SpaceX Is Livestreaming A Hyperloop Pod Competition (spacex.com)

A bowl full of Meh. by Rei · 2017-01-29 11:45 · Score: 2

I'm a big fan of the proposal laid out in the Hyperloop Alpha document. But these maglev vactrains in the "competition" have nothing interesting about them by comparison to the Hyperloop Alpha low pressure ground-effect train system. They throw the advantages of Alpha out the window, in favour of age-old concepts with economic problems (maintaining a hard vacuum, cost of maglev track vs. plain pipe, etc) that have similarly been known about for ages.

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Re:A bowl full of Meh. by Shane_Optima · 2017-01-29 13:08 · Score: 2

I'm a big fan of the proposal laid out in the Hyperloop Alpha document. But these maglev vactrains in the "competition" have nothing interesting about them by comparison to the Hyperloop Alpha low pressure ground-effect train system. They throw the advantages of Alpha out the window, in favour of age-old concepts with economic problems (maintaining a hard vacuum, cost of maglev track vs. plain pipe, etc) that have similarly been known about for ages.
Pssshhh, you're obviously just a one of those haters who doesn't want to admit that Musk is the most revolutionary innovator in the world today. You're like those guys over at Paypal who fired him as CEO because he wouldn't back down from his brilliant plan to move all of their *nix servers to Windows; you just can't handle his vision.

cost of maglev track vs. plain pipe
...

What 'plain pipe' were you thinking of, exactly? Plain joints, too?
Re:A bowl full of Meh. by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2017-01-29 22:43 · Score: 1

Exactly. The innovative idea was that full vacuum is impractical while mere reduced pressure allows for non-magnetic lift while keeping the speed high. What's interesting about yet another vactrain?

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Ezekiel 23:20
Re:A bowl full of Meh. by Rei · 2017-01-30 08:23 · Score: 1

Actually, yes. The joints in Hyperloop Alpha are just standard orbital welded, like water pipe and oil pipe. The only difference is that they have tun run an orbital polisher down the center as well.

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Re:A bowl full of Meh. by Shane_Optima · 2017-01-30 11:29 · Score: 1

The joints in Hyperloop Alpha are just standard orbital welded, like water pipe and oil pipe.

Using the present tense does not a persuasive argument make. Those joints remain completely airtight even with a pressure differential of nearly 1 atm? Thermal expansion under the California sun doesn't weaken or break that airtight seal? Mild earthquakes doesn't weaken or break it? The absorbed force of a 600 MPH capsule weighing lord knows how many pounds going around a curve isn't going to weaken it?
Re:A bowl full of Meh. by Rei · 2017-01-30 14:24 · Score: 1

Using the present tense does not a persuasive argument make.
Hyperloop Alpha is a design document. It already exists, hence present tense.

Those joints remain completely airtight even with a pressure differential of nearly 1 atm?
Why are you acting like 1 ATM pressure differential is a high pressure differential for 1" thick steel pipe to bear? Natural gas pipelines operate at about 17 atm, and that's hardly the highest pipelines go. And orbital welding of pipeline segments is an extremely mature technology, there's nothing at all exotic about it.

Thermal expansion under the California sun doesn't weaken or break that airtight seal?
I'm not even sure that you understand what welding is, let alone orbital welding. There is no "seal". It's a uniform piece of metal. The metal is literally melted by welding, and rehardens into a single piece. Basic carbon steel doesn't weaken from welding (like, say, T6 aluminum does), it can actually get stronger. An orbital pipe welder is an automatic piece of hardware that circles a piece of pipe on its own, connecting two segments; it leaves a perfect, identical, machine-precision weld every time.
There are no "joints". It's just continuous steel. Just like oil and gas pipelines. There's no technological ground being broken in this regard.

Mild earthquakes doesn't weaken or break it?
You really should read the design document before discussing things. No, it's not directly supported by the ground, its supported on the towers by a multiaxis isolation system, which also allows it to shift via thermal expansion / contraction. A big advantage over HSR, which suffers from serious problems with ground shifting under the rails, particularly in earthquakes.

The absorbed force of a 600 MPH capsule weighing lord knows how many pounds going around a curve isn't going to weaken it?
1) Speed is a good thing, it means loadings are only borne for a short period of time.
2) The capsules weigh about a tenth as much as a HSR train. Which is one of the big advantages of the Hyperloop system.
3) Pipe loadings are likewise about an order of magnitude less than that of HSR rails. But spread out over a greater amount of steel.
Seriously, before you hit that reply button, google "Hyperloop Alpha" and read the design document. It won't take all day. I don't want to have to reply to whatever things you're thinking about writing that are already answered in the document.

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Re:A bowl full of Meh. by Rei · 2017-01-30 14:27 · Score: 1

Also, while you're perusing it, calculate the amount of steel used, then look up the price of that much steel pipe, versus how much they're budgeting. And how much typical pipelaying projects cost, relative to length and diameter, versus the estimate. I did. Contrary to what internet quarterbacks who never bothered to read the document before playing amateur engineering critic might say, their budgeting for the track is quite conservative

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Re:A bowl full of Meh. by Shane_Optima · 2017-01-30 15:48 · Score: 1

I'm not even sure that you understand what welding is, let alone orbital welding. There is no "seal". It's a uniform piece of metal. The metal is literally melted by welding, and rehardens into a single piece. Basic carbon steel doesn't weaken from welding (like, say, T6 aluminum does), it can actually get stronger. An orbital pipe welder is an automatic piece of hardware that circles a piece of pipe on its own, connecting two segments; it leaves a perfect, identical, machine-precision weld every time.
As I recall, Thunderf00t calculated that an effective one-piece pipe like you're describing would expand and contract lengthwise, under normal California temperature differences, by several hundred meters over the course of its 300+ mile stretch. Do you have different figures for that calculated expansion? I guess that's not utterly unworkable in principle, but I do wonder what that terminal is going to look like.

No, it's not directly supported by the ground, its supported on the towers by a multiaxis isolation system, which also allows it to shift via thermal expansion / contraction. A big advantage over HSR, which suffers from serious problems with ground shifting under the rails, particularly in earthquakes.
Hmm. I had not encountered that before. It's not just a matter of "read the paper", you see. One has to actually go and figure out if these alleged solutions are feasible and reasonably cheap and if so, why they can't be used in non-vacuum tube rail solutions. This is a particularly important point when people discuss compressorless, maglev bearing variants of the hyperloop immediately after claiming that the hyperloop would be much cheaper than maglev. Given your original post, we might be in agreement about that point but I would have similar questions about the weight differences and these 'multiaxis isolational systems'.

I admit my enthusiasm here for an in-depth slog of that sort is sapped due to the dogmatic attitude of most hyperloop fans I've encountered. The payoff in doing the research (above and beyond just reading Musk's claims in the paper) is thus kinda low. It's easier to just wait 10 years while they figure it out on their own.

But still, sloth is no excuse. If you're correct in everything that you're saying then I'll concede that I can't refute it at this time.
Re:A bowl full of Meh. by Rei · 2017-01-30 21:47 · Score: 1

As I recall, Thunderf00t calculated...
ThunderF00t is, always has been, and always will be a moron. You do a disservice to your argument by bringing him up.

d that an effective one-piece pipe like you're describing would expand and contract lengthwise
Which is accounted for in the Hyperloop Alpha design document, via the increase allowing the pipe to slide along its length because - as was mentioned in the last post - it's not rigidly attached to the pylons, but rather held up by a multiaxis damper. The expansion would be visible as a millimeters-per-second crawl of the pipe. The document describes how to deal with thermal expansion in this manner, including the need for the end stations to accommodate the length changes.
Google, for example, "accommodating pipe thermal growth". Here's the #2 hit I get.

Three common methods of accommodating this pipe movement are to 1) provide an expansion joint; 2) allow the system to “freefloat” whereby the pipe would be allowed to move in a desired direction through the use of anchoring and/or guidance, if necessary, taking into account the capability of branch connection or changes in direction which may have resultant harmful bending moments; or 3) utilize the linear movement/deflection capabilities of flexible grooved couplings
It is a standard method to deal with thermal expansion.
That said, that's hardly the only thing they can do. For lower velocity segments, they can simply accommodate expansion by arc radius changes. They can also use the standard HSR approach (HSR also uses continuously welded rail and is thus subject to the exact same issue) for dealing with thermal expansion: laying tracks in the heat of summer. This means that they contract and remain in tension in colder weather, so the thermal expansion just serves to relieve tension rather than physically increasing length. The other thing that HSR does is anchor the rail by heavy concrete blocks, rather than just light wooden sleepers like conventional rail. The force required to move the concrete ties is greater than the stress in the rails.
To put it another way: actual engineers have solved these problems long ago. Which is why you listen to actual engineers rather than listening to a chemist playing armchair engineer like Thunderf00t.

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Re:A bowl full of Meh. by Shane_Optima · 2017-01-31 06:05 · Score: 1

ThunderF00t is, always has been, and always will be a moron. You do a disservice to your argument by bringing him up.
My skepticism of hyperloop predates Thunderf00t's videos, but he obviously mentioned a valid point and I asked you if you knew of a dramatically different figure than something on the order of a hundred meters. It certainly sounded plausible enough to me, given that would be less than 0.1% of the total length of the pipe.

To put it another way: actual engineers have solved these problems long ago. Which is why you listen to actual engineers rather than listening to a chemist playing armchair engineer like Thunderf00t.
The term "ad hominem" is tossed around *far* too frequently, so let me be clear here: you're well within your rights to insult Thunderf00t. That isn't a logical fallacy. Pretending that those insults substitute for a refutation of his calculations *is* a logical fallacy, though. If the figure is given in the paper and you don't feel like looking it up, so be it, but this is just white noise.

Which is accounted for in the Hyperloop Alpha design document, via the increase allowing the pipe to slide along its length because - as was mentioned in the last post - it's not rigidly attached to the pylons, but rather held up by a multiaxis damper. The expansion would be visible as a millimeters-per-second crawl of the pipe. The document describes how to deal with thermal expansion in this manner, including the need for the end stations to accommodate the length changes.
Which is something I *directly* alluded to when I mentioned the terminals. And as I said, that's doable in principle I suppose, but certainly a bit strange. Strangeness in large engineering projects often leads to unforseen issues and costs.

