Elon Musk Begins Digging a Hyperloop Tunnel In Maryland (baltimoresun.com)

Elon Musk has been granted permission by Maryland to start digging tunnels for his hyperoop transit system that he wants to build between New York and Washington. "Hogan administration officials said Thursday the state has issued a conditional utility permit to let Musk's tunneling firm, The Boring Co., dig a 10.3-mile tunnel beneath the state-owned portion of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, between the Baltimore city line and Maryland 175 in Hanover," reports Baltimore Sun. From the report: It would be the first portion of the underground system that Musk says could eventually ferry passengers from Washington to New York, with stops in Baltimore and Philadelphia, in just 29 minutes. Maryland's approval is the first step of many needed to complete the multibillion-dollar project. Gov. Larry Hogan toured a site in Hanover that aides said could become an entry point for the hyperloop. The state does not plan to contribute to the cost of the project, aides said. Administration officials said they will treat the hyperloop like a utility, and permitted it in the same way the state allows electric companies to burrow beneath public rights-of-way. It was not immediately clear Thursday what environmental review or other permitting procedures must be completed before the company breaks ground.

Comments

Boring

[Anonymous Coward]

We've heard it all before. This is boring!

Re:Boring

[Rei]

So many people making the same joke.

Okay, let's try to add something to the conversation. Here's what we know about the ideas behind Boring Company so far. First, the tangential aspect: the non-Hyperloop car sleds. Tunnel costs are almost linearly proportional to cross section. By having cars on sleds you don't need any lane margin around the vehicles and can use a much smaller (and thus cheaper) tunnel. Also by moving them at very high speeds you have a much higher throughput, and by computer control, you can space them closely (getting even higher throughput).

However, as for the boring itself: the rate at which a TBM bores is proportional to how fast the head is rotated. In hard rock boring they generally also spend a large portion of the time stopped; a new casing segment is set up to both support the walls and for the TBM to push off of. During downtime, maintenance tasks such as replacing cutting disks are conducted.

When you read through literature on the topic, you find that the answer to "how fast can you X?" or "Is it possible to Y" are frequently "We don't know - contractors are payed to complete a given task and generally have little incentive to experiment with new approaches." Boring company seeks to focus on all of them at once. First off, the cutting disks: if the TBM rotates too quickly, the disks heat too much and their (already short) lifetime is greatly reduced. Boring Company is looking to do three things: one, use more advanced alloys (cost more to replace, but nothing compared to the cost savings of faster boring); two, use active cooling on the cutting disks; and three, have them hot swappable so the TBM doesn't have to be stopped. All of these things together in theory should allow the TBM to be run many times faster (so long as everything else associated with the excavation is also correspondingly sped up). It's also being modified to not need to stop for casing; downtimes are only to be for when something is physically broken or there are issues with the geology that need to be dealt with.

Many of the complicating issues with boring, such as unpredictable geology, unmapped buried hardware in urban areas, etc, Boring Company's approach will not eliminate. But the goal (whether they can reach it or not) is to ensure that when they are boring, they're doing so very quickly.

Re:Boring

[Anonymous Coward]

Great post, thanks.

Re:Boring

[donaldm]

Wow so much hype with this project.

Okay, I am an Electrical Engineer with well over 35 years experience so what would I know when there is so much pseudo-science associated with the Hyperloop project. No country and I repeat no country has ever built a vacuum tube that even comes close to the length and diameter that is proposed for the Hyperloop when all you need is one rupture in the tube and you have human jelly jam. Snake Oil sale at it's best especially when you consider that the "laughable" Hyperloop test winner was a 200 mph (320kph) electric car that could not carry any passenger since it was too small and did not depend on the vacuum.

Rather than me go into details why the project is stupid please view (there are others) the following YouTube Hyperloop debunk. In case you think the guy is a crackpot he does have a Ph.D. in science but then again human gullibility knows no bounds especially when something sounds attractive (ie. Solar Freaking Roadways) but can be proven by Science and Engineering that they are impractical.

What next for Elon Musk? A proposal for "Tourist trips to mars using cold-fusion powered flying saucers?"

Re: Boring

[Bing Tsher E]

It's almost certain now that you're a paid shill astroturfer for Elon. Or are you actually Elon Musk himself?

It's okay to post over-the-top boosting opinions about all of his ventures here on /., especially if you are the man himself. Just be honest about the fact that you are Elon's primo astroturfer on Slashdot.

I haven't checked posting history going waaay back... were you an putspoken defender of PayPal when that was Musks main gig?

Re:Boring

[michelcolman]

Rocket scientists (way above your level of expertise) used to say landing rockets vertically and reusing them afterwards was never going to work, for all sorts of reasons that an idiot like Musk obviously wouldn't know about. And landing them on barges in the ocean, come on, you've got to be kidding, that's totally ridiculous, nobody would even think of attempting that. Elon Musk is a fool. (That last phrase is a literal quote from a conversation I personally had with an ESA rocket scientist).

Also, making an electric car that people actually want to buy? Just a few years ago almost all engineers in the automobile industry (including, and especially those with well over 35 years of experience) would have told you that was impossible too. Let alone cars that would outperform the fastest supercars while having 5 seats and plenty of room for luggage. You've got to be kidding, that's a totally impossible thing to even attempt. Elon Musk is a fool, it will never work, nobody will ever buy them.

And setting up huge battery installations to make reusable energy viable for countries that were historically suffering from frequent outages? That will never work either, for all sorts of reasons that an idiot like Musk wouldn't know about. Any electrical engineer with well over 35 years of experience can tell you that, but never mind them.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk, effectively not minding those "experts", and unhindered by any "knowledge" on any of these subjects, is on track for a 50% market share in rocket launches in 2018, with more and more of those using actual reused boosters. The last 18 landings were all successful, including some very high energy ones. His Tesla Model S and X are a huge success, and model 3 has almost 500,000 preorders (yes, I know it's delayed a bit on its agressive rollout schedule, but not nearly as much as previous models, months rather than years). O, and that solar battery installation in South Australia seems to be coming together just fine, with another huge installation in Puerto Rico on the way.

Maybe it's time for some of these dinosaurs with well over 35 years of experience to retire if all they can do is say "ok, maybe you got lucky on that first thing we said couldn't be done, but you definitely cannot do this other thing... ok, maybe you got lucky there too, but this third thing, that's definitely impossible... o, wait...". Seriously, you lost all credibility.

Re: Boring

[prefec2]

No rocket scientist said that. As they did it in the past, such statement would be redicilous. Have a look at the moon landing. However, the landing approach was considered economically not feasible, as you cannot use alle the fuel for lift and you have to carry the landing fuel up and down again.

