrahigh vacuum regime. The leak rates of those seals is low enough that you could have thousands of them and still be able to pump down to a vacuum good enough to remove air friction, as that is orders of magnitude higher pressure than UHV work. For things that aren't going to open and close on a regular basis, you can just weld things together, which gives a very good seal with well established recipes/methods. Consider also that UHV systems typically have to be baked to 200 C, and some not too uncommon systems are designed to hand temps ranging from 4 K to 800 C with thermal cycling, and that there are established designs for flexible components meeting these conditions.

      There is no issue with nonexistance of technology to make vacuum systems that large for what is a rather crappy vacuum and gentle mechanical constraints by relative comparison. Economically doing so such that you can make money from transportation might be another story though...

    6. Re:What a coincidence! by FoodOverdose · · Score: 2

      I think you should see another educating video about effects of near vacuum on thin metal shells

    7. Re:What a coincidence! by guruevi · · Score: 1

      According to the Hyperloop people, the vacuum will be complete. Equivalent to the vacuum in outer space. If it were just a very light vacuum, it'd be cheaper to just not have the tubes and run a regular maglev.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    8. Re:What a coincidence! by cdrudge · · Score: 1

      And if you watched the Mythbusters episode where they tried to crush a railcar with a vacuum, you'd see that it was actually pretty difficult for a normal rail car and required them to drop a large block of concrete on the "thin metal shell" to dent it enough to collapse it.

      So all that your video demonstrated was a vessel designed for atmospheric (or higher) pressure isn't suitable for a hard vacuum. Shocking. I guess Hyperloop won't be able to build their track out of old discarded damaged railcar tankers.

    9. Re:What a coincidence! by Grishnakh · · Score: 2

      Citation needed. Everything I've read states that it'll be a mild vacuum. There's no such thing as a "complete vacuum" on earth.

    10. Re:What a coincidence! by nukenerd · · Score: 1

      Citation needed. Everything I've read states that it'll be a mild vacuum. There's no such thing as a "complete vacuum" on earth.

      Not in space either.

    11. Re:What a coincidence! by guruevi · · Score: 1

      The Hyperloop resembles a vactrain system but operates at approximately one millibar (100 Pa) of pressure. That is stratosphere-level vacuum where jet engines no longer work.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
  4. Re:It's a ridiculous JOKE by Princeofcups · · Score: 1

    The whole "Hyperloop" thing is a ridiculous joke that will never, EVER be built.

    Such statements are usually wrong. It will be build some time in the future, on some planet where the environment is so bad that air travel is an even worse option. It's basically another example a solution looking for a problem.

    --
    The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
  5. Re:It's too bad by AndyKron · · Score: 1

    Thunderf00t debunks!

  6. Re:It's a ridiculous JOKE by stabiesoft · · Score: 1

    It is the cost thing the media parrots that drives me nuts. I just saw on the local news there will be a San Antonio/Austin loop built in the next 20 years or so that will cost 10 bucks to ride, runs every 10 minutes, 24 hours a day. Heck a bus ride across town almost costs that much and those are not running 24 hours a day or every 10 minutes in most cases. Maybe I'll announce my new magic anti-grav sphere tech that runs on air and can transport you anywhere in 30 minutes or less.

  7. Wherefore art thou Slashdot? by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Three different people posting the same Youtube link to the same babbling jackass.

    You people do realize that Elon Musk had actual rocket scientists working on the original Hyperloop paper, right? Whether or not Mr. Musk's own physics degree is worth anything or not, the degrees of his employees definitely are, or SpaceX rockets wouldn't fly. They did modeling of vacuum evacuation of the tube. They did modeling of stresses on a basic pylon, using the same software they use to model the stresses on SpaceX rockets. They did modeling of the capsule. The math and engineering have been vetted pretty seriously. At least, the original version.

    Whether or not Hyperloop One's version has enjoyed the same degree of scrutiny by people who have been demonstrated not to drop a decimal place I don't know, but regardless, you can stop linking to the babbling fool.