That said, that's hardly the only thing they can do.

The hyperloop is possible. It is entirely possible. Anyone who thinks it's impossible to travel at those speeds and in that manner, safely (putting aside the issue of terrorist attack), is a moron. The question has always been about cost effectiveness.

It was always perfectly possible (and in fact was discussed for a long time) to dig a tunnel under the English channel, too. Guess what? It wasn't cost-effective. For whatever reason, the majority of large-scale engineering projects are over-optimistic, even if the construction is entirely conventional and well-understood.
Re:A bowl full of Meh. by Rei · 2017-01-31 21:57 · Score: 1

If you're looking for a meaningless elongation calculation, steel's linear coefficient of thermal expansion is generally 12 microns per meter per degree kelvin. The distance is 563km. The temperature difference is whatever a person arbitrarily pulls out of a hat - say, 20C. The length change is 135 meters.
But this is, as mentioned, meaningless, because the real world doesn't behave in this simplified way that people like Thunderf00t who have no experience in the field assume. Temperature changes don't directly result in size changes, they result in internal stress changes. An engineer is free to handle internal stress changes in whatever manner they choose, whether to resist them or allow for size changes, and if the latter, to allow them in whatever manner best suits them. And depending on the design you can make it so that the change in temperature is either causing or relieving stress. It's not only extremely well covered territory, but the exact same well-covered territory that HSR faces. Hyperloop's choice of how to handle it is different than HSR's (float the pipe vs. resist it), but both are acceptable engineering choices.
I wouldn't attack Thunderf00t had he not had this habit of repeatedly going off on rants about thing he has no understanding whatsoever about as if he's an expert. He's not. And people shouldn't treat him as such. If he wants to post something about chemistry, then it's fine to take him at his word until proven otherwise. But if he makes some sort of engineering claim, you should inherently take it with a big grain of salt.

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Re:A bowl full of Meh. by Shane_Optima · 2017-02-01 08:28 · Score: 1

so the thermal expansion just serves to relieve tension rather than physically increasing length. ... Temperature changes don't directly result in size changes, they result in internal stress changes.
Well, it seemed like you were pretending like the stresses were magically taken care of by these multiaxis gimbaled whatevers.

If we're back to acknowledging that the pipe will experience significant changes in force, again, we're talking about pipe designed to hold liquids or gasses, not multi-thousand pound capsules screaming along at 600 MPH. Have you never heard of any engineering project ever that experienced material degradation or failure?

Anecdote time: A few years ago, I seriously looked into the possibility of building a house out of steel shipping containers. It's a very interesting idea seeing as how they're so cheap and so durable, but guess what? It turns out that when you try to save money by using mass-produced commodity good X for radically different engineering project Y, you tend to run into hiccups. The hiccups aren't impossible to overcome, but they can require significant amounts of money to overcome.

Basic carbon steel doesn't weaken from welding (like, say, T6 aluminum does), it can actually get stronger
"Strength" in metallurgy is, I suspect, not a one-dimensional value, especially if we're talking about all kinds of different and novel stresses involved here. Off the top of my head, I saw a documentary once that claimed that it was specifically the decision to use welded beams weakened the Hyatt Regency walkway.

I wouldn't attack Thunderf00t had he not had this habit of repeatedly going off on rants about thing he has no understanding whatsoever about as if he's an expert.
I reserve judgment on Thunderf00t until I've seen more of his stuff. However, "A jack of all trades, master of none... is usually better than a master of one." Many experts routinely espouse over the top bullshit. 'Gweihir', for instance, is apparently some sort of old timer security guy around here and he doesn't have the first clue about sane next-gen cryptography or authentication design. More generally speaking, a default assumption that people who appear as though they're full of shit, are full of shit, is usually a good one. And Elon Musk is definitely prone to talking shit.

I understand the desire to write off criticism when it's clear that the person making it hasn't done extensive research but on the flipside, if there are obviously *so many* issues involved, and less than 10% of the proponents even want to have a reasonable conversation like you're having, the motivation to dig deeper is rather low. For a more extreme example, I don't spend a lot of time researching chemistry when I want to argue against homeopathy.

Anyway, the track is only tiny part of the equation here. We still have cost and maintenance of the jet engine, security costs, passenger comfort (affects how much they're willing to pay for tickets), compression safety issues, throughput (ultra-high throughput schemes exist, but have their own special set of concerns), etc. And these considerations need to be weighed simultaneously, and in an opportunity cost fashion. The obvious modes of transportation to beat here are:

A. Regular maglev, if talking about vactrain maglev variants[1] of the "hyperloop". I like maglev; I like it a lot in principle, but from all accounts it isn't cost-competitive, and thus maglev-hyperloop probably isn't going to be cost competitive. If we could make maglev cheap then that would of course be utterly amazing, particularly if we could have longer-range hyperloops with hypersonic velocities.

B. Self-driving cars. This is an
Re:A bowl full of Meh. by Rei · 2017-02-01 14:39 · Score: 1

Well, it seemed like you were pretending like the stresses were magically taken care of by these multiaxis gimbaled whatevers.
How could you possibly have gotten that from what I wrote?
"Which is accounted for in the Hyperloop Alpha design document, via the increase allowing the pipe to slide along its length because..."
"The expansion would be visible as a millimeters-per-second crawl of the pipe"
"The document describes how to deal with thermal expansion in this manner, including the need for the end stations to accommodate the length changes."
"whereby the pipe would be allowed to move in a desired direction"
And then I continued into other workable solutions, aka what HSR does. None of them in any way shape or form "magically taken care of by these multiaxis gimbaled whatevers"
I know you don't bother to read design documents before talking about topics, but could you at a bare minimum read the comments of the person you're replying to?

we're talking about pipe designed to hold liquids or gasses, not multi-thousand pound capsules screaming along at 600 MPH.
Back to "did you even read what I wrote previously?". The fact that the loads are only brief is a good thing. And the pipe is inch thick tubular steel. Something with orders of magnitude higher of a bending moment of inertia (resistance to deflection) than HSR rails - the latter of which you hardly seem to think ise some sort of magical technology.

Have you never heard of any engineering project ever that experienced material degradation or failure?
Unless periodically stressed to - and this part is critical - near its tensile limit - carbon steel suffers no discernable fatigue (unlike aluminum, which slowly accumulates fatigue even on bending far from its moment of inertia; if you're not familiar with the concept, google "fatigue limit"). And again to repeat: HSR rails experience far more force than the Hyperloop tube..

Anecdote time: A few years ago, I seriously looked into the possibility of building a house out of steel shipping containers
I made an underground shed made out of one. Fun times. :)

It turns out that when you try to save money by using mass-produced commodity good X for radically different engineering project Y
So using pipe segments to build pipe is a radically different engineering project from using pipe segments to build pipe, using the exact same construction process that everyone else uses?

"Strength" in metallurgy is, I suspect, not a one-dimensional value, especially if we're talking about all kinds of different and novel stresses involved here. Off the top of my head, I saw a documentary once that claimed that it was specifically the decision to use welded beams weakened the Hyatt Regency walkway
The beams were always planned to be welded. It split at the seam because they welded with an electrode with a lower yield strength than the C sections they were joining. The ultimate cause of the failure however was the doubling of the loads on the box beam due to the altered design.
You certainly can make a weld have properties stronger or weaker than the adjacent steel - but that's not what I was referring to. I was referring to the fact that unlike structural aluminum, which relies on its temper to gain half an order of magnitude higher tensile strength than O, basic carbon steels do not, and thus heating does not weaken the pipe itself at the weld.

Anyway, the track is only tiny part of the equation here. We still have cost and maintenance of the jet engine
There is no "jet engine". There is a compressor. You can see a diagram on figure 10 if you want. 0,49kg/s, 20:1 compression - hardly any

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For as little as I've heard about Hyperloop by Pezbian · 2017-01-29 11:55 · Score: 1

I'm actually surprised anything is being done with something the was pretty much dismissed as vaporware.

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Re:For as little as I've heard about Hyperloop by 0100010001010011 · 2017-01-29 13:47 · Score: 1

Remember when they said the same thing about DARPA 2004 project?
Turns out engineering requires time.
Re:For as little as I've heard about Hyperloop by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-29 13:50 · Score: 0

Remember when they said the same thing about DARPA 2004 project?
Self driving cars will never be a thing. Neural networks don't work outside of their training set and you can never train for every scenario. Self driving cars are just another way to scam stupid people out of their money.
Re:For as little as I've heard about Hyperloop by 0100010001010011 · 2017-01-29 14:02 · Score: 2

you can never train for every scenario.
You can train it for more scenarios than you can train a human for. And the knowledge is cumulative. If one car in one place records "unseen data" you can roll that out to all cars next software update.
And they absolutely do work outside of their training set. I just did it with DIGITS/caffe: https://github.com/humphd/have...
Trained on 6 pictures of dolphins and sea horses it does a pretty good job of determining an unseen set of data. If you start with pre-trained data weights and tailor it to the 2 animals it's exactly perfect on unseen data.
And those are trivial and dumb neural nets.
Re:For as little as I've heard about Hyperloop by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-29 16:56 · Score: 2, Interesting

I'm one who still dismisses Hyperloop as "vaporware", and I think the competition is a great idea for university students. It's perfect for that. It gets teams of students solving a diverse set of fun engineering problems in a low-pressure environment (ha), and maybe get to blow some stuff up. I'm actually warming to the idea of the Hyperloop project because of this.
It will, of course, never be an actual large-scale transportation system - maybe a novelty "future that never was" type of thing - but engineers can still apply lessons learned to actual systems, transportation or otherwise.
Re:For as little as I've heard about Hyperloop by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-29 21:10 · Score: 0

Posting as AC because already modded Troll.
Re:For as little as I've heard about Hyperloop by DrXym · 2017-01-30 04:21 · Score: 1

You can train it for more scenarios than you can train a human for. And the knowledge is cumulative. If one car in one place records "unseen data" you can roll that out to all cars next software update.
That's doubtful and it supposes that the computer is even capable of recognizing the scenario in the first place. e.g. is the car ahead stopped because a) the driver has suffered a heart attack, b) it's broken down in the road, c) there is traffic ahead of that car, d) baby ducks are walking across the road, e) the road is flooded, f) the lane is closed and the car is a road maintenance vehicle, g) it's a carjacker waiting for the dumb smart car to stop behind it so it can be robbed.
It's virtually an intractable problem for a computer to solve. Even if a computer could reliably drive 99% of the time that means 1% of the time it fucks up and the chances are it will require an alert human to takeover to prevent the problem or extricate it. And self drive vehicles are nowhere close to that level of reliability.
Re:For as little as I've heard about Hyperloop by 0100010001010011 · 2017-01-30 05:08 · Score: 1

This must have been how punch card operators talked about coders that could type their own programs.
You're so far off base of what is out there already it's funny. Tell me more about how these cars ".don't work"
Re:For as little as I've heard about Hyperloop by Shane_Optima · 2017-01-30 05:22 · Score: 1

Yes, that's hilarious.