Re: Boring

[Anonymous Coward]

While you can do these things, what are the econmics?

It is simply not clear to me that reusing a rocket is cost effective. I want to see numbers concerning refurbishment and expenses related to landing a rocket. For instance, weight of landing gear and fuel reduces your payload capacity. How do you reliably retest a rocket? Good thing he isn't flying humans.

We could always store energy is batteries. It's not cost (or hasn't until recently) effective at scale or for disposal. If you need to store energy, mechanical methods have been preferred because a water column doesn't require maintenance. Tesla needed an use for its batteries that aren't quite good to remain in vehicles. Holding an 80% charge isn't good for your auto. For a power plant, that's fine though. Make it up in scale.

As for hyperloop, the failure modes are unattractive. It's also fragile. And you are facing a serious human problem with flying in a windowless tube. Planes don't have windows because it makes them stronger or creates fewer leak points.

Re:Boring

[rally2xs]

Echo the other response so far, great post, thanks.

What I wonder about is that the original Hyperloop white paper said "tubes mounted on pylons elevated" over things like farm fields. Now, they're digging tunnels, much more expensive. I just wonder what was wrong with tubes and pylons.

Re: Boring

[rally2xs]

C'mon, the "landing fuel" is miniscule since the great mass of the rocket at launch is the "lift fuel" which is gone after the rocket does its primary function. The thing that lands is a hollow, comparatively lightweight tube requiring a slight amount of fuel to accomplish the landing.

Re:Boring

[rally2xs]

OK, you're an EE with 35 yrs of experience, and Elon Musk is a real-world Tony Stark who builds rockets and electric cars. I choose not to underestimate Mr Musk / Stark.

Re: Boring

[prefec2]

You still have to lift it, which reduces the total mass to orbit. The key question is: Is the reduction in lift off mass less costly and a reusable rocket less expensive than a single use rocket?

Anyway, ESA experiments with a reusable engine (without the tank), as this is the mist costly part of all.

Re:Boring

[donaldm]

Do you have any Engineering proof that Elon Musk's proposed Hyperloop is feasible? There seems to be a lot of hype and little real Science and Engineering. You know the disciplines that get things done in reality.

I have not looked at the proposed solar battery installation in South Australia but since I am well aware of power systems design and of Elon Musk's hype I think it will most likely be a lemon although I am open to changing my mind. Basically, the SA Government screwed up big time and I am thankful I don't live in that state. When designing an electronic grid everything is up for grabs in the feasibility stage but you also have to be practical and look at the economics as well. Just going solar using photovoltaic cells is plain stupid since you then will have to consider how the store the energy when the sun goes down and batteries just can't cut it at least not economically. Although if you can show an Engineering proof I am amenable to a change of mind.

Landing a rocket tail first? You do know that any rocket can be designed to land tail first it is just not economically viable to do that especially when you consider that the chances of a failure are so much higher than if you came to land like an aircraft or use a parachute. Like it or not rocket flight is expensive and the chance of getting into orbit is reasonably high at 92% but landing is a totally different matter. I will let you research that since us dinosaurs are incapable of using a four-function calculator much less run a Google search.

Personally, I don't mind admitting I am wrong and taking it on board if you can show I am wrong but calling someone a dinosaur and name calling when you don't even know them that is the sort of thing an SJW would say and for your sake I would refrain from saying things like that in the boardroom where us raptors reside.

Re:Boring

[Anonymous Coward]

I would speculate that there's a lot less that can go wrong underground. You won't have heat expansion problems, cars running into it, and wind. It also allows construction in a much more heavily populated area.

Re:Boring

[Joce640k]

I imagine the answer lies somewhere between NIMBY and fragility.

Whatever, it shows Mr. Musk is practical. If the "Sci-Fi novel" version of an idea doesn't work, use the one that does.

Re:Boring

[Rei]

The original Hyperloop Alpha plan budgeted standard rates for tunneling for the sections that required it. Musk however began looking into tunneling after Hyperloop came out and found (the same thing I found when I looked into it) that today's tunneling market and contract structures disincentivise radical innovations to reduce costs, and that there's many things that people in the industry already suspect could radically increase tunneling speeds (and thus reduce costs) but have not yet been attempted. Hence he decided to try it himself (and also came up with the concept of the "intermediary" system of car sleds but ambient pressure). The big thing about tunnels is that they give you much better possibilities of getting into town (rather than the periphery like airports, as Hyperloop Alpha did) and maintain straightness in rough terrain. In the northeast corridor that they're working on now, an elevated Hyperloop would be passing through far too much built up land to maintain straightness, speed, and low right-of-way costs.

Re: Boring

[donaldm]

C'mon, the "landing fuel" is miniscule since the great mass of the rocket at launch is the "lift fuel" which is gone after the rocket does its primary function. The thing that lands is a hollow, comparatively lightweight tube requiring a slight amount of fuel to accomplish the landing.

Really. Have you done the calculations?

Here is a fairly simple calculation to reach the international space station which is 408 km above the earth. Plugin the number 408 into the Orbit of a satellite Calculator and you will get an Orbital radius of 6,786.14 km, a Flight velocity of 7.66 km/s and an Orbital period 01:32 (Yes I have rounded the numbers).

Now consider you have to get your rocket from an orbital velocity of approximately 7.66 km/s through the Earth's atmosphere which will heat any exposed surface to incandescence and at the same time hoping you have enough fuel to slow the rocket down to a point where it can land tail first. This is not to say it can't be done since it can but the chance of failure is significantly higher than if it landed as the space shuttle did or by parachute.

Yes, I am aware of Elon Musk's proposal for a rocket flight from the US to other countries. It does sound great if you don't think it though hence hype but that type of hype is going to cost ridiculous amounts of money and somehow I think a 10 to 15 hours comfortable flight in a reliable aircraft is not a bad price to pay.

Also while we are considering rocket space flight how about a simple calculation of the "g-forces" on the human body since the so-called rocket plane will have to achieve near orbital velocity while at the same time being careful of fuel consumption. For acceptable human comfort, you would have to allow for 3g (Space shuttle) or less although you could go higher I very much doubt that you would get the average passenger to accept that.

Yes, it does get more complicated but when human lives are at stake I do have a tendency to err on the side of caution and until we develop anti-gravity where a Nobel prize, fame and money is waiting for the first person to develop this, although "cold-fusion" proponents need not apply.

