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Ask Slashdot: What Would Happen If a Hyperloop Train Failed?

Posted by msmash on from the thought-exercise dept.

dryriver writes: I've been following Elon Musk's Hyperloop initiative with great interest. The idea of getting from one city to another at 700 MPH without having to suffer through an airport and all that jazz is revolutionary. I'm glad that somebody is trying to innovate in the area of land travel. My question though: When conventional trains going at much slower speeds derail or crash, the result is often serious injuries or deaths. What happens if something goes wrong with a 700 MPH Hyperloop train/pod or with part of the track? Would a Hyperloop accident at that speed even be survivable?

3 of 736 comments (clear)

  1. simple by ganjadude · · Score: 5, Informative

    you will die. really no ifs ands or buts about it.

    --
    have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
  2. More idiotic scare-mongering by SuperKendall · · Score: 5, Informative

    IF the system started to have a slow leak the pod would have time to slow, air resistance would do it naturally if nothing else.

    Also it's not like it cannot have basically "landing gear" that would be able to slow the pod from 700 MPH in the perfectly smooth sealed tube in the case that a real breach presented itself - but you do all realize that a pressure breach would not be instantaneous across the enter length of the tube, right? Then we are back to the case where pressure changes can be reacted to and the system brought to a gradual halt.

    I sweat Slashdot has become a bastion of luddite nut-jobs, who seem to purposefully ignore physics. Shameful to see such a virulent example of this on the home page.

    You all sound like the people who wouldn't get into the first automobiles... or modern day Amish who still will not, but at least the Amish people are generally useful.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  3. Re:About the same thing that happens with aircraft by Guspaz · · Score: 5, Informative

    The whitepaper described how to handle loss of pressure in the pod. Basically it boiled down to this:

    1) If the leak is small enough, compensate with onboard emergency air supply until the destination is reached
    2) If the leak is big enough, initiate a system-wide emergency stop and rapidly repressurize the tube.

    You could arguably repressurize the tube faster than an aircraft could descend to a safe altitude.