You realize how sad this is, right? I mean, even people complaining that Linus using cuss words routinely get modded up to +5.
Re:For as little as I've heard about Hyperloop by Maritz · 2017-01-30 05:27 · Score: 1

It's virtually an intractable problem for a computer to solve. Even if a computer could reliably drive 99% of the time that means 1% of the time it fucks up and the chances are it will require an alert human to takeover to prevent the problem or extricate it. And self drive vehicles are nowhere close to that level of reliability.
Uh - FYI. This stuff already exists.

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Re:For as little as I've heard about Hyperloop by Maritz · 2017-01-30 05:29 · Score: 1

Mmmm, no doubt there's a big conspiracy on slashdot to make Elon Musk look great. I daresay you've a conspiratorial bent in general, no? Maybe that's just what they WANT you to think.

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Re:For as little as I've heard about Hyperloop by Shane_Optima · 2017-01-30 06:49 · Score: 1

It was a joke or half-joke. Astroturfing is a regular fact of life, not a conspiracy theory, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if there aren't some Tesla or SpaceX folks around here (along with Microsoft, Apple, etc.) Serious contracted full-time astroturfing, probably not. BizX being a subsidiary of SpaceX, obviously not.

But this is the serious context around that joke: People can regularly trash RMS, Linus, even Jobs around these parts and stand a reasonable chance of being modded up, but you can't make a perfectly reasonable list of Musk's flaws without being modded to oblivion by people who are too smug and too cowardly to actually debate you.
Re:For as little as I've heard about Hyperloop by DrXym · 2017-01-30 09:35 · Score: 1

Yes it does. Google only reports human interventions when there is an imminent danger such as a system failure, risk of collision etc. And they've reported hundreds of such interventions. They don't bother to count the many thousands, tens of thousands of other times where the car undoubtedly did something really dumb, got stuck, or asked the human for help.
And that's even without counting ANY of the scenarios above. Just regular driving at 20mph on nice wide roads. Other self drive projects like Ubers are even worse running lights and other patently dangerous behaviour.
None of this should be a surprise to anyone. So stop drinking the kool aid. Yeah we'll probably see some limited self drive. But pretending it makes a car capable of learning more scenarios than humans (the point I was addressing) is ludicrous.
Re:For as little as I've heard about Hyperloop by DrXym · 2017-01-30 09:38 · Score: 1

You're so far off base of what is out there already it's funny. Tell me more about how these cars ".don't work"
Oh really? Cite examples of self drive vehicles that could take a guess for scenario a, b, c, d, e, f or g above. I expect you can't.
Re:For as little as I've heard about Hyperloop by N3wsByt3 · 2017-01-31 04:22 · Score: 1

Let's not fall into the 'victimhood'-role. We have Wu for that. ;-)
I just looked at your list, and the problem was that it was very subjective. for instance, wanting to go to Mars may seem like insane to you, but looks awesome to me. He might be overly optimistic and ambitious with his timetable, but better that, then having no zeal or goal at all (or just lining your and your shareholders pockets, like most CEO's strive for).
I fail to see the gravity of these 'flaws', nor are they clear flaws to begin with, with the possible exception of the last one. then again, Linux was still immature back then, and you're wrong: windows2000 was one of the best windows OS'es ever made, in the context of that timeperiod. So even there there is room for saying he was doing something sane.
I know you might disagree, but that's how most others see it. and I think, your tone and the subjective nature of your arguments in consideration, you were more seen as a troll than being serious in your comments.
But anyway, if you're complaining about the inconsistency of the reputationbar, I'll help you out by giving troll status to Linus cussing too. So then you both get to downmodded, and there is no problem.
j/k ;-)

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Re:For as little as I've heard about Hyperloop by Shane_Optima · 2017-01-31 07:03 · Score: 1

That was only one post of at least a half dozen of mine, not to mention everyone else. The pattern is that long, detailed posts about Musk or the hyperloop are ignored, other than one or two people who quickly stop responding after they realize their arguments are nonsense. Medium and short posts like that one are simply modded down to 0 or -1. Happens every single time. I don't care about my karma; it's just a sad, sad sight watching the metamorphosis of Jobs 2.0. I'm depressed over the future of geekdom.

I just looked at your list, and the problem was that it was very subjective. for instance, wanting to go to Mars may seem like insane to you, but looks awesome to me.
But he's not going to do it. He's just talking shit. I "want to go to Mars", too. So far as I've seen, Musk isn't bringing anything interesting to the table there. SpaceX is, as I've argued elsewhere in this thread, a business success, not a place where awesome technological innovation happens. I just had an argument with a fanboy who was foaming at the mouth that I'd dare suggest such a thing, and he came back with "well, he soft landed using rocket power! That's technological innovation that will eventually lead to cheaper rocket launches, because reusability!"

I then had to explain to him that reusability isn't a cure-all for expense (see: Space Shuttle) and that automated soft rocket landings had been done at least as early as the 70s.

It's also worth noting that NASA's next big project, a megarocket using large Space Shuttle-like boosters, will not feature any reusable parts at all. Space travel is stupid expensive and it's going to remain stupid expensive even if Musk manages to save a few more nickels and dimes... and that leads me to ANOTHER point which is that his true cost savings aren't clear until we have more data points. If SpaceX turns out to have a persistent accident rate that's greater rate than NASA's because of their cost-saving measures, you have to look at more than just the raw, unadjusted per-launch or per-kilo cost.

nor are they clear flaws to begin with, with the possible exception of the last one
Flaws re: sanity? That was the context there, and specifically him being *so sane* that he would counterbalance Trump. You think that a "very sane" / reasonable / serious person openly suggests his competitors are sniping his goddamn rockets? What about digging a tunnel from the airport to his company because he hates the commute?

In terms of shit talking, the man is not dissimilar to Trump. I'm not saying their intellects are similar and they talk about different stuff, but they're both businessmen (and are primarily businessmen) who talk a hell of a lot of bullshit. Compare the stuff about rocket sabotage to Trump babbling about Cruz's father assassinating JFK. Not quite the same in scale, but it definitely tends to argue against the assertion that Musk is well equipped to balance any of Trump's insanity.

I think, your tone and the subjective nature of your arguments in consideration, you were more seen as a troll than being serious in your comments.
If true, that's only a sign of how far the brain rot has spread. The person dubbed "troll" should be the person talking about a Mars colony in our lifetimes without a very lengthy discussion on biotech or terraforming or plausible mining economic incentives, but instead apparently relying on his audience to say "hey, yeah! And he builds rockets, doesn't he?!" I understand the pining for retro-futurism but, Jesus Christ, this is really cringy.

The person dubbed troll should be the person who takes an awesome old idea (that I was familiar with a decade ago) the vacuum tube train, reduces max speeds from 4000+ MPH to barely faster than a jet[1], replaces the durable and silent electric propulsion with a noisy and fragile jet engine, crows that it'll be cheaper because we can just stick it a few feet away from the inte
Re:For as little as I've heard about Hyperloop by Shane_Optima · 2017-01-31 07:05 · Score: 1

LAMP may not have been popular yet, but it was certainly a household word by then,
Linux was, I mean. I've no idea if the LAMP components existed yet.
Re:For as little as I've heard about Hyperloop by Shane_Optima · 2017-02-01 10:31 · Score: 1

You see, it's like I just said: long post ignore, medium or short post mod down. So far the only person to engage in reasonable debate with me on these topics around here is Rei. I'm not whining for my own sake; I'm just saddened that the echo chamber is so solidly built.
Re:For as little as I've heard about Hyperloop by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-03 00:11 · Score: 0