Re: Boring

[nukenerd]

Rei is definitely an astroturfer. In a way his posts are interesting in that they seem to give us some inside knowlege of the project, sanitised of course. OTOH he cannot stand the slightest criticism of Hyperloop, much of which he answers on the lines that something will turn up to cover the problem.

All that stuff in his post above about cutting tunnels faster than ever before with the aid of blade cooling etc is really quite irrelevant to the practicality of the Hyperloop concept. Is he smoke-screening something?

He made me laugh here, and gets this week's award for the bleedin' obvious :

Tunnel costs are almost linearly proportional to cross section. By having cars on sleds you don't need any lane margin around the vehicles and can use a much smaller (and thus cheaper) tunnel.

Railway builders had that brainwave over 150 years ago. Unfortunately in the UK they made the tunnels too small and too cheap, something UK railway engineers have regretted ever since, and other nations learned from.

Re:Boring

[Anonymous Coward]

History is littered with people saying that X, Y or Z - technologies that end up being revolutionary and part of everyday life - are stupid or impossible. So on the one hand you sound foolish and old but on the other hand you certainly are not alone.

Re:Boring

[nukenerd]

What I wonder about is that the original Hyperloop white paper said "tubes mounted on pylons elevated" over things like farm fields. Now, they're digging tunnels, much more expensive.

They realised or discovered that not everyone in the World is a Musk fan, and is not going to give his eyesore a free pass over their land or house, on pylons or not. The early Hyperloop publicity implied that people would.

Also, whether it is cheaper depends on what is on the surface. It used only to be cheaper to tunnel in cities, but for example the UK in the South East is now so built-up that a large proportion of the Channel Tunnel railway link was built underground.

Re:Boring

[nukenerd]

The big thing about tunnels is that they give you much better possibilities of getting into town (rather than the periphery like airports, as Hyperloop Alpha did) and maintain straightness in rough terrain. ... an elevated Hyperloop would be passing through far too much built up land to maintain straightness, speed, and low right-of-way costs.

These are obvious problems with an elevated Hyperloop that I and others pointed out here a long time ago (while OTOH many Hyperloop fans were claiming it would be cheap like an oil pipe line). Why has it taken Musk so long to realise it?

Re:Boring

[donaldm]

OK, you're an EE with 35 yrs of experience, and Elon Musk is a real-world Tony Stark who builds rockets and electric cars. I choose not to underestimate Mr Musk / Stark.

Oh, I am still waiting for my flying car or cost-effective jetpack.

It's very easy to compare Elon Musk to Tony Stark but I have yet to see a flying suit that can take a hit from the Hulk much less fly at Mach speed. Yes, Elon Musk has got his Engineers to build the Tesla electric car which is not that cheap although I will admit it does have an EPA-rated range of 335 miles (540 km) on a full charge compared to other electric cars which have half that range but at a third of the price.

Yes, rockets are great but they are expensive and not that reliable (about 92%) however I notice that Elon Musk's rockets have yet to be manned. I am discounting Space X since that did not achieve orbital velocity.

Therein lies the problem when confronted by hype if you are a sub-professional, professional or a scientist you should always choose not to believe until you can see the evidence. In fact the more hype (especially on media) the more skeptical you should be. There is a saying "If something sounds too good to be true it most likely is". Taking all into account I chose not to overestimate Elon Musk.

Re:Boring

[michelcolman]

Yeah, the SpaceX business model is not viable, you can't possibly make money sending up rockets with extra fuel and a landing gear. I guess that's why they are doing more launches than any space agency, for a much lower price, and still making plenty of profit to pour into development of a Mars mission.

Right now their boosters still need a lot of refurbishment between flights, limiting the gains somewhat, but this did allow them to identify the weak spots and improve them. Block 5, flying soon, should hardly need any work between flights (which is something you definitely couldn't say about the Space Shuttle). And 18 out of 18 past landings seems to be a wee bit higher than 92%. Jeez, they're doing GTO launches with reused boosters landing them on the bull's eye of a drone ship and you STILL say the extra weight is too limiting to make it viable, and the chance of failure is too high?

I'm going to stop discussing this now, this is getting silly, feel free to contact me in a few years and admit you were wrong.

(Of course by then you'll insist that, even though Hyperloop turned out to work after all and the BFR seems to take off and land like clockwork, everything else that will be in the pipeline at that point will be bound to fail because it can't possibly work)

Re: Boring

[michelcolman]

While you can do these things, what are the economics?

It is simply not clear to me that reusing a rocket is cost effective.

Compare the price of a SpaceX launch to the launch cost of their competitors. Actually, no need to do that, launch customers already have, which is why SpaceX is projected to have a 50% market share next year.

And they haven't even reached maximum efficiency yet. The current generation of Falcon 9 still needs a lot of refurbishment between flights, so the benefit of reusability is still quite limited, but even then they are already outperforming their competitors. Looks like the cost of reusability isn't so high after all. Now imagine what block 5 will be like, where they have incorporated everything they learned so far to turn the boosters around with hardly any refurbishment between flights.

Re:Boring

[ChrisMaple]

Your argument would be a little more persuasive if you expressed it using correct English grammar.

Re: Boring

[Anonymous Coward]

The only reason the SpaceX launches are cheap is because they are barely turning a profit compared to the competition.

Re:Boring

[ChrisMaple]

There are even more examples of technology that has proven ineffective or downright bogus. Dean drive, for example.

Re:Boring

[DogDude]

He created a car company from scratch that actively builds cars that are decades ahead of every other car company on the planet. I'm going to go ahead and trust what he has to say over an EE, who, as far as I know, hasn't created a car company from scratch that makes cars decades ahead of the competition.

Re:Boring

[donaldm]

That percentage was the average for the number of rocket launches for the world. So far Elon Musk has done ok but there may be problems ahead with his proposal for heavy lifting items into orbit. So far Space X has had 10 successful launches of their Falcon 9 rockets.

No, I don't hate Elon Musk since I don't know him, all I am interested in is feasibility and not hype. If I am wrong then fine I don't mind and I have learned something new but just believing the hype without valid evidence is plain stupid.

Of course by then you'll insist that, even though Hyperloop turned out to work after all and the BFR seems to take off and land like clockwork, everything else that will be in the pipeline at that point will be bound to fail because it can't possibly work

See there you go jumping to conclusions. Where is your evidence for what you just said? I personally don't have any evidence for success or failure although I have pointed out concerns. So far you seem to think that everything is going to work fine. I am sorry but science is not in the business of miracles otherwise we would all have jetpacks and flying cars by now.

