Missouri Considers Hyperloop Route Between St. Louis and Kansas City (theverge.com)

Missouri officials are forming a public-private partnership to study the feasibility of building a hyperloop route between St. Louis and Kansas City. The study is being supported by Hyperloop One, and conducted by a consortium of groups, including the Missouri Department of Transportation, the St. Louis Regional Chamber, the KC Tech Council, the University of Missouri System, and the Missouri Innovation Center in Columbia. The Verge reports: St. Louis to Kansas City is a 248-mile route that takes around three hours and 40 minutes by car, or about 55 minutes by plane (not including time spent traveling to the airport, security lines, etc.). Hyperloop One claims the trip would just take 31 minutes using its system of aerodynamic pods traveling through nearly airless tubes at speeds of up to 760 mph. Of course, that depends on building hundreds of miles of tubes, either above ground on pylons along a highway like I-70, or through underground tunnels. The Missouri study will explore all these options, as well the amount of state money that would be needed to build it. The study will cost about $1.5 million, and will be paid for using private funds, Missouri officials said.

Comments

Whaddya mean there'll be no lines?

[scdeimos]

St. Louis to Kansas City is a 248-mile route that takes around three hours and 40 minutes by car, or about 55 minutes by plane (not including time spent traveling to the airport, security lines, etc.). Hyperloop One claims the trip would just take 31 minutes using its system of aerodynamic pods traveling through nearly airless tubes at speeds of up to 760 mph.

I do believe you're kidding yourself if you think TSA will allow very expensive Hyperloops to operate without forcing security checkpoints and security screening on everyone using them.

Re:Whaddya mean there'll be no lines?

[viperidaenz]

You can't hijack a hyperloop and crash it in to a building.
While the cost of damage would be very high, the risk to life isn't really any different than a bus or train full of people. How hard would it be to derail a passenger train with an IED on the tracks? You only need enough explosive to cut through a single rail.

Re:Whaddya mean there'll be no lines?

[Obfuscant]

While the cost of damage would be very high, the risk to life isn't really any different than a bus or train full of people.

Perhaps you missed that TSA is involved with trains. Hyperloop, due to its huge pricetag and high tech, will be a prime target. While you can't hijack a car, you can certainly make it disintegrate in a spectacular way.

It will not be TSA that pushes for their control of security checkpoints for Hyperloop terminals, it will be people, once the first hyperloop train is destroyed by anyone who can have a political agenda attached to them. Even if not. There are already calls for tighter security in HOTELS because of the Las Vegas shooting. How COULD anyone get so many guns into a hotel room? (Carry them in. Next question?) Doesn't this show a need for gun control? (He was using AK-47s if what I heard is correct, one of the guns that is already heavily controlled, so no. Next question?)

How hard would it be to derail a passenger train with an IED on the tracks?

Passenger trains are low-tech commonplace things. The first (and second and probably third) public Hyperloop will be the opposite.

Re:Whaddya mean there'll be no lines?

[CanadianMacFan]

The TSA wouldn't care about a hyperloop being expensive and supposedly a high target. The TSA would see it as a chance to expand their power and influence. It would be a chance for the head of the department to be in charge of more people and have a larger budget. There would be fights inside the TSA about where to place hyperloops because those people would want the improved status.

Re: Whaddya mean there'll be no lines?

[MachineShedFred]

When did anyone put a cost per human life? How many high speed rail attacks have there been in Europe, China, Japan? Zero. Why? A train derailment doesn't get you anywhere you can't get otherwise, and it's a lot of fucking work in comparison to renting the equivalent of a U-haul truck and driving it over a bunch of people in a busy plaza. Lots of train tunnels in Europe that go under the Alps on existing high speed rail lines - how come they aren't blowing up and collapsing all the time from all the terrorists?

If you haven't noticed, most terrorists are not Bond villains - they're remarkably resourceful at turning everyday tools into incredibly crude weapons in unbelievably cheap ways and claiming credit for brutal attacks on the innocent. Why fuck around with explosives and training and all that when you can just get a knife and start stabbing people in the train station instead? Or grab some guy off the street and cut his head off on the Internet with your black flag in the background?

The sophistication of attacks would have to reverse course in a hurry in order to do anything you are talking about.

Serious question

[PopeRatzo]

Why would anyone want to go from St Louis to Kansas City, or vice versa? And if there is some reason that you actually need to make that trip, why would you want to do it in such a hurry?

I'm not trying to make a joke here. I really need to know.

Re:Serious question

[HornWumpus]

Reading between the lines. Someone got a grant, their employer has a publicist (good old Mizzou), 'theVerge' has no bullshit filter.

Bottom line, someone and his/her grad students will be living it up for the next few years. I-70 is a busy highway. They will conclude that it makes no sense if not part of a bigger system, getting it half right.

Re:Serious question

[Anonymous Coward]

Jefferson City is the Capital, St Louis is the biggest city. And Columbia (Mizzou) is in the middle

Re:Serious question

[reboot246]

Yeah, you'd think they'd all be wanting to get the hell out of MO, not traveling within the state.

That is a joke; get over it.

Series of Tubes

[darkain]

Transportation is merely just a series of tubes!

A high-speed rail could basically do the same

[gweihir]

And with far less time to get onto the vehicle and out again probably in the same more realistic time (about 1h). And it could be done with reliable, established technology that you can buy on the market instead of some fantasy-construct that may or may not ever work well or safely.
 

Re:A high-speed rail could basically do the same

[Moldiver]

Yeah a nice Shinkansen would beat this route in the same time as an airplane but without the annoying checkins.

Re:A high-speed rail could basically do the same

[gweihir]

Indeed. Or ICE, TGV, CRH, Sapsan, etc. This is market with a lot of established known-to-work options. If you want something really flashy going at 500km/h but still being essentially a train from a passenger POV, get a Transrapid. Although that has some rather bad limitations compared to trains.

The US is _very_ late to this game. Magically thinking that the "Hyperloop" hyper-hype will make up for that is just plain stupid. Be rational and select one from the established options and then (if you insist) learn to do it for yourself over the next 30 years or so via collaborations and investments.

Re:Good for business

[HornWumpus]

Takes years of asskissing. Politiking a committee, not fucking any committee member's daughters etc. Convince them your dissertation is up to their standards of incomprehensibility and weight (not intellectual 'weight', mass). Read some entrails, dance naked about and jump over bonfires (with large dangerous fireworks glued to your pubic hair). Hop skip and puke contests. etc.

Re:Finally something related to this that makes se

[Obfuscant]

Got its start by concentrating in rural towns.

So Hyperloop's business model should be building billion dollar trains to connect rural towns, just to get a "foothold" in the market? "The 10:15 Hyperloop from Pixley to Hootersville is now boarding on track 5. All aBOARD!" "Conductor, does this hyperloop stop at Petticoat Junction?"

A hint: when you stay at the Shady Rest, don't drink the tap water. I hear that the girls bathe in it.

What did God say when he saw Eve swimming in the river? "I'll never get that smell off those fish." Thank you, try the veal, tip your waitress.

I saw a theory

[rsilvergun]

that this is all just a way for Musk to find & train engineers on the cheap. He spent $10 million out of pocket (give or take) and he's got every university and their student body falling all over themselves for it. Even if he didn't plan it that's what's happened.