Well, far from me to say Elon Musk is perfect, but at least he's more of a visionary than most others. In your view, he might be full of crap, like when he says his goal is Mars, but, in all honesty, I have the distinct feeling he actually means it. Which is, indeed, not to say he *will* do all that he says (certainly within his own timetables it seems overly optimistic), but I think he is *really* enthusiastic about it, and it's a sincere wish. This alone sets him apart from most other CEO's, who don't even try to have such a goal, or it's only a thinly veiled excuse for marketing while not being interested in it themselves.
And, well, you can't just go to Mars right away, so that he didn't accomplish anything yet (well, he did work on some rocket-engines for that, who could use fuel made on Mars itself) is not that astonishing. He put between 1-5% of SpaceX money into Mars-research. That's not much, agreed, but it's way better than anyone from the competition.
As for your argument about re-usability: you're right. All depends on how fast and for how much cost you can 'refurbish' a rocket and send it up again. However, for that, you DO need a good system of retrieval; aka: getting the rockets back. If nothing else, you'd have to agree that he succeeded at least in that part, and he did it in a pretty novel way (the only other example being the fixed-winged spaceshuttle, as you said - which is a completely other system). You can't refurbish anything if you first don't manage to get them back in one piece, after all. Also, he designed them up front to BE fully reusable, and with a lot less components that the space-shuttle system. Meaning, it's quite possible he'll succeed where the half-hearted re-usability of the space-shuttle system failed. But ok, we'll still have to see how it goes. IF it works, however, it could lead to a drop of 50-60% in price: not a small thing, I would say. There has never been such a drastic price-cut in the whole history of spaceflight.
I think his chances are quite high that he will manage to reuse his rockets, and that prices will drop -30% in the first 5 years, and and maybe up to -60% later on. I guess you think he won't succeed. Let's be honest then, here: will you concede that he DOES deserve some praise if he DOES manage to reuse his rockets, and when it WILL lead to a price-reduction within 5 years of, say, 20-30%? I mean, it's good to have critique, but one has to be consistent, and 'give to the emperor what belongs to the emperor'. Meaning: if he does manage to do something novel and/or manages to do something worthwhile, one should acknowledge that too. If not, one is nothing more than the oposity of a blind fanboy, namely a Elon-hater. Both things are not very rational, imho.
I would agree with you he's not a saint or a perfect person, and maybe his hyperloop won't pan out (I think it's technically possible, but it's still debatable if it can ever become a commercial success), but... even if it won't, it could well have made it possible to gain new knowledge and engineering knowhow for other projects (regular maglevs, for instance). If you look at it as a sponsoring of a research project, I can't find much wrong with it. Musk thinks it will pan out. Maybe it won't. But than again, I would have said it wouldn't pan out if someone started with full-eclectric cars and retrievable rockets neither. One can not deny he achieved some things, while taking risks himself, where others in his position just sit on their money doing nothing except indulging themselves in luxury. Isn't that worth a little slack neither?
As for some of his follies and quirks: every billionaire has them. Actually, all humans have that - most of us just lack the money to act upon them. I myself have 3-4 projects in mind which I'd love to try out - even if the chance of success isn't too great, but just for the fun of it - but it would cost about 4-5 million per project, and I don't have that kind of money. But otherwise, I would try it as well. Maybe people would see it as wasted
Re:For as little as I've heard about Hyperloop by Coren22 · 2017-02-03 07:30 · Score: 1

Do the cars care why the car in front stopped? The proper response is to stop.

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APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?

The criteria for the competition by elrous0 · 2017-01-29 11:58 · Score: 1

The win goes to whichever pod gets Mr. Musk to the airport the fastest without having to interact in any way with the common rabble.

Annnnnnd.....GO!

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SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.

Re:The criteria for the competition by Shane_Optima · 2017-01-29 13:42 · Score: 1

Hah! "What if all of Musk's projects are rooted in an intense hatred of driving?"

It explains a lot, when you think about it. Even Paypal.

Engineering education than step to production by ZombieEngineer · 2017-01-29 12:51 · Score: 2

With the exception of one team this is largely a practical academic exercise.

The Hyperloop concept could be found in a physics text book circa 1990 (or earlier) as a thought exercise of how rail systems could achieve speeds equal or faster than air travel. Practical considerations of the cost to build such a large scale system (for example LA to NY) would be approaching a national commitment approaching that of the "Man on the Moon" of the late 60s (~2.5% of the USA national GDP for 10 years - effectively 1 in 40 people).

This competition is similar to the solar car challenges of the 1990s / 2000s where it exists to expose the engineering students to the large number of compromises needed to achieve the desired goal (weight, power, size, cost, etc). Ability to find an optimal solution while addressing the multitude of competing constraints is a key talent to be able to succeed in any engineering discipline - especially aerospace (talent identification for Space-X?).

Back to the issue of Hyperloop - we are probably 20 years away from a working system with a number of technologies still yet to be developed. Toyota released the Prius in 1997 as result of their development efforts towards a fully electric car. At the time the technology for a fully electric car was "not ready yet" and the release of a hybrid car was a bridging technology. As a development platform towards fully electric cars the hybrids have successfully filled its original role as a number of manufacturers sell plug-in electric cars (we have moved a step down the path to mainstream electric vehicle transport).

The rolling stock for Hyperloop is only one part of the problem (my guess is this will be resolved within 5 years) - the other monster that needs to be tamed is building the track and associated infrastructure cost effectively. For comparison: Railway sidings are $1-$2 million/mile, Highway $4-$10 million/mile, Light rail $35 million/mile, High speed rail (California) $56 million/mile.

What is required is an X-Prize style competition for building the Hyperloop track as the cost of the rolling stock is likely to pale into insignificance.

Re:Engineering education than step to production by Shane_Optima · 2017-01-29 13:26 · Score: 2

The Hyperloop concept could be found in a physics text book circa 1990 (or earlier)

It's closer to the 1890s than 1990s. Vacuum tube trains are a very old idea. Sticking a jet engine on the front of the thing and making some use of a small remnant air pressure is a newer concept, but that has nothing to do with this competition, which (as someone else has already noted) is just maglev in a vacuum tube.

What is required is an X-Prize style competition for building the Hyperloop track as the cost of the rolling stock is likely to pale into insignificance.
Good luck with that. SpaceX is a successful company (in no small part because NASA has had all kinds of internal and external problems), but it's not like the X-Prize competition magically made spaceflight an order of magnitude cheaper or something. The challenges surrounding a 300 mile long length of pipe with airtight joints that can resist expansion and moderate seismic forces, elevated on pylons (that preferably should be sturdy enough to survive a hit from a tractor-trailer), seem similarly resistant to revolutionary cost reductions.

We could completely ditch the idea of going down the interstate median to perhaps save the money spent on pylons, but at that point it's probably more worthwhile/realistic to brainstorm to see if we can build a cheaper maglev track.
Re:Engineering education than step to production by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-29 14:08 · Score: 0

You can build anything cheaper if you make a lot of them, and even cheaper if you don't build in factories not on site.
Pylons and otherwise identical pieces MIGHT drive the costs down to the point where this is economic. The only customization being the pylon footings, compared with every foot of a railway bed or highway.
Re:Engineering education than step to production by hey! · 2017-01-29 14:56 · Score: 2

but at that point it's probably more worthwhile/realistic to brainstorm to see if we can build a cheaper maglev track.
Well, that's a tall order, given that people have been noodling about maglev for decades, and working systems have even been built. People have been brainstorming; we're at the stage of needing more practical experience as grist for the brainstorming mill.
We know that maglev physically works, it just doesn't work economically yet.
On the other hand it seems to me that the challenges of building a Hyperloop track aren't quite as unbeatable as you suggest. We've been building pipelines for years, some of which have diameters in excess of 2m. In fact if that weren't SpaceX wouldn't be able to hold this competition -- their track is just stock large diameter welded steel pipe. Of course the Hyperloop would have to be man-rated, but then building a 42 inch diameter natural gas pipeline that will be pressurized to 1500 psi is no picnic either, but that has been done and at those pressures you'd better not have the thing fail catastrophically in an earthquake.
Syre, Hyperloop sounds ridiculous. But when you look closer at it... well, I grant you it still sounds ridiculous. But less ridiculous. And that makes it interesting.

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Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Re:Engineering education than step to production by Shane_Optima · 2017-01-29 15:26 · Score: 1

Well, that's a tall order, given that people have been noodling about maglev for decades, and working systems have even been built. People have been brainstorming; we're at the stage of needing more practical experience as grist for the brainstorming mill. We know that maglev physically works, it just doesn't work economically yet.
*Sigh*. Maybe you could re-read the post you just replied to? In summary:

1. People have been thinking about vacuum trains for over a hundred years.

2. This competition (along with some other specific hyperloop proposals) *is* maglev. Maglev plus a vacuum tube. So if maglev is too expensive, pretty sure this isn't going to be any cheaper.

The forms of hyperloop that aren't maglev (and thus aren't represented in this contest) rely, from my understanding, on a jet engine in addition to a linear electric motor. I have a few doubts here about the economic savings being very compelling.

Syre, Hyperloop sounds ridiculous. But when you look closer at it... well, I grant you it still sounds ridiculous. But less ridiculous. And that makes it interesting.
There's a lot of interesting stuff in the world. The EM drive is interesting. The extraction of gold from seawater is interesting. Mass produced and aligned graphine that's 100x the strength is steel, self-healing in the presence of CO2 and transparent is interesting. Mass produced carbon nanotubes are interesting. A giant geothermal power station in Yellowstone is interesting. We should think about this stuff from time to time, sure. Absolutely.

The difference with Musk's ideas are people take them really, really seriously, inspiring immediate action and investment, even when they're pretty clearly not economically feasible. And it's rather depressing. Geeks need better heroes than this, and better projects to dream about. The most important thing Musk has done is Tesla, and specifically Autopilot, but if he would only spend 1/10th as much time talking about nanowire batteries as he did hyperloops and Mars colonies...
Re:Engineering education than step to production by Shane_Optima · 2017-01-29 15:40 · Score: 1

You can build anything cheaper if you make a lot of them, and even cheaper if you don't build in factories not on site.
There's obviously a floor on how far economies of scale will get you, and *particularly* heavy things that have to be structurally sound for safety reasons.

This is why there isn't a $5000 (or indeed $500) car that's street legal in America. The demand and the volume are obviously there. Or let's not even get that complicated: someone else in this thread quoted $4M-$10M per mile for highway construction. Surely there's tons of incentives to get *that* price down, eh? I mean, it's just a hard, smooth surface on stable ground! You can't get simpler requirements or higher demand than that.

Pylons and otherwise identical pieces MIGHT drive the costs down to the point where this is economic.
No, no it won't be. And that's ok. There's a ton of other feasible revolutionary ideas out there. Self-driving electric cars with durable nanowire batteries will be completely revolutionary, but Musk is (comparatively speaking) halfassing the promotion of this much, much more realistic dream. Good nanowire batteries alone are complete game-changer, allowing the rest of the electric motor-building world to "beat a path to your door" in addition to small scale solar panel companies (for people wanting to build and live off-grid) and mobile electronic applications. I'd much, much rather have a sub-$10,000 car that runs for less than $1.50/gallon equivalent and lasts for a million miles without major servicing than have a land-based version of the Concorde, but that dream future isn't Musk's (or the luxury car maker Tesla's) top priority.
Re:Engineering education than step to production by lazy+genes · 2017-01-29 16:55 · Score: 0

The biggest problem is that it's not scalable. Elon needs to look much further into the future for his ideas. He needs design things that will be of use to his great great grandchildren. The design process should not concern profit or costs. The design criteria should include altruistic ideas like no accidents , high speed, mpg, environment, accessible to everyone and scalable for a world population size of 13 billion. The answer to designing a sustainable system is easy. Once a sustainable system is found if built, it would pay for itself in less than 5 years.
Re:Engineering education than step to production by hey! · 2017-01-29 17:04 · Score: 1

I did read your post, I just don't find your reasoning as convincing as you do. Appearing in science fiction doesn't really count as "thinking" from an engineering standpoint. I'm only counting actual engineering work.
People also started noodling around with the idea of maglev about a hundred years ago, but the difference is the first operational maglev train was built 38 years ago, and since then there have been numerous modest but operational systems. There is no shortage of brainstorming going on on how to make maglev cheaper so you can't really present this as a simpler alternative.