Re:Boring

[Anonymous Coward]

What next for Elon Musk? A proposal for "Tourist trips to mars using cold-fusion powered flying saucers?"

If you have cold fusion, that would be a very practical application of it. If a guy who has followed through with all his other promises started offering tickets, I would take him very seriously.

Re:Boring

[donaldm]

Your argument would be a little more persuasive if you expressed it using correct English grammar.

Which English? UK English or US English?

If you wish to correct my grammar then fine but please point out where my grammar is incorrect and why so I may learn from what I have incorrectly said.

Re:Boring

[michelcolman]

So far Space X has had 10 successful launches of their Falcon 9 rockets.

Actually, that number is 41. Try to keep up.

Of course by then you'll insist that, even though Hyperloop turned out to work after all and the BFR seems to take off and land like clockwork, everything else that will be in the pipeline at that point will be bound to fail because it can't possibly work

See there you go jumping to conclusions. Where is your evidence for what you just said? I personally don't have any evidence for success or failure although I have pointed out concerns. So far you seem to think that everything is going to work fine. I am sorry but science is not in the business of miracles otherwise we would all have jetpacks and flying cars by now.

Obviously I don't have evidence for future events. It's just a prediction based on the abysmal track record of people saying that Elon Musk would fail in pretty much everything he attempted.

Re:Boring

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words you have no way to defend against the claims presented and have resorted to being a childish grammar nazi without even bothering to present an example or reasoning.

Re:Boring

[Rei]

The original Hyperloop plan was to not go into town at all, so it didn't apply.

It also, however, meant that it wasn't as convenient.

Re: Boring

[Anonymous Coward]

And still, not one person has refuted anything he has said. The only replies seem to be "musk flew rockets, musk build car, musk can do anything."

Refute his claims. Is musk tackling these problems?

Re: Boring

[rally2xs]

First wrong assumption is that the 1st stage, which is what we're recovering, achieves orbital velocity. It doesn't. You now have to completely redo your numbers.

Re:Boring

[fozzy1015]

Rocket scientists (way above your level of expertise) used to say landing rockets vertically and reusing them afterwards was never going to work

Leading up to the first time it was done(by Blue Origin), it wasn't that people in the industry didn't think it was possible. It was that there was doubt it would meaningfully reduce the cost of launches. Which is still an open question.

and model 3 has almost 500,000 preorders

Given how loose(that's being kind) Musk is with his numbers and how off he has been with his projections(his Model 3 delivery numbers were off by a whopping 83%!), I take the line reservation numbers with a huge grain of salt. And that's what they are, a $1000 refundable deposit to hold a position in line. They are not pre-orders. And given the continuing delay of a functional, fully tested production line, do you think that number(whatever it truly is), is going up or down as the delay continues?

(yes, I know it's delayed a bit on its agressive rollout schedule,

The Model 3 was originally supposed to be released in 2016. It's now late 2017 and is still being built by hand and beta tested. The roll-out party in July was a facade, but not a surprise given that Musk's option milestone vesting is based on the start of Model 3 production and made up gross margin numbers.

but not nearly as much as previous models, months rather than years)

How do you know since the delay is still continuing?

Why people still give the guy credibility when it comes to numbers is beyond me - he said years ago Tesla wouldn't need to access the capital markets again and look how many have happened since. The last one was selling of junk bonds and there's going to be another raise needed that will be declared either later this quarter or early next. Q3 numbers are going to be a blood bath and the worse yet. Analysts are starting to revise their numbers to a loss at over $7 a share!

Tesla is circling the drain, but don't worry, Musk will still walk away with billions. Are you going to be among the ones left holding the bag?

Re:Boring

[vix86]

The biggest thing most people complain about with the feasibility of Hyperloop is the vacuum seal. Musk has stated that in order to seal against the water table you have to have something good up to about 5-6 atmospheres. To go to vacuum or near vacuum you only need 1 atmosphere, so if they can seal to the water table, then they can seal to vacuum.

Re:Boring

[Anonymous Coward]

It is still better than driving 3-5 hours to get someplace if you don't require a car when you are there. And I think removing the regional airplane routes, especially in the North East would be a big deal. If the hyperloop is faster and cheaper to take people to the connecting airport, and much better for the environment, then it will take off.

Re:Boring

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll admit that I thought that landing rockets vertically without parachutes and on ocean barges was crazy and was too advanced for current technology. I might not be a "rocket scientist", but do work in the space field. I was wrong, but am happy that SpaceX succeeded.

I wasn't a troll when they failed the first few times though, it is better to encourage them and help them fix the problems.

As long as the tubes are in a straight line and the G-forces can be kept fairly low, along with multiple boarding areas, I don't see any dealbreakers as to why this wouldn't work. I would like to see it connect the airports (LGA-JFK-PHI-BDI-DCA-IAD). It would eliminate a lot of the short airplane trips.

Re: Boring

[HuguesT]

Following the Tsiolkovsky equation, rockets do most of their acceleration when they are almost empty, see this graphics for the Saturn V. NASA actually had to turn off one of the Saturn V engine towards the end of the first stage burn otherwise acceleration would have been too great for the astronauts. So the last few minutes of the burn are important.

Basically the Musk approach is that you have to lift some of the fuel, which is not used for lifting but for landing. It may be more costly than it looks. Science is not alway "obvious", you have to crunch the numbers and see.

Now the Musk approach may work because his rocket first stages have many small engines and using only one for landing is enough. Most other rockets have a small number of large engines. It may be that other agencies did they math correctly but for their own rockets, which are not as well suited to returning and landing than Musk's.

Re:Boring

[Anonymous Coward]

"way above your level of expertise"

fuck yourself

Re: Boring

[HuguesT]

In 2017 they have so far launched 14 vehicles, which is a lot better than the 8 successful and one failure they had in 2016. The R-7 (Russia) has launched 11 and the Ariane (Europe) 5, so they are definitely competitive. At the same time there were 60 successful (and no failure) R-7 launches in communist USSR in 1974.

Re:Boring

[HuguesT]

Not so much the seal, the cost of actually pumping that air out of a huge, long tunnel.

Re: Boring

[Anonymous Coward]

No, actually he didn't. Telsa cars go well in a straight line only, are ugly as fuck and way overpriced. Additionally, you provided 0 in the way of metrics that Tesla beat often mfgs in.

I choose to trust actual science and performance. Not uneducated commentary from a butt farking moron such as yourself.

Re:Boring

[torkus]

Speaking of snake oil...this whole video is selling FUD and is all speculation nonsense.