    The fundamental flaws of Hyperloop are political, not physical. The link proposed between SF and LA will never be built because it would have followed the highway, which would deny the Right People the opportunity to get rich off of real estate speculation, the way the Not Very High Speed Rail project is allowing.

    1. Re:Wherefore art thou Slashdot? by aaarrrgggh · · Score: 1

      More than speculation in real-estate, it would not stop in the middle, further isolating those areas.

    2. Re:Wherefore art thou Slashdot? by FoodOverdose · · Score: 2

      Elon Musk is entrepreneur in visionary, and his recent statements makes you reconsider adequacy of his vision.

    3. Re:Wherefore art thou Slashdot? by Kiuas · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You people do realize that Elon Musk had actual rocket scientists working on the original Hyperloop paper, right? Whether or not Mr. Musk's own physics degree is worth anything or not, the degrees of his employees definitely are, or SpaceX rockets wouldn't fly. They did modeling of vacuum evacuation of the tube. They did modeling of stresses on a basic pylon, using the same software they use to model the stresses on SpaceX rockets. They did modeling of the capsule. The math and engineering have been vetted pretty seriously.

      I think you slightly miss the overall point of the video. The math is one thing, and surely no-one's claiming it's impossible to build a system that works with enough effort, however the real question is whether or not such a system will be worth the advantage, which, as the video explains, will not be much more than an hour cut from the travel time when you take into consideration that the system will likely have to have close to airport-level security anyway.

      The cost calculations they've been showing thus far are vastly understated, they assume no maintenance costs whatsoever, and the costs for the building of the thing are sketchy at best.

      Overall the whole project of HyperLoop One as it's been thus far presented is heavy on hype and light on facts and doesn't inspire a great deal of confidence because of that. For example as mentioned in the video, they currently waive the challenges caused by thermal expansion of by saying they can have a moving tube at the endpoint, that is, that they'll just allow the whole thing to expand few hundred meters and just move the station with it, but it should be obvious that you can't have 600 miles of solid steel tubing without any expansion joints and assume that this thing won't buckle at all and cause issues... I'm no engineer but this still seems very sloppy if they want their project to be taken seriously.

      Simulating these things is one thing since in simulations you can simply assume a working system (ie. a working 600 miles long vacuum-tube), the video is talking about the difficulties of actually building/maintaining such a system using current technology while keeping the costs sensible.

      This is not to say some version of the hyperloop is physically impossible, just that given all the challenges present in actually building and maintaining one, it looks to me at the moment like it's not really worth it.

      As this article well put is:

      The biggest issues are speed and scale. The Hyperloop was pitched as faster and cheaper than alternatives like cars and trains, but even small shifts in those numbers can dramatically change how it stacks up. It's easy to imagine safety concerns limiting Hyperloop speeds to just a fraction of its theoretical top speed or right-of-way issues keeping stations far from urban centers. Would we still be excited about the Hyperloop if a 30-minute trek became a three-hour one? What if it cost $60 billion instead the promised $6 billion? After enough setbacks, it might not be worth developing the technology at all. Those deployment details are life-or-death issues for the Hyperloop, but as long as the tests are focused on small-scale loops, it's not clear we'll ever get answers to them.

      SpaceX's latest round of tests doesn't seem likely to change that. The test track is only 5 miles, nowhere near the distance it would take to reach 700 miles per hour. Another test track built by Hyperloop Test Technologies will have the same problem, aiming at a 200mph top speed. For the same reason, these test tracks can’t address the unique safety issues that come with near-supersonic travel. The result is just a tube-powered version of conventional transportation tech like maglev and rail. That doesn't mean that useful work can't be done on this round of test tracks, but it means the central question of the Hyperloop — whether it

      --
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    4. Re:Wherefore art thou Slashdot? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      The physics are sound but the engineering practicalities may not be. For example, the original design requires air to be actively pumped from in front of the vehicle out the back, because even in low pressure the air resistance is problematic. You can't get much lower air resistance without a much more complicated, and thus expensive and failure prone, tube.