This competition (along with some other specific hyperloop proposals) *is* maglev.
Clearly you haven't even bothered to read about the competition before offering your opinion.

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Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Re:Engineering education than step to production by Shane_Optima · 2017-01-29 18:01 · Score: 1

I did read your post, I just don't find your reasoning as convincing as you do. Appearing in science fiction doesn't really count as "thinking" from an engineering standpoint. I'm only counting actual engineering work.
I am reasonably confident that some engineers, somewhere have written some equations on it over the past 100 years. Certainly, it was more than just fiction. Exactly 100 years ago there appears to be some sort of paper on it in Popular Science, for instance.

Clearly you haven't even bothered to read about the competition before offering your opinion.
No, I based that comment on having read about prior small scale 'hyperloop' demonstrations which were just maglev, plus another poster's comment in this thread saying that that's all this was, plus my conversations in a Reddit thread with an enthusiast who was saying about how the 'Hyperloop One' (whatever that is) is apparently moving away from air bearing design and uses a maglev bearing instead, plus my rudimentary knowledge and suspicions that fully functional turbine jet engines of that size aren't cheap or (even if they were cheap) necessarily equivalent / mathematically useful in modeling a full sized hyperloop. That was sufficient to veto the RTFA article option for me.

*Are* they actually including jet engines and air bearings in this competition? That's kinda interesting. I mean, I'm still not going to read it, for the same reason that I'm not going to read about a contest to build tabletop thermal reactors in anticipation of a 100 billion dollar mega-scale geothermal plant in Yellowstone. I only have a limited number of minutes in the day. I find that disabusing people on the internet of nonsense to be somewhat stimulating, while reading about colossal wastes of time and money and enthusiasm to be depressing... doubly so when it's based on the hero worship of an individual as overrated (not horrible or talentless, just overrated) as Musk.

But if the other poster in this thread was right OR if the Reddit guy was right and the hyperloop focus is now on maglev in a vacuum tube... I think you must concede I have a bit of a point, yes? *If* maglev could be made cheap enough for hyperloop to be economical, it should be even more economical if we can simply leave out the bit where we need a huge sturdy pipe with custom airtight joints and various safety features. There's no plausible way that maglev could be far too expensive and maglev-based hyperloop be economical, yes?
Re:Engineering education than step to production by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-30 02:40 · Score: 0

This competition is similar to the solar car challenges of the 1990s / 2000s where it exists to expose the engineering students to the large number of compromises needed to achieve the desired goal (weight, power, size, cost, etc). Ability to find an optimal solution while addressing the multitude of competing constraints is a key talent to be able to succeed in any engineering discipline - especially aerospace (talent identification for Space-X?).
Even more similar than you think. The Dutch team which won is from Delft University of Technology. In previous years, similar student teams from Delft have repeatedly won the World Solar Challenge (6 wins in the last 8 races).
Re:Engineering education than step to production by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-30 03:28 · Score: 0

WTF is wrong with you dude. Maybe you should seek professional psychiatric help.
Re:Engineering education than step to production by Shane_Optima · 2017-01-30 06:51 · Score: 1

I don't wish to be cured of my sanity or learn to de-value facts and basic reason, thanks. One brief look around shows a hundred people like you, unwilling and unable to debate these simplest of points, but eager enough to mod down any reasonable examination of the hyperloop.

Danger?? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-29 14:04 · Score: 0

So from what I see, there's an audience for this, and the test is scored on the max speed achieved before deaccelerating to a stop, so what if stop doesn't happen?

Re:Danger?? by GuB-42 · 2017-01-30 04:56 · Score: 1

Stand the audience to a safe enough distance, and only on the sides of the tube.
If the pod fails to stop debris will go mostly forward, thanks to momentum.
In case of a depressurization, air will post likely rush in, follow the pipe and ram of the end, projecting debris in line with the pipe but not so much on the sides.
So must likely scenario if the pod hits the end of the tube at full speed and nothing is done to absorb the shock : the pods breaks the end of the tube, flying out like a bullet. Through the hole, air rushes in, carrying most of the smaller debris with it, travels at the speed of sound through the tube the opposite way, break the other end, and everything flies like out of a shotgun.
So you have a cannon on one end, a really big shotgun on the other end and nothing much on the sides, which are relatively safe. That's assuming there is no system in place to prevent this kind of catastrophic failure.
Re:Danger?? by HuguesT · 2017-01-30 11:44 · Score: 1

Max speed was 90km/h. The tube looked sturdy. The spaceX took great care to emphasise safety. Out of 25 or so competitors, only 3 were allowed to try to go for the highest speed.
Overall it seemed a very safe contest.

Fuck You Facebook - cannot watch video w/out login by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-29 15:06 · Score: 3, Insightful

Facebook forces you to login before being able to see all of the video. Well Fuck You facebook -- I don't use facebook and will not give in to blackmail and extortion to be forced to agree to FB TOS.

Please stop posting links to FB. Please instead post link to public free links of the same content.

It's a go then? by SuperKendall · 2017-01-29 15:28 · Score: 1

the cost to build such a large scale system (for example LA to NY) would be approaching a national commitment approaching that of the "Man on the Moon" of the late 60s

So cheaper than the California high-speed rail plan then.

Ok, let's roll out! Or hover as it were.

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley

Re:It's a go then? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-30 07:52 · Score: 0

the cost to build such a large scale system (for example LA to NY) would be approaching a national commitment approaching that of the "Man on the Moon" of the late 60s
So cheaper than the California high-speed rail plan then.
Ok, let's roll out! Or hover as it were.
You left off the number:
(~2.5% of the USA national GDP for 10 years - effectively 1 in 40 people).
Currently the USA GDP is ~16 trillion a year. That means each year will be 400,000,000,000 or 400 billion, or just under 6 times the estimated cost of the entire California project. A year. Times 10, well, that's 25% of 16 trillion, or 4 trillion dollars.

I'm pretty sure you're full of crap. by Brannon · 2017-01-29 16:02 · Score: 2

1. SpaceX is pretty important. Tesla is pretty important. The gigafactory is a big deal. SolarCity is a good idea. Elon Musk has been involved with several pretty important things. People take Elon Musk seriously because he is, frankly, a pretty fucking serious guy. Your petty psychological need to reject anything that smells of hero-worship is way more disturbing than any actual instances of hero worship. There is absolutely nothing absurd about calling someone a tech visionary when they are clearly a tech visionary--doesn't mean that everything he proposes is going to work out, because obviously that is a stupid standard.

2. The fact that people have been "thinking about vacuum tubes for a hundred years" is irrelevant. Just as irrelevant of all the criticism about Apple because...blah blah blah Xerox had a demo of a tablet in 1968. Invention is the combination of existing technologies to make a new, useful technology. Every invention is arguably a short step from previous inventions.

3. You say the hyperloop is silly because of track costs. The Musk proposal talks about this--it estimates costs based on large above-ground oil pipelines, very similar in materials, air tightness, and various stresses--the numbers work out for several hundreds of miles.

Re:I'm pretty sure you're full of crap. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-29 16:47 · Score: 2

Honestly, hyperloop is *probably* not going to work. It is nice to see them try but they have some serious engineering challenges that they will not be able to get past no mater how much we like Elon. Thunderf00t on youtube makes some very compelling arguments why this is probably not going to work. If those can be addressed then yeah maybe. But still probably not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDwe2M-LDZQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNFesa01llk
People keep thinking this is 'low' pressure. This is near space pressure. Basically nonexistent. One small fracture *anywhere* in the system will be a catastrophic failure.
People have been working on this concept for a long time. It would be amazing if they could get it to consistently work. But more than likely it is not going to work. Their only existing demo is mostly a mediocre maglev 'train'.
Maglev in a vacuum sounds bad ass. But the near total vacuum their own papers say they will need will be a near showstopper.
The power positive spin they put on it is a bunch of solar cells. We can achieve the same thing and better with solar cells only. The quick times they rattle off are little better than what we can achieve today with airtravel. Most of our air travel time is now spent on the ground doing stupid things like pulling off our shoes. It used to be in the 1960s-1990s you could get on a plane in LAX and be in SAN in 40-60 mins. That same flight now takes you 3-4+ hours. The planes are better the landing strips are better the scheduling is better. Yet it takes more time. Because of DHS. Hyperloop *will* be subject to those same provisions.
Re:I'm pretty sure you're full of crap. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-29 17:21 · Score: 0

Most of our air travel time is now spent on the ground doing stupid things like pulling off our shoes. It used to be in the 1960s-1990s you could get on a plane in LAX and be in SAN in 40-60 mins. That same flight now takes you 3-4+ hours. The planes are better the landing strips are better the scheduling is better. Yet it takes more time. Because of DHS. Hyperloop *will* be subject to those same provisions.
This is what's great about the shinkansen. Of course, it actually takes longer AND COSTS MORE for most trips, but the fact that you can just show up at the station on the day of your trip, buy a ticket from a kiosk a few minutes before the train arrives, and hop on board with no security screening at all, makes it very nice indeed.
The so-called civilized world could learn a lot from Japan's immigration policies.
Re:I'm pretty sure you're full of crap. by Shane_Optima · 2017-01-29 18:39 · Score: 1

The so-called civilized world could learn a lot from Japan's immigration policies.
Wow.

You do realize that Japan's "immigration policy" is based on cultural and racial purity. If you are not ethnically Japanese, you cannot ever become a citizen.