The guy can have all the PHDs he wants but the nonsense 'can't work' claims are idiotic. His implication that making a long vacuum tube is impossible...is idiotic. If we can make one 100m segment, that can be repeated 1000x and you have 100km.

The "vacuum energy" he goes on about? Well yeah, if you use tanks meant to contain liquids under high vacuum as your 'how easy it is to break' example then you're just an idiot trying to fear monger. It's trivial to design a tube that can withstand a hard vacuum...material science is well in advance of that. (ahem, submarines)

Re: Boring

[torkus]

Is the reduction in lift off mass less costly and a reusable rocket less expensive than a single use rocket?

Considering the refueling costs are a couple hundred grand plus a minor refurb/recert cost vs. $60ish million for a whole rocket I'd say yes. There have been a few instances where they needed the max payload and the rocket had to be expended. The Falcon heavy solves that problem (well, up to it's max launch payload of course).

The tank (and related systems) are not trivial cost either...plus you have to either hard-land that engine or bring fuel along to soft-land it anyhow. That sounds like a solution looking for a problem.

Re:Boring

[torkus]

And have you actually calculated the energy cost for doing so?

Considering (major maintenance aside) it's a one-time effort with minor maintenance to cover the inevitable minor leaks which is technically reversible if you chose....I pulled up some basic info which says it which 'costs' about 100kJ to empty 1 m^3 at sea level. (plus inefficiencies of your pumping system)

Let's take a 5m diameter, 100km tunnel...about 8x10^6 m^3 so 800GJ or 222MWh

The energy needed is large, but not unreasonable.

Re:Boring

[torkus]

Tesla is circling the train? Oh...yeah...ok. Let me buy that tesla stock from you then since it's practically worthless anyhow. Take $10 a share?

Your doom and gloom doesn't match the reality that's actually happening.

SpaceX is the only entity launching and landing cargo rockets. BO is great and all, but their rocket was/is a little toy in comparison and does not put any meaningful payload into orbit. As for the cost savings - this has been demonstrated. Not sure what planet you're on but a couple hundred grand in fuel and some refurb costs is less than the estimated 'wholesale' ~$35m cost of the rocket in my book.

Model 3 shipment numbers are about one month behind targets. Boo hoo. Other than those eagerly waiting their turn to buy one no one else seems overly worried about this.

I'll wait for the Q3 'blood bath' and see what happens to the stock price. *Giggle*

Re:Boring

[fozzy1015]

Tesla is circling the train? Oh...yeah...ok. Let me buy that tesla stock from you then since it's practically worthless anyhow. Take $10 a share?

The only argument I hear to Tesla being successful is its stock price. People said that about Enron, Valeant Pharmaceuticals, and many dot.com stocks back in 2000.

Model 3 shipment numbers are about one month behind targets.

http://www.businessinsider.com... "The company plans to produce 1,500 Model 3 sedans in September and grow that to 20,000 vehicles a month by December." A total of 220 have been delivered. All have been returned to the factory for replacement parts because the car is still being developed and tested! There won't be 1500 total deliveries by September, much less in September alone, and there sure won't be 20K by December.

Heigh-Ho

[turkeydance]

But we don't know what we dig 'em for

So Long As He Stays In The Tunnel

[Anonymous Coward]

I endorse his endeavor.

Re:So Long As He Stays In The Tunnel

[turkeydance]

Endeavor to persevere. quote: We thought about it for a long time, "Endeavor to persevere." And when we had thought about it long enough, we declared war on the Union.

Re:So Long As He Stays In The Tunnel

[Whibla]

The Outlaw, Josey Wales.

Good film!

Re:So Long As He Stays In The Tunnel

[Anonymous Coward]

Look away! Look away!
Look away! Dixie Land

Dig or not Dig?

[ElectraFlarefire]

Title says "Begins Digging" yet he's only now been "granted permission"?
Wrong headline is wrong.

Re:Dig or not Dig?

[Mr D from 63]

Title says "Begins Digging" yet he's only now been "granted permission"? Wrong headline is wrong.

They can't even start yet, the permit is conditional and they've still got to meet the conditions. But when it comes to Musk hype on /. all is fair.

Re:Dig or not Dig?

[tsa]

Elon is the new Steve.

Re:Dig or not Dig?

[ChrisMaple]

Steve Martin.

Re:Dig or not Dig?

[tsa]

Haha! :)

Is Elon Musk doing it personally with a shovel?

[known_coward_69]

More likely someone else is doing the actual digging and planning

Re:Is Elon Musk doing it personally with a shovel?

[Anonymous Coward]

Although it's not informative, that's exactly how I envisioned this, with Elon mopping his pasty head with a red bandanna handkerchief and waving off executive assistants with beeping phones. "Tell Space X to call back later, I need to knock out another 10 feet!"

Re:Is Elon Musk doing it personally with a shovel?

[Waffle Iron]

More likely someone else is doing the actual digging and planning

To handle the physical tunnel work, Musk has recently recruited John Henry, who is one of the top rock stars in the field.

Re:Is Elon Musk doing it personally with a shovel?

[lucm]

I know you're joking but there's something about his personality that just rings true. A relentless, scrappy bastard that would pick up a shovel and start digging if he ran out of money, and that would probably call people that were around during the sunny days and shame them into getting down there to help.

The kind of thing that I could picture Jeff Bezos, Michael Dell or Bill Gates do in their days. All those guys are/were the real deal. This is the kind of leadership that's sorely missing in tech, tough bastards with a backbone, not asswipes with phony social agendas like the Google or Facebook CEOs.

Re:Is Elon Musk doing it personally with a shovel?

[drgould]

Elon's got you covered.

The Boring Company

Re:Is Elon Musk doing it personally with a shovel?

[nukenerd]

With you until you said "Gates".

Abandoned Tunnels

[Bing Tsher E]

Abandoned tunnels are a good place to grow mushrooms. I imagine the chefs in higher-end resturants in the DC area will be enthusiastic about this news in a decade or so.

Re:Abandoned Tunnels

[lucm]

It's fun and rewarding to be a bird of ill omen, no? Sit there like a know-it-all and piss on people who are trying to make things happen?

Not so long ago "electric car" meant a shitty golf cart that reached maybe 15mph. Now we have access to electric cars that do the driving for you and can do 0-60mph in 3 sec. Also not so long ago, sending shit to space was obscenely expensive and was mostly a one-way trip for the rocket; now there's reusable rockets and the cost of sending shit to space is 4x lower than what the NASA or Air Force used to pay.

What the fuck more do you need to be amazed by that guy.