      The issue of the pylons subsiding is also rather severe. On Japanese high speed railways they inspect every metre of track every night, and repair it as necessary. Repairing subsided track is relatively quick and easy, you just shove some spacers under it. Fixing a subsiding pylon... It's an engineering challenge that needs a clever solution.

      The economics are also questionable. The capacity is low, even with multiple cars. High speed rail carries hundreds of people and their luggage in comfort, and in Japan it leaves every 15 minutes. The new maglev trains are going to start at 550kph and are expected to reach over 900kph in time, once the company has experience running them and maintaining the track. So actually they are going to run much larger trains at similar speeds to this design on a much cheaper, lower tech track, and presumably with their usual excellent safety record. And they are building it now, with proven technology.

      --
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  8. Re:It's a ridiculous JOKE by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

    Such statements aren't usually wrong. Some superfast mass mover will exist on the ground. MagLev, or Hyperloop, or what-have you. Keep in mind, when poeple said, e.g. Da Vinci's ornithopter thing would never fly, they really meant heavier than air flight. And ewhile we got heavier than air flight, and his ornithopter can now be buitl, we primarily use planes or helicopters. The few ornithopters are built as toys. Likewise, while we may eventually be able to build a hyperloop, it seems likely that mag leve will beat it as super-fast people mover.

    The statemnts that are normally wrong are theings where no competitor obviates the need before the technology matures.

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  9. Not real news, not an idea, but hey :) by minxyz · · Score: 1

    The fundamental idea was to use air cushion for vactrain, which is well known by now. This is just another instance of that. Real news would be if a new principle were to be announced... but hey, maybe will be one of the first instances of this idea :)

  10. Re:It's a ridiculous JOKE by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    Sorry, you believe you have superior knowledge.
    But actually it is inferior. For you and the rest of the americans the hyperloop is a new concept.
    Actually it is minimum 45 years old and especially in Switzerland a research project since 40 years.
    The only costly thing is drilling the tunnels. And in the case of the USA, I would not wonder if they just put a pipe overground, which would drasticly reduce the costs, or burry it by digging a trench.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  11. Re:It's a ridiculous JOKE by istartedi · · Score: 1

    All the problems of deep space travel? I wasn't aware the hyperloop would also contain a particle accelerator that generated powerful cosmic rays, that you'd have to stock it with months of food, that passengers would suffer bone density loss due to lack of gravity, or that highly explosive chemicals would be loaded on board. I'm glad I know that now so that I can stay away from it.

    --
    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
  12. Re:It's a ridiculous JOKE by Beezlebub33 · · Score: 1

    You have it backwards. It is because it runs every ten minutes that it costs 10 bucks to ride. It's spreading the cost of the system over many uses. A bus ride across town doesn't have the number of users or duty cycle that would allow the cost to go down.

    --
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  13. Yet this is not a real hyperloop by MayeulC · · Score: 1

    If I recall corectly, Hyperloop one is building a Maglev train in a vacuum tube, not a "hovercraft" in a low pressure tube. This company should really be called Maglev one, since it is not in fact constructing hyperloops. Nothing new here. I would be curious to hear about the technology behind Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, it seems to me that it's regular hyperloop tech.

  14. Re:It's a ridiculous JOKE by stabiesoft · · Score: 1

    You are assuming that people at 4am will want to travel between austin/sa every 10 minutes. Buses run when they run because demand warrants it, and they run empty a good bit of the time even with that. To give you some idea of how much $ we are talking about, they say it is going to cost 20B, so assume for crazy sake they are correct and not off by the typical 5X. If capital costs 1 dollar per ride, that is 5.5million trips/day for 10 years. Austin/SA only has about 3 million people. So unless everyone (man, woman and child) is taking 2 trips/day for 10 years will they recover capital, assuming zero interest. This is a nerd site, does no one on this site even do a rough back of the envelope calculation for stuff like this.

  15. Re:In America??? by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

    Well their location is one of the worst possible places in America to live. I wouldn't work there just because of where they are.

  16. Wait... by ilsaloving · · Score: 1

    Is this not the same Hyperloop One that is having massive political infighting right now, with lawsuits being slung back and forth and serious management shenanigans?