There are some "green card" equivalents of course, but as I recall there are serious impediments to owning property as a non-citizen in Japan. And I'm fairly sure that America and (especially in recent years) Europe take in more refugees.

This is what's great about the shinkansen. Of course, it actually takes longer AND COSTS MORE for most trips, but the fact that you can just show up at the station on the day of your trip, buy a ticket from a kiosk a few minutes before the train arrives, and hop on board with no security screening at all, makes it very nice indeed.
Another *wow*. Do you realize how vanishingly small the percentage of people is that are willing to pay more for a slower ride, just to avoid security? Even as a rich person's toy that's pretty abysmal, though I assume dining cars and such might help ameliorate that a bit.

But that lack of security, of course, has very little to do with the tech itself.
Re: I'm pretty sure you're full of crap. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-29 22:31 · Score: 0

I think he WAS saying that about japans immigration policy.
Re: I'm pretty sure you're full of crap. by Shane_Optima · 2017-01-30 05:23 · Score: 1

Maybe. Oddly phrased and oddly timed (Trump's immigration stuff) if so.
Re:I'm pretty sure you're full of crap. by GuB-42 · 2017-01-30 05:52 · Score: 1

Another *wow*. Do you realize how vanishingly small the percentage of people is that are willing to pay more for a slower ride, just to avoid security?
Total time, the train is often faster (depends on the distance of course). Security is just one of the contributing factors.
The Shinkansen goes downtown to downtown. There is no need to arrive early, just enough time to walk to the platform before the train leaves, which is exactly the time written on your ticket. You can buy the ticket anytime, even a few minutes before departure if there are seats left, which is often the case.
And even if for some reason, the Shinkansen is a bit slower, it is time spent comfortably in a train, not waiting in line and running from place to place.
I think that if you go to Japan and travel there, you too will be willing to "pay more for a slower ride".

Re:Queers by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-29 17:10 · Score: 0

Because Trump was the only candidate on election day who proposed stopping immigration from countries that export radical Islamic terror. You know Islam, right? That's the religion in which a majority of believers say that gays should be put to death.

Uh huh. by Shane_Optima · 2017-01-29 17:30 · Score: 1

Your petty psychological need to reject anything

You're projecting. I cram my posts full of disclaimers about what I think is and isn't important, but anything that isn't fawning all over Musk 100% is modded to oblivion around here.

People take Elon Musk seriously because he is, frankly, a pretty fucking serious guy.

He made his millions off of Paypal, a company that basically got lucky when they realized the government wasn't going to shut them down for offering banking services without normal banking rules. Their early business decisions were all over the place and the people who started it (not Musk, although he chose to associate with them) didn't even understand how credit card chargebacks worked. I cannot think of a *less* serious or tech-visionary place to begin than Paypal. But wait, it gets worse! He was their CEO until he was fired for refusing to back down on his plan to abandon their existing *nix infrastructure and migrate entirely to Windows. Wow, what a vision that must have been! It's a real pity he never got a chance to attempt it; it might have slowed down Paypal's rocket to ascendancy.

Mars colony rambles are pretty goddamn dumb and non-serious. The sticking point for a Mars colony is NOT the rocket it takes to get there, unless you have some revolutionary tech that makes rockets orders of magnitude cheaper. Which SpaceX most definitely does not have. If he were serious about Mars he'd probably be completely focused on biotech.

Digging a tunnel from the airport to his company is pretty goddamn non-serious, or at least (if he is actually serious) enormously dumb and self-absorbed.

Telsa is good, but they started out building rich people toys and they haven't strayed very far from that niche. They didn't make nearly as much impact as hybrids from regular car companies did (starting with the Prius), and they certainly won't be the ones to make electrical vehicles overtake ICE. They do have the potential to be important pioneers with Autopilot, though.

SpaceX is pretty important.

Only to the extent that NASA is a piece of crap (partially because we didn't listen to Feynman, partially because we keep slashing its budget.) SpaceX has not, to my knowledge, come up with revolutionary new technologies. They've tinkered with a few cost cutting tricks, and they were in the right place at the right time to land some important government contracts and snap up laid-off NASA talent. Good for them.

I mean, I quite like a few of Razer's products, but I don't pretend that they invented or significantly innovated with keyboards or optical mice. And I don't confuse marketing with invention.

Gigafactory

An American factory? Meh. Unlikely to be as cost-effective outsourced factories. Wake me up when they have facilities to produce nanowire or other next-gen batteries. I've been hearing about nanowire batteries for almost as long as Paypal has been successful. Why isn't he holding press conferences and competitions there?

Mightn't it have something to do with the fact that Tesla is a LUXURY car company and thus there isn't any big incentive for him to open the door for electric cars to become a low-cost, widely available thing?

Or maybe he just isn't quite as serious, overall, as you think he is.

SolarCity is a good idea.

Yes, I forgot about Solarcity, the first company that ever specialized in solar power.

I'm not saying the guy does pointless stuff. He's just not *that* special. I mean, people don't tend to claim that Bill Gates *invented* (or even revolutionized) charities in Africa.

You say the hyperloop is silly because of track costs.

I didn't actually say that. I was responding to someone else who said that. That is merely one of the reasons why it's silly, although it is a big one.

American show, European winners by paai · 2017-01-29 21:07 · Score: 1

If I count correctly, 25 of the competing teams were from the USA. Nevertheless the dutch and the german teams performed best in terms of speed and design. Money is not everything. It is a hopeful sign in a world that for the last fifty years increasingly became 'americanized'.

Paai

Re:American show, European winners by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-30 02:32 · Score: 0

You mean the Dutch and German teams didn't have money, but the American teams did?
Re:American show, European winners by Bryan+Ischo · 2017-01-30 04:34 · Score: 1

Any opportunity to express an anti-American sentiment, I guess. Whatever floats your boat, hater.
Re:American show, European winners by paai · 2017-01-30 06:06 · Score: 1

Dear Brian, although you americans sure put up a lot of effort to be universally disliked, I do not hate you. In a single generation I have seen our own culture disappear, age-old festivals replaced by Valentine and Halloween, our music and movies almost exclusively by american artists, our universities one after the other 'english-only'... I don't think you can even begin to understand what that it means to see your world disappear and taken over by a strange country.
So do not begrudge us the rare occasion that we win in a field of american competitors. And do not call it 'hatred' when we enjoy that feeling.
Paai
Re:American show, European winners by Bryan+Ischo · 2017-01-30 06:20 · Score: 1

If you had expressed yourself in a different way, I might have felt some sympathy for you. As it is, I have none. My best advice for you would be, stop reading English websites like Slashdot and go read the equivalent in whatever language you prefer.
Re:American show, European winners by Bryan+Ischo · 2017-01-30 06:23 · Score: 1

My guess would be that the Dutch and German teams outspent the American teams. Sometimes universities find a claim to fame and they dedicate quite a bit of resources to maintaining that.
Of course, I have no actual idea who spent what so this is purely conjecture, to be clear.
Re:American show, European winners by paai · 2017-01-30 06:49 · Score: 1

My dear Brian, I do not quite see where I was rude or insulting in my original post. But as you pointed out correctly, english is not my native language.
When I started university, long, long ago in the sixties, literature and textbooks were in french, german, english and, of course, dutch. When you published a paper in whatever language, you had to include abstracts in the other languages. Superficially the recent english-only situation in the western world seems an improvement. Anyway, if you want to pursue an academic career, you have no choice.
But if I were you, I would follow some courses on the way how a language defines your perception and you will see that apart from the obvious advantages of universal communication, there is a very real danger of monoculture and lack of perspective. This is acerbated by the fact that we not only use english for communication, but also in culture itself, music, movies, literature, you name it. Don't be surprised when the world lashes back at you.
I will feel some sympathy if you do not quite understand this. My best advice for you would be, stop reading websites for now and go read some books on language and philosophy, in whatever language you prefer. German would be a good choice :-)
And I still feel great about the dutch team winning this contest.
Paai
Re:American show, European winners by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-30 10:25 · Score: 0

Delft University chipped in a bit, but corporate sponsors are probably more important. The Dutch pod is all carbon fiber, which was provided by Ten Cate (who also manufacture the carbon fiber parts of the A350). DHL is also a major sponsor, arranging the logistics, and there about a dozen minor sponsors.
The German team is comparable: directly backed by Airbus, as well as a host of minor sponsors.
However, what's probably more important than the money, a lot of the minor sponsors are engineering firms. It's safe to bet there are quite a few alumni involved, both in design and prototype fabrication.
Re:American show, European winners by Bryan+Ischo · 2017-01-31 06:58 · Score: 1

Weird that these teams would be backed by an airplane company, given that hyperloops, if they were ever built, would just take customers away from flying.

Correction... 2.5% of the federal budget by Ecuador · 2017-01-30 02:26 · Score: 1

... would be approaching a national commitment approaching that of the "Man on the Moon" of the late 60s (~2.5% of the USA national GDP for 10 years - effectively 1 in 40 people).

I thought that seemed off, so I checked and it was ~2.5% of the federal budget, or 0.5% of the GDP - 1 in 200 people. It doesn't really have to do with the point of your post, but I thought it was worth a correction.

--
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS

Now I'm certain you are full of crap. by Brannon · 2017-01-30 04:23 · Score: 1

> SpaceX has not, to my knowledge, come up with revolutionary new technologies.

Well, they cut the cost of a launch by a factor of 10, and they've landed rockets. I guess that doesn't qualify. And Tesla is releasing Model 3 at $35K, so your "toys for rich people" comment is stupid. Starting with the high-end is a perfectly reasonable strategy.

The real problems here are that:

(a) you don't understand what technology is. I mean that sincerely. You have no fucking clue. Let's try a thought experiment, name a single thing that you consider a "new technology". A single thing, from the entire history of mankind. I'll break that down into pieces and show how it was a very minor step from some previous thing. You'll then have a bit of a meltdown because by your definition there has never been a "new technology"--and I will have proven [by contradiction] that your definition of "technology" is wrong.

(b) You don't care about being wrong. You care only about shitting on people you don't like. You have an inexhaustible supply of excuses and the truth doesn't matter to you.