Re: Abandoned Tunnels

[Bing Tsher E]

Elon is this generation's Paul Allen. Leveraging his PayPal fortune in big dreamy ways. The biggest difference between him and Paul Allen is that Allen didn't spend a 10:1 ratio of other people's money compared to his dime when he put on the US Festival.

Using Tesla's name for his venture in a big way is a bad omen. As he aged, Nicholas' crackpot ideas grew weirder and wilder. He embraced the occult and went batshit crazy and died in poverty. There's a reason why the books about Tesla are all 'weird science' coffee-table illustrated books.

Re: Abandoned Tunnels

[Anonymous Coward]

The biggest difference between him and Paul Allen is that Allen didn't spend a 10:1 ratio of other people's money compared to his dime when he put on the US Festival.

"specie is the only constitutional money in this country" www.dict.org, "specie"

compare "josey wales" quote at top of thread.

so, if they haven't been doing that, what is left?

IOU "Notes" that are unredeemable, unconstitutional and "no lawful consideration"

and make-believe "credit" that "banks" chartered under "united states (inc.)" (or "state of x") create out of nothing.

once upon a time, there was such a thing as "not other people's money" -- this was the people's money, debt-free coin. coined by public authority. FOR FREE. bring in your gold or silver, have it assayed and minted to make it money.

nowadays, there is not even a proper treasury. it is ALL "other people's money". either unlawfully hypothecated against them and their estates (i.e. with them as collateral to pay the "national debt") .. or make-believe "credit" chartered under people claiming to represent "we the people"

look away! look away! look away! dixie land.

Hyperloop will fail, as planned.

[Anonymous Coward]

The tech isn't practical, nor will it be preferred to air travel if similarly delayed by security. However the "abandoned tunnels" will become brand new state of the art bunkers for the military.

How can Musk get so much government subsidies? This is how.

Re:Hyperloop will fail, as planned.

[Anonymous Coward]

It would have to cost a whole lot more for the military to want it.

Re:Hyperloop will fail, as planned.

[Rei]

What subsidies do you envision existing for tunnel boring?

Re:Hyperloop will fail, as planned.

[jimtheowl]

Yay! The subsidies comment guy.

You are like the cool-aid jug crashing though the wall whenever Elon's name is mentioned.

Re:Hyperloop will fail, as planned.

[donaldm]

The tech isn't practical, nor will it be preferred to air travel if similarly delayed by security. However the "abandoned tunnels" will become brand new state of the art bunkers for the military.

How can Musk get so much government subsidies? This is how.

But the tech is practical if you have the mind of a troglodyte. What are they teaching people in the schools nowadays can't people detect the Snake Oil?

Re:Hyperloop will fail, as planned.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the tech isn't practical, but one of the major things preventing real high-speed rail in the Northeast is lack of dedicated right-of-way. I'd settle for a train that takes an hour to get to New York from Washington if that what they put in the tunnel(s).

What's the real message

[Anonymous Coward]

Elon Musk does a lot of....digging....of....tunnels. He also works with rockets.

I mean sure a rocket is phallic, why wouldn't it be? But is there perhaps a Freudian component at work here?

It's a question we should ask ourselves before we go any deeper with this guy.

OMG NOW I'M DOING IT!!

Tunnel

[nasch]

That's interesting, because it would seem to mitigate one of the problems with the hyperloop concept. Namely, if the tunnel ruptures, there's a fast-moving wall of air rushing at anyone inside the tunnel.

http://dailycaller.com/2016/07...

If the tube is in a tunnel, there would be much less air available to create such a pressure wave. Or if it's bored through rock there would be almost no air at all inside the tunnel but outside the tube. I think this would mean there would be, at worst, a much less severe pressure wave followed by a more gradual repressurization. Am I wrong?

Re:Tunnel

[Rei]

Anyone who thinks you'd be hit by a crushing "wall of air" needs to read up on shock tube experiments, and in particular how propagating shocks respond to high aspect ratios (length relative to aperture size)

When the shock hits you, is it moving fast? Yes. Several times the speed of sound.
When the shock hits you, does it have meaningful density? No, unless you're talking a huge rupture and you just happen to be right next to it at the time.

Re:Tunnel

[nasch]

Well, I don't think it would be acceptable to say that the passengers will be fine unless there's a huge rupture and they're right next to it, in which case everyone could be killed. And even if that were not a concern, putting it underground seems to solve a bunch of other problems too.

Re:Tunnel

[dcooper_db9]

When Metro's Red Line started leaking it cost more to repair than it cost to build the entire system. And it's still leaking.

Re:Tunnel

[swillden]

Well, I don't think it would be acceptable to say that the passengers will be fine unless there's a huge rupture and they're right next to it, in which case everyone could be killed.

Making a huge rupture in a 1" thick steel tube will require a large quantity of explosives. Such a quantity of explosives won't harm a bus full of passengers unless they're right next to it, in which case everyone could be killed. We don't take that as an argument for eliminating buses.

putting it underground seems to solve a bunch of other problems too.

At the expense of creating a bunch of other ones. Engineering is all about tradeoffs. Boring will make sense primarily in densely-populated areas. Elsewhere, the original elevated tube design will be better, I think.

Re:Tunnel

[donaldm]

Making a huge rupture in a 1" thick steel tube will require a large quantity of explosives. Such a quantity of explosives won't harm a bus full of passengers unless they're right next to it, in which case everyone could be killed. We don't take that as an argument for eliminating buses.

What makes you think it will be a 2.54cm (1") thick steel pipe. Have you any idea the tech and subsequent cost that would go into making that type of pipe? Not only that but you have to join the pipes with "O" rings (it is a vacuum tube after all) and you also have to take into account the thermal expansion coefficient of steel.

Remember that what has been proposed is a very long vacuum tube so there would be normal air pressure outside so even with a slight deformation you are going to have a rupture which would send out a shockwave traveling at the speed of sound and anything in the tube would be pulverized.

Rather than me waffle on here is a Hyperloop debunked video. There are others on the Hyperloop as well as other popular but impractical pseudo science Snake Oil.

Re: Tunnel

[prefec2]

Tunnels are mich mire expensive than surface tubes. When they rupture, you get a mud slide and surface structures can be affected. See Rastatt tunnel accident in Germany. They drilled a close to surface tunnel. One of the wall segments collapsed with devastating effects.

Re:Tunnel

[Whibla]

What makes you think it will be a 2.54cm (1") thick steel pipe. Have you any idea the tech and subsequent cost that would go into making that type of pipe?