    I hope the employees of this factory are getting paid very well for the employment uncertainty they're facing.

  17. Re:It's a ridiculous JOKE by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

    The Hyperloop plans I've seen call for the tube to be elevated on pylons over the ground. It's far cheaper that way, plus you don't have to worry much about seismic problems (you can engineer the pylons and tubes to have a certain amount of flexibility, much like skyscrapers do).

  18. Re:We spent half a trillion by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

    in America on a fibre roll out that never happened and nobody has the balls to ask for our money back. So you're forgive me if I'm not in even the tinciest bit surprised shit like this can fly. The loans will be private with public guarantees and we'll all eat it like we eat sports Colosseums.

    Exactly. They'll spend a shitload of public money and in the end there will be nothing to show for it. Where will the money have gone? To a magical place called "someone else's wallet".

    And whatever was built will be abandoned and left to rot, never having moved a single person from point A to point B.

    As I said before, I'll bet anyone here $10,000 that nothing comes of it and that not a single functioning vehicle or route will exist even after 10 years. Money to be held in escrow by an agreed-upon 3rd party. All of you cheerleaders who are soooooo convinced this will happen, here's your chance to put your money where your mouth is.

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    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  19. Re:It's a ridiculous JOKE by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

    You have it backwards. It is because it runs every ten minutes that it costs 10 bucks to ride.

    Because running something more often costs less? Then why don't operation and maintenance costs go down when you use a car 24/7?
    Your thinking is faulty. See if you can guess where.

    -

    It's spreading the cost of the system over many uses. A bus ride across town doesn't have the number of users or duty cycle that would allow the cost to go down.

    Yeah, and guess what? Neither does the demand for trips from L.A. to San Francisco have the demand or duty cycle to make it cost effective to that level. There's even less demand for longer distance routes than for shorter distance routes. Seriously, give me a fucking break, have any of you people actually thought about this shit?

    Shame on all of you who're accepting this pie-in-the-sky bullshit without the slightest bit of rational examination. For a bunch of geeks/nerds/techies, you all sure are a bunch of gullible fuckers willing to suspend your disbelief at the drop of a hat. Do ANY of you even own a calculator? Have ANY of you run some simple calculations or thought critically about ANY of the claims that are being made?

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  20. Re:It's a ridiculous JOKE by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

    You are assuming that people at 4am will want to travel between austin/sa every 10 minutes. Buses run when they run because demand warrants it, and they run empty a good bit of the time even with that. To give you some idea of how much $ we are talking about, they say it is going to cost 20B, so assume for crazy sake they are correct and not off by the typical 5X. If capital costs 1 dollar per ride, that is 5.5million trips/day for 10 years. Austin/SA only has about 3 million people. So unless everyone (man, woman and child) is taking 2 trips/day for 10 years will they recover capital, assuming zero interest. This is a nerd site, does no one on this site even do a rough back of the envelope calculation for stuff like this.

    Thank you for bringing a bit of sanity into the discussion. Most of the people cheering this nonsense on are dull-witted suckers who are hard of thinking.

      I'll bet anyone here $10,000 that nothing comes of it and that not a single functioning vehicle or route will exist, even after 10 years of "development".

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    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  21. Stop arguing about irrelevancies: by Pseudonymous+Powers · · Score: 1

    I don't know from unobtainium, but doesn't it bother anyone else that the Hyperloop is not really a loop?

    A loop is more like a circle than a line, and if you take it in one direction you'll eventually arrive back at your starting point. Everything I've ever heard about the hyperloop just has it running directly from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

    I mean, I guess you could ride it from Los Angeles to San Francisco and then back, but there's a bunch of roads that do the same thing, and we don't call them loops. They're just, I don't know, duplexed. Like regular roads are.

  22. Have they figured out how........ by Ancient_Hacker · · Score: 1

    Have they figured out how:

    (1) To make a tube that sags just a few millimeters between pylons? Hint: A 1-inch thick steel tube sags several inches between those pylons.

    (2) How to get people into space suits? Even the Air Force doesn't let pilots, even in wartime, sit in a plane at 70,000 feet without a space suit.