Re:Now I'm certain you are full of crap. by Shane_Optima · 2017-01-30 06:17 · Score: 1

Well, they cut the cost of a launch by a factor of 10
Doesn't matter. Per-kilo cost is the only thing that matters. Also, would need to see run the numbers taking into account all of their accidents (and we may not have enough data points yet) to see if that cost savings really holds up.

And even if they had achieved a significant cost savings, that doesn't mean it's a tech revolution. NASA is an expensive, overbuilt pile of shit, full of parasites who are politicians, not scientists. Anyone who is paying attention has known this for 30 years now. If you can't understand why it doesn't take a "tech visionary" to trim some fat from the bloated corpse of a failed government agency...

I guess that doesn't qualify.
Nope. I don't care about landing a rocket on a barge vs. runway shuttle landing vs. splashdown and neither should you. Total cost per kilo is all that matters, and I am referring only to cost savings caused by Musk being a "tech visionary", not the savings caused by his not-being-a-bureaucratic-POS-like-NASA.

Let's try a thought experiment, name a single thing that you consider a "new technology".
American scientists' discovery and refinement of aluminum-based solid rocket booster fuels. That took me less than 5 seconds to remember and type. I'm sure if one were to go digging on Wikipedia there would be two hundred more obvious examples.[1]

you don't understand what technology is. I mean that sincerely. You have no fucking clue.
If you had any argument or retort whatsoever, you could provide it. If you had a single example of SpaceX's massively cost-saving technology, you would surely mock me with it. But you don't. So here's one for free: "putting the LOX in the rocket at the very last second to reduce boil-off." But... say! That's not really a "technology", is it? It's a minor corner-cutting, cost-saving gimmick, and it's a slightly dangerous one at that. It's one that may well be more expensive in the long run due to a raised risk of accident.

Having business acumen, be it short term or long term, real or imagined, is not the same thing as being a "tech visionary"

You don't care about being wrong.

Oh, but I do. Which is precisely why I didn't brainlessly jump on the Musk fanboy wagon, because that would lead me to saying a lot of wrong stuff.

And the people I do tend to admire, like (for instance) Sam Harris, I am not afraid to criticize relentlessly.

You care only about shitting on people you don't like.
There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of adult literacy courses available across the nation. I suggest that you take advantage of them. I've repeatedly said that I don't think Musk is a bad person; it's just overrated. His actual accomplishments are being vastly overstated, and his proposed future projects are being taken far too seriously.

1. That said, there aren't any major cost saving spaceflight technologies in the foreseeable future unless the EM drive actually pans out, but that still won't get you out of the atmosphere. Cheap spaceflight is obviously a pipe dream. Other areas, like general AI and electric vehicles and biotech and nanotech, are much more promising. My major criticism of Muskites is they are tilting at windmills and setting themselves up for failure.
Re:Now I'm certain you are full of crap. by Brannon · 2017-01-30 06:54 · Score: 1

SpaceX has a very low cost per kg into space. Lower than all the alternatives for many types of missions. >10X lower than previous NASA, and quite a bit lower than rockets from Russia. Probably not much lower than the hypothetical strawman you've offered of a non-bureaucratic rocket.
Landing rockets allows them to be re-used, which will cut the cost further. They've clearly mastered landing the rockets, next step is to recondition and reuse them--that will certainly result in lowered cost. It hasn't been reflected in that cost yet because we're talking about a new technology here.
> American scientists' discovery and refinement of aluminum-based solid rocket booster fuels.
You literally picked the easiest possible invention to debunk. Did they invent aluminum? Nope. Did they invent rockets? Nope. How about solid fuel rockets? Nope. Were they the first ones to notice that Aluminum has a high energy density? Nope.
Let's be completely fucking honest here. If Aluminum didn't exist as a solid booster fuel and then Elon Musk tweeted about it, you would be among those lining up with pitchforks claiming that he's a sleazy snake-oil salesmen taking credit for other peoples' inventions.
You don't like Elon Musk, and you absolutely hate any sniff of "tech hero worship". That's all that's happening here. You aren't that complicated. You are, however, boring.
Re:Now I'm certain you are full of crap. by Shane_Optima · 2017-01-30 07:14 · Score: 1

SpaceX has a very low cost per kg into space.

Are you sure it isn't bigly low? Tremendously low, even?

>10X lower than previous NASA
Citation needed. And remember, the conversation is about TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION not cost cutting. You're the one who insisted Musk was a "tech visionary".

strawman
Why am I not surprised you don't understand what a strawman is?

Landing rockets allows them to be re-used
It's a good thing no one has thought of this before.

The Space Shuttle, incidentally, was not cheaper than disposable alternatives.

It hasn't been reflected in that cost yet because we're talking about a new technology here.
Viking spacecraft landed on *on another planet* using rockets over 40 years ago They switched to the airbag rolling system for later missions because it was--wait for it--cheaper.

What else do you think Musk invented? I'm genuinely curious.

You literally picked the easiest possible invention to debunk. Did they invent aluminum? Nope. Did they invent rockets? Nope. How about solid fuel rockets? Nope. Were they the first ones to notice that Aluminum has a high energy density? Nope.
I'm not even sure what you're arguing about any more. American scientists discovered that the mixture was especially effective, when previously there was no such knowledge. The Russians figured it out independently a little later, as I recall. This is an example of a significant, if incremental, discovery and improvement. Of the sort that SpaceX is NOT engaged in, to my knowledge.

What the hell is your counter-argument here? Arguing that it's not a real discovery is taking the exact opposite position as the one you appeared to have.

. If Aluminum didn't exist as a solid booster fuel and then Elon Musk tweeted about it, you would be among those lining up with pitchforks claiming that he's a sleazy snake-oil salesmen taking credit for other peoples' inventions.
You're all over the place here. A snake-oil salesman is someone who has an ineffective product. This is clearly mutually exclusive with stealing a product that actually does work.

If Musk found a new fuel mixture that offered significantly improved thrust, specific impulse or cost-effectiveness, I would be the first to give him credit. Even if he didn't discover it but rather refined or popularized it or proved it was workable where previously there was skepticism, that would still be a pretty big win.

You don't like Elon Musk,

I like Musk and I like Jobs for that matter. I cannot stand the fan club of either, and as human beings they've both done a bunch of dumb shit that people don't want to allow you to mention.

You are, however, boring.
No, haven't you been watching the news? Musk is the one who's boring. Or he's not boring, in which case he's definitely not "very serious", as you described him.

Noise in a Vacuum? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-30 06:12 · Score: 0

Watched the video from MIT. Seems quite noisy for a Vacuum environment.

Peter

Re:Noise in a Vacuum? by HuguesT · 2017-01-30 11:45 · Score: 1

metal on metal conduction ?

Sigh. by Brannon · 2017-01-30 08:13 · Score: 1

> >10X lower than previous NASA
> Citation needed. And remember, the conversation is about TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION not cost cutting.

Lots of cites out there for cost per pound. I'd dig one up for you but what's the point? you've shifted the goalposts with your assertion that "no TRUE innovation is based on cost cutting".

The personal computer was also mostly about cost-cutting, I guess that wasn't an innovation.

> American scientists discovered that the mixture was especially effective, when previously there was no such knowledge.

Was especially effective at what? Decreasing cost per pound? I thought we weren't talking about cost. Cost is irrelevant, remember the rules you just invented like three sentences ago?
Why not just do 10X more launches using the previous best booster fuel? Cost is irrelevant, right?

> If Musk found a new fuel mixture that offered significantly improved thrust, specific impulse or cost-effectiveness, I would be the first to give him credit.

Oh, cost-effectiveness is once again a permitted form of innnovation?

I don't believe you, nobody who is watching believes you, and deep down...you don't believe you, either.

And ultimately it doesn't matter--because I don't care if you think I'm a fanboi and you don't care if you're wrong.

Re:Sigh. by Shane_Optima · 2017-01-30 11:45 · Score: 1

Was especially effective at what? Decreasing cost per pound? I thought we weren't talking about cost.

Everything connects back to cost one way or another. Congratulations for your assault on the English language; I admit that I did not cram in every possible disclaimer adjective to prevent a ridiculously overly-literal interpretation, especially in the presence of so many clarifying sentences referring to Musk's business acumen and the inefficiencies in NASA.

So: by "cost", I was obviously referring to business / infrastructure / standard practices cost reductions. Cost reductions achieved through technological breakthrough obviously count as technological progress.

Incidentally, the cost reduction here is secondary to (IIRC) an increase in thrust offered by aluminum-fueled solid rocket boosters.

"no TRUE innovation is based on cost cutting". The personal computer was also mostly about cost-cutting, I guess that wasn't an innovation.
If it involves new technology it's a tech innovation. If it doesn't, then it isn't.

Similarly, formulating a more cost-effective liquid oxidizer that no one has successfully used before would be both technological development and cost cutting. Simply filling up the LOX later in the countdown stage (as SpaceX does, from my understanding), running those minor risks in order to save a few short term bucks from the reduced boil-off, cannot be reasonably termed technological progress.

Also, "soft landing under rocket power" cannot be reasonably termed technological progress unless/until he's managed to do something significantly different/better with it. Because it's not a new idea and it's been done before and hell, you've already said he isn't gaining anything useful out of it yet.

you don't care if you're wrong.
I was wrong to assume you would attempt an intelligent and good-faith interpretation of the word "cost" in the presence of so much obvious context referring to bureaucratic inefficiencies and Musk's business successes.
Re:Sigh. by Shane_Optima · 2017-01-30 12:05 · Score: 1

P.S.

I don't believe you, nobody who is watching believes you, and deep down...you don't believe you, either.
I've already repeatedly given him credit for Tesla, and Autopilot specifically. And I've given him credit for the business success that came from creating a company that is less fucked up than NASA. Why wouldn't I also give him credit for inventing a new fuel, if I found out he had done such a thing?

Just wanted to underline how little you're paying attention here, apparently because you're still obsessed with defending someone instead of objectively looking at the facts.

Scale, Mofo..do you speak it?! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-31 05:37 · Score: 0

I had a train set that ran off batteries and the tracks were all plastic. And a battery powered LEGO monorail.