Unlike you, apparently, some people have read at least the original concept document. To quote:

"A tube wall thickness between 0.8 and 0.9 in. (20 to 23 mm) is necessary to provide sufficient strength for the load cases considered such as pressure differential, bending and buckling between pillars, loading due to the capsule weight and acceleration, as well as seismic considerations"

Strangely enough I'm also pretty sure that the guy whose company builds large tubes that they then launch into space has a pretty good idea as to the cost of those tubes. FWIW the original document gives an estimate of about $4 billion for tubes, pumps, pylons, and stations, though I do think it's a shame the costs were not separated out more.

you also have to take into account the thermal expansion coefficient of steel.

Yeah, this is my biggest problem with the proposal, for above ground construction anyway. There are materials and methods that might get around the problem but by my 'uninformed' reckoning they massively increase the cost and complexity of the tubes. Building the tubes in an underground tunnel, however, virtually eliminates the expansion problem, as temperatures below ground are remarkably uniform (as in unaffected by day / night and seasonal cycles). As other posters have mentioned this does hugely increase the construction cost and build time, though much of the tunnel construction could be done using the 'cut and cover' method which would gives substantial gains over boring the tunnel.

Remember that what has been proposed is a very long vacuum tube so there would be normal air pressure outside so even with a slight deformation you are going to have a rupture which would send out a shockwave traveling at the speed of sound and anything in the tube would be pulverized.

Yeah, you probably shouldn't believe everything you see on YouTube, especially stuff which is as disingenuous as some of the videos posted by Thunderfoot. The pressure differential between the atmosphere and an evacuated tube is roughly equivalent to a tube at atmospheric pressure submerged in 10 metres of water. Woah, scary stuff, no? Oh wait, no it's not. Modern engineering solutions turn the miraculous into the mundane on an almost daily basis. You'll also note that, despite numerous micrometeorite hits, the ISS is still in one piece, and that actually is operating in a vacuum, unlike the proposed hyperloop tubes, which are just very low pressure.

Rather than me waffle on here is a Hyperloop debunked video. There are others on the Hyperloop as well as other popular but impractical pseudo science Snake Oil.

Well, he's still as annoyingly smug as when he first started laughing at the idea. I find it slightly amusing that he's seemingly unaware of the irony of pooh-poohing the idea of hyperloop while mocking the Kitty Hawk comparison. He is exactly the sort of person I envisage saying, with patronising smugness, "What a ridiculous idea, wood is heavier than air so it's obvious to anyone who has eyes that it simply will not get off the ground". True, he has raised one or two valid criticisms, but that doesn't mean the problems are insoluble. His mockery, and his apparent assumption that he's smarter than everyone else who's thought about the subject makes it hard to watch anything he posts though.

Re:Tunnel

[donaldm]

Well, he's still as annoyingly smug as when he first started laughing at the idea. I find it slightly amusing that he's seemingly unaware of the irony of pooh-poohing the idea of hyperloop while mocking the Kitty Hawk comparison.

There is a huge difference between heavier than air flight by the Wright Brothers and the so-called Hyperloop proposal. For starter people like Leonardo da Vinci (1452 to 1519) knew about flight structures well before the first powered flight. From then on aircraft developed quickly and surprisingly the Wright Brothers never got any patent money from it.

When discussing a vacuum container at sea level the pressure on the container will be one atmosphere which is 101kPa or 15psi and not equivalent to 10 meters of water. Sure a decently prepared vacuum container will be able to take these pressures but what has been proposed is a vacuum tube that is well over 100km long and is capable of taking a shuttle or multiple shuttles with human passengers that are supposed to be traveling at around 1100kph (700mph) and all it takes is a minor fault or rupture and you have human salsa. It must be noted that no country in the world has ever come close or has even considered what has been proposed.

"Modern engineer solutions turn the miraculous into the mundane?" If you look at electronics then sort of yes but I was using computers with decent graphics back in 1983 and while computers have got more powerful and smaller they still have not changed that significantly since the 1980's. Do you know that in the late 1950's the worlds first hovercar was built Curtiss-Wright Model 2500 Air Car however even today I don't see any hover or flying cars on the road. You can even look at the Concord and I will leave it up to you to find out why we don't have supersonic passenger jets anymore.

As an Engineer, I am all for science and advancement but I also like to see the evidence (you know the Scientific Method) before I agree or disagree. Jumping on-board for the hype is plain stupid and can be expensive.

As for annoyingly smug, I don't find Thunderfoot that way since he always provides evidence and that is what I care about.

Re:Tunnel

[Whibla]

For starter people like Leonardo da Vinci (1452 to 1519) knew about flight structures well before the first powered flight. From then on aircraft developed quickly...

I'm not sure I see the point you're trying to make here. As many people are keen to point out the notions of vacuum tubes, magnetic levitation, air bearings and indeed pretty much every engineering concept used in the hyperloop proposal are not new either.

When discussing a vacuum container at sea level the pressure on the container will be one atmosphere which is 101kPa or 15psi and not equivalent to 10 meters of water.

Are you sure about that? I'll repeat my original assertion in case you misread it: "The pressure differential between the atmosphere and an evacuated tube is roughly equivalent to a tube at atmospheric pressure submerged in 10 metres of water"

...what has been proposed is a vacuum tube that is well over 100km long...

The original proposal was for a route that ran from LA to SF, so roughly 560 km one way, or a 1120 km circuit. You don't find it funny, as an engineer, that you clearly haven't read the proposals, or follow on documentation, but you're happily telling us what you think they said?

...supposed to be traveling at around 1100kph (700mph) and all it takes is a minor fault or rupture and you have human salsa.

Yup, and when a car crashes at 120 km/h, when a train derails at 200+ km/h, when a plane depressurises or crashes people tend to die too. It's not possible to be so risk averse as to avoid all possibility of harm, because if you were to try you'd starve to death from fear of choking. I'd say much of the fear surround this idea is fear of the unknown - a natural human reaction, even if a tad 'over-sensitive'.

You can even look at the Concord and I will leave it up to you to find out why we don't have supersonic passenger jets anymore

Mostly it was because it couldn't fly supersonic for a great deal of its routes, due to the sonic boom. It was also a bit of a gas guzzler. So, it didn't save as much time as was originally envisaged, and it was very expensive. In other words it stopped flying due to economics, rather than any technical reasons. Again, what point are you trying to make?

As an Engineer, I am all for science and advancement but I also like to see the evidence (you know the Scientific Method) before I agree or disagree

You'll excuse me for saying so, but your posts don't seem to suggest this. It rather seems, by posting the links you have, that you have very much decided already.

As for annoyingly smug, I don't find Thunderfoot that way since he always provides evidence and that is what I care about.

The most visceral demonstration I think I saw him give was him putting a ball bearing in an evacuated glass tube, then having snapped the end off, and watched the ball bearing shoot down the tube and smash through the end he suggested that this showed that any hole in the hyperloop tunnel would 'wreck' the transit pod and or tunnel and kill all the passengers...

So let's examine this demonstration and the claims:

Did snapping the end off the evacuated glass tube, causing air to rush in, destroy the rest of the glass tube? No, it did not

Was the cross sectional area of the glass tube roughly twice that of the ball bearing? No, it was not

Is a small ball bearing in any way equivalent to a 15+ tonne vehicle when considering the effects of a certain mass of air hitting it? No, not really

Does a 3 foot length of evacuated tube share the same characteristics when repressurising as a 300 foot length of tube? A 3000 foot length? Not exactly. Once you get beyond about 33 feet (essentially the pressure difference between a vacuum and 1 atmosphere) things change

So tell me, what 'evidence' is he providing exactly?

Re:Tunnel

[swillden]

When discussing a vacuum container at sea level the pressure on the container will be one atmosphere which is 101kPa or 15psi and not equivalent to 10 meters of water.

The pressure differential between a container of perfect vacuum and ambient atmosphere at sea level is about 14.7 psi. The pressure differential between a container of air at one atmosphere and ambient seawater at 10m depth is about 14.7 psi. Each 10m of seawater depth increases ambient pressure by approximately one atmosphere. At 100m, pressure is 10 atmospheres higher than the surface. Freshwater is less dense than seawater, so pressure increases a bit more slowly.

Any SCUBA diver knows this.

Here's a calculator if you'd like to play with it.

Re:Tunnel

[Whibla]

I wouldn't usually reply to myself, but I rather felt the need to make a correction...

Does a 3 foot length of evacuated tube share the same characteristics when repressurising as a 300 foot length of tube? A 3000 foot length? Not exactly. Once you get beyond about 33 feet (essentially the pressure difference between a vacuum and 1 atmosphere) things change

I'm not entirely sure what I was thinking (other than "finish typing, it's nearly beer o'clock") but I clearly had a massive brain fart here. This '33 feet' figure is complete bollocks, in relation to what I was talking about, primarily 'cos we're talking about horizontal tubes, not vertical, and also 'cos air ain't water.

No excuse really. Mea culpa!

The actual figure is more likely to be in the region of tens of kilometres, but I currently lack the tools to be more precise. The guys who did this, and coincidentally already work for Musk, can probably figure it out though. I only wish I was half as smart as them... :-/

Re:Tunnel

[torkus]

Remember that what has been proposed is a very long vacuum tube so there would be normal air pressure outside so even with a slight deformation you are going to have a rupture which would send out a shockwave traveling at the speed of sound and anything in the tube would be pulverized.

Ignoring the rest of your nonsense because there's only so much time in the world...but this one is just too easy because you're simply too ignorant or too stupid to understand how pressure works.

The difference in pressure between two areas along whatever separates them exerts the pressure on that isolating material. Given the lowest pressure you can have is zero (total vacuum) and standard pressure at sea level is 1ATM or ~15 PSI...the largest pressure possible against the hyperloop tube is a measly 15PSI. Considering modern submarines experience about 500 times that pressure at max working depth (which is still significantly less than crush depth) I'm pretty sure we can design a hyperloop tube that won't magically implode like the train cars put under negative pressure...you know, the train cars which were never MEANT to be evacuated and weren't designed for those pressures.

Buy yah, go on hyping your nonsense about how the hyperloop is impossible.

In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Elon Musk went hiking and dug a latrine.

We may have gotten confused here...

Vibration?

[mattr]

I remember visiting Shanghai last year where they have a maglev that speeds you from the airport to just outside the city. I was told that a residential area was built along it but that the maglev generated a huge amount of vibration that affected people's health so they moved away. I don't know if this is apocryphal, but do wonder how much vibration the design will generate and how that would impact the environment, people living above it, cars driving on icy roads above it, etc.

Re:Vibration?

[Whibla]

After the Channel Tunnel was built the train line was extended, in stages, all the way into central London. Large parts of this track run variously on viaducts over rivers, roads and other rail lines and in tunnels under roads, buildings, and other rail lines. The trains that run on these tracks weigh 700 tonnes and travel up to 300 km/h (albeit they do slow down in some sections).

These trains have been running for closing 15 years now, and, as far as I know, no building has yet collapsed because of them, no cars have skidded on the road, no person has fallen over / suffered stress fractures / died / etc. due to the vibrations.

If a 700 tonne train doesn't cause problems I'd be pretty surprised if a 26 tonne hyperloop (vehicle) capsule did. More so because the tubes are intended to have shock absorbers between them and whatever they're resting on.

But can it make a profit

[ErstO]

I still fail to see how this can Hyper-stuff can make a profit. ok, you can move up to 16 people between points at a very fast speed, yet the cars would need to be spaced far enough apart from each other to provide a save emergency stop if something went wrong with car up front.

While there is existing technology, the mag lift, in use, that can move two hundred plus people at a time on a monorail (cheaper then a tunnel) at speeds up to 400 km per hour.

The future of transportation is moving a large number of people fast and efficiently, I would love to see the business plan on this tunnel, how many people can be moved in a 24 hour period? whats the cost per passenger? whats the maintenance cost? the cost to maintain the vacuum in a ten mile line, yes it’s underground, but your going to need a lot of emergency exit points along the route, and each air lock is another potential vacuum breach.

The Concord showed us fast is not always profitable.

Re:But can it make a profit

[Jeremi]

People made all the same criticisms about air travel back in the 1920's. Their mistake was assuming that the technology would never develop much further than the (slow, cloth-and-wood framed, 1-2 person) aircraft that were in existence at the time.

Re:But can it make a profit

[Anonymous Coward]

Musk has never been concerned with making a profit with any of his companies. Both Tesla and SolarCity have never been profitable. For the last 5 years he has been saying Tesla would begin turning a profit the following year. SpaceX is barely profitable because they severely undercut the competition to get launches. Not even PayPal was profitable when it was acquired by EBay.

Re:But can it make a profit

[oldgraybeard]

Like most things the government is involved in, profit is not a concern!

Re:But can it make a profit

[lucm]

Musk has never been concerned with making a profit with any of his companies. Both Tesla and SolarCity have never been profitable. For the last 5 years he has been saying Tesla would begin turning a profit the following year. SpaceX