    (3) How to get a common-carrier license, for a vehicle and tube without emergency exits?

    Those are all pretty hard show-stoppers, and they seem to be working on everything but.

  23. Re:It's a ridiculous JOKE by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    Show us ONE high-vacuum tunnel several meters in diameter that is more than 10 feet long.
    Please, stop mixing up units of measurement. Please try wolframalpha and get a clue what 10 feet is in relation to several meters (diameter).

    Show us ONE self-contained, vacuum-capable passenger container that has ever been used.
    That is off topic. Obviously no one has built that yet.

    The hyperloop, as proposed, is bullshit No it is not. It is just a peace of so far imaginary transportation. The technology for it is readily available since decades.
    and will never, ever be built. Probably.

    Put up or shut up.
    Does that mean I have to put $10,000 also into escrow to be in the bet?

    Then: no. I rather put $10,000 into Elons company and either lose it or become a billionaire. Why would I want to win your meager $10,000 when I know that if they build it they will be successful, and that the question if they build it is out of my control?

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  24. Re:It's a ridiculous JOKE by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

    Please, stop mixing up units of measurement. Please try wolframalpha and get a clue what 10 feet is in relation to several meters (diameter).

    In other words, you can't, can you? That's because you're lying, there is no working hyperloop, nor anything like it. And there never will be a working hyoerloop outside of some experimental bullshit designed to suck investors into the scam.

    -

    That is off topic. Obviously no one has built that yet.

    Exactly, and that's why you're full of shit, like always. No one has built one because it's impractical beyond all measure from nearly every angle.

    -

    The technology for it is readily available since decades.

    No, it hasn't. If it has, SHOW US ONE, just one example of this in the real world. As usual, you can't.

    -

    Then: no. I rather put $10,000 into Elons company and either lose it or become a billionaire.

    You'd lose it, but you couldn't raise $10,000 if your life depended on it.

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    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  25. Re:It's a ridiculous JOKE by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    That's because you're lying, there is no working hyperloop
    I never said there is one, idiot. The liar is obviously you.

    No, it hasn't. If it has, SHOW US ONE, just one example of this in the real world. As usual, you can't.
    Three universities in Germany have a small scale version, how retarded are you?

    In other words, you can't, can you?
    This was your comment to mixing feet with meters? Well, 10 feet are 3 meters, several meters is certainly below 10 meters. So you want to see a 3 meters long tube with 5 to 10 meters diameter? And you think that is impossible to build? So a tube that has a bigger diameter than the length you demand: makes any sense?

    No, it hasn't. If it has, SHOW US ONE, just one example of this in the real world. As usual, you can't.
    You never saw a spacecraft, a submarine and a mag lev train? In what retarded world do you live?

    https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/... MagLevs, development started around 1922, working "prototype" in germany since 1971, working large scale demonstration since 1984, first commercial track, about a mile long since 1983 in Berlin.

    Long range tracks in China since end of 2002: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    Can't be so hard to google for english versions.

    Putting that into a tube and evacuate it, is as simple as building a submarine. No idea in what stone age idea of how technology and science works you live.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  26. Re:It's a ridiculous JOKE by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

    Three universities in Germany have a small scale version, how retarded are you?

    Then show us a link, angel'o'sphere, show us one of these working prototypes of a vacuum train transport system.

    If you're so sure this is a workable concept, why not bet some money on it? If you can't afford $10,000, let's bet $1,000, or even just 1 dollar.

    Put your money where your mouth is, angel'o'sphere. If you won't, then I think that tells us all we need to know about your belief in this nonsense scheme.

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    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  27. Re:It's a ridiculous JOKE by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    Vacuum or low pressure air pressure "pneumatic delivery" we have since the 19th century.

    Modern concepts for cargo and passengers are:

    https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
    http://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/...
    http://www.nzz.ch/schweiz/ein-...
    http://www.trendsderzukunft.de...

    Your google foo must be low on you.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  28. Re:It's a ridiculous JOKE by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

    Your google foo must be low on you.

    Your intelligence foo must be low on you.

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    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...