Proof of concept for spending trillon$$ for "changing the world" with non ferrous travel technology and 3D printable rails?

Not at all.

The biggest hurdles are Scale, and Environment. Not the tube or anything done on a test track. Otherwise, Hyperloop was "proven" in London in 1866. Did that scale to a intraAmerica, long distance (mountains and rivers crossed) world changing system?

Presenting the same idea but bu the latest trendy multibillionaire changes nothing. Tho maybe endlessly recycling ideas is "green"?

Re:A bowl full of Meh.So using pipe segments to bu by Shane_Optima · 2017-02-01 19:29 · Score: 1

I know you don't bother to read design documents before talking about topics, but could you at a bare minimum read the comments of the person you're replying to?

Let me rephrase: It sounded like you were saying the lengthwise expansion would indeed occur, but that this wouldn't cause undue stress because the pipe would be allowed to move freely on these supports, thereby allowing movements to easily propagate along the length of the pipe (if not the entire length... I'm not sure how things work out at curves, for instance.) Millimeters per second actually sounded like a lot to me.

This is turning a bit pedantic and tangential, though. "It's good that it's so fast!" handwavery is not something I can *conclusively* attack without a lot of serious research and calculating. My overarching point is there aren't good precedents, and the pipe will suffer stresses of a sort that an oil pipeline never has to, with rather different failure modes.

Really, you're responding by linking to a reddit thread full of a bunch of other people who never bothered to read the document, making complaints about things that are thoroughly addressed in said design document?

That was a Reddit thread that I started some weeks ago, and I was specifically directing your attention to the pro-hyperloop guy who responded to me and saw a fair number of upvotes over the course of the discussion. Could be right, could be wrong, but it seemed relevant. It was the Ask Engineers sub, incidentally.

What exactly about the A) launch timing, B) number of people per capsule, or C) speed do you think is a throughput problem? You seem well aware of B and C. So what's the problem, launch timing? You do realize that the capsules are loaded in parallel, don't you?

It's being given as one of the major advantages of the hyperloop, as if it will automatically be used at maximum theoretical capacity. I'm not sure I follow the logic there. Out of all of the tracks I've ever seen in my life, none of them ever remotely appeared to be operating at full capacity, with one train behind another in a near-solid line, with only enough room left between them as is naturally created by the stops plus a little extra as a braking buffer. Why is this the case? Well, tracked vehicles are not perfect solutions for commuters, nor is there an infinite supply of cargo to haul given any particular point A and point B (and they also have to compete with trucks and whathaveyou.)

And I was also trying to hint that a massively parallelized terminal setup designed for a very high frequency launch schedule does not sound especially cheap. Is this an investment they're going to make from the very beginning, confident that the demand will justify it?

Wait... are you still, this far into the conversation, still under the impression that Hyperloop Alpha is maglev? I seriously hope that's not what you mean.

There's a wider discussion of hyperloops out there. Some of them are maglev.

Seriously, some random guy pointing to some stylized ultrasimplified CG is your source?

At a glance, it appears to be official Hyperloop One material. I've heard several people refer to Hyperloop One now. How big of a deal is it vs. Musk's stuff?

I'm too lazy to look into the details it myself, so I'm not claiming this as a point in my favor but, once again, if you're a hyperloop fan maybe you'd care for your own edification. If people are pushing dumb hyperloop variants and Musk's the only world-changing correct one, that's a wider discussion I'd assume you'd have at least a passing interest in, if for no other reason than their existence is detrimental to the Alpha's success.

By the way, let me refine my Musk criticism a bit: it's entirely possible he could build a hyperloop and come out on top, even if the thing isn't anywhere near profitable on the whole. Some of the foreign governmen

Re:A bowl full of Meh.So using pipe segments to bu by Rei · 2017-02-01 23:18 · Score: 1

Let me rephrase: It sounded like you were saying the lengthwise expansion would indeed occur, but that this wouldn't cause undue stress because the pipe would be allowed to move freely on these supports, thereby allowing movements to easily propagate along the length of the pipe (if not the entire length... I'm not sure how things work out at curves, for instance.)

That is correct. It is guided, but allowed to expand. All the towers have to do is withstand any lateral forces. If the stress in the pipe is sufficient to overcome friction, it moves. If it's not, then it just sits there, either in tension or compression. Pieces of steel existing in tension or compression being perfectly normal in engineering.

Thermal stress is not something you can just ignore, but it's anything but some sort of huge problem to deal with. You either let the thing move in a direction you're comfortable with it moving, or you resist the stresses. Both solutions are widely utilized. Stop acting like basic engineering equals magic.

This is turning a bit pedantic and tangential, though. "It's good that it's so fast!" handwavery is not something I can *conclusively* attack without a lot of serious research and calculating.

The maximum G forces in the car are 0,5g. At this force it would be oriented at 45 from vertical in the tube, so it experiences 1 + cos(45) g downward and sin(45) lateral. Independent of whether the vehicle is moving at 700mph or 70 mph. The radius is calculated so that the g loads remain low. So the speed doesn't change the force on the tube. It does, however, change the duration - it reduces it. Same amount of force, less time.

My overarching point is there aren't good precedents, and the pipe will suffer stresses of a sort that an oil pipeline never has to

In that the total loading in Hyperloop is more than an order of magnitude lower, yes, and that the momentary force of a capsule passing overhead less than fluid hammering in them, yes (hammer cannot happen in Hyperloop, since it contains a compressible gas, and barely any of even that). Or vs. natural gas pipelines, in that the pressure differential with the outside is more than an order of magnitude lower, yes.

It's being given as one of the major advantages of the hyperloop, as if it will automatically be used at maximum theoretical capacity. I'm not sure I follow the logic there. Out of all of the tracks I've ever seen in my life, none of them ever remotely appeared to be operating at full capacity

And once again you make incorrect assumptions that you wouldn't have had you actually read the design document (what is it that drives people to want to discuss something that they've never taken the time to educate themselves on?). Hyperloop's operation is based on 7,4m passengers each way per year. At the maximum launch rate in the document, that's an average of only 7 people per 28-passenger capsule. By contrast, HSR is built on the assumption of an annual ridership of 29.6 to 43.9 million people, for a ride that's four times as long and costs an order of magnitude more.

You just arbitrarily assumed that Hyperloop Alpha assumed that they're constantly operating at full capacity. Why would you do that?

And I was also trying to hint that a massively parallelized terminal setup designed for a very high frequency launch schedule does not sound especially cheap

Right, because nobody's ever loaded multiple vehicles at once in a station that before. Certainly not subways, train stations, roller coasters, and pretty much everything else.

There's a wider discussion of hyperloops out there. Some of them are maglev.

I have stated from the very beginning that I will only be discussing, and defending, Hyperloop

--
Next to my desk we have an Ire Extinguisher. Our boss is really assertive, so we like the idea of having it.

Re:A bowl full of Meh.So using pipe segments to bu by Shane_Optima · 2017-02-02 06:37 · Score: 1

The maximum G forces in the car are 0,5g.

Where the hell do you live that this is an acceptable way to write a decimal expansion of "1/2" and yet you really, really care about LA to SF? I'm writing Trump a letter to have you assholes deported before this contagion spreads.

Same amount of force, less time.

There's force and there's force. I suspect that 600 MPH could possibly create some interesting frictional forces if things go a little wrong. And for the last time, a moving force differential along a tube is not the same as continuous uniform force, but whatever. I've run out of steam on this angle. You either acknowledge the likelihood of unknown unknowns in using a product in a way it's never been used before or you don't. I'm not a welding or metal fatigue expert.

You just arbitrarily assumed that Hyperloop Alpha assumed that they're constantly operating at full capacity. Why would you do that?

You/they just arbitrarily assumed they're operating at 0.25[full capacity]. Why would you do that?

How come you have the absurd notion that the cost of seats is one of the primary costs of transportation systems?

It's conceivable that the decision for subways and elevated trains and buses to have shitty plastic seats is a baseless one, and they'd do better to encourage riders by foisting opulence on them. A lot of status quo stuff is pointless bullshit, granted.

However, I do not think this is the most likely explanation for a plan that seems to wave a magic wand and says "see, best of both worlds!" I tend to think it's a symptom of a deeper pathology.

Do you go around telling people about the jet engine in your refrigerator?

If it was designed to work in a 600 MPH headwind and could levitate thousands of pounds, I might.

The "problematic forces" are not problematic. If you're not removing the air ahead of you, then you're building up a column of air to decelerate you. You're helping yourself out.

Congratulations on the general solution for turbulence. You really must share it with the rest of us, sometime.

If you're talking about internal noise, they have far more than enough budget for soundproofing.

And the F-22 had more than enough budget for pilot oxygen, and the Navy's littoral combat boat presumably had more than enough money to not be a pile of shit, and the Beagle 2 had more than enough money for an effective lander, etc.

Yes, things can look brilliant on paper. Black swan theory is a bitch and a half, but I think the one solution we can rule out from the get-go is to say in a fiat manner that black swans don't exist, or that novel circumstances aren't more conducive to unknown unknowns.

Single column failure doesn't inherently mean pipe failure

I'm not entirely sure what happens if you detonate an Oklahoma city type bomb directly underneath a 1" thick steel pipe, but I would suspect more than pylon damage resulting in pipe sag. Holding the overpressure is just part of the battle; it also has to handle the upwards acceleration.

Hyperloop capsules are small (unlike HSR trains, or airplanes, or subways). They're not a very effective target if your goal is to kill a lot of people.

You just did it again! Yes, I concede you would achieve a better body count than your average jihadi! Almost any 6 digit slashdotter could!

Since when? No, seriously, how many terrorist attacks have been focused on "sexy new thing"?

I don't have a good comparable here other than the security concerns surrounding WTC 1, which you might correctly argue has its own special concerns for historical reasons.

But the Alpha has its own special set of concerns, namely extremely high visibility in the median. That puts it in

Re:A bowl full of Meh.So using pipe segments to bu by Shane_Optima · 2017-02-02 06:46 · Score: 1

I forgot to mention: Why do you dismiss Hyperloop One? Have you read all of *their* literature?

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SpaceX Is Livestreaming A Hyperloop Pod Competition (spacex.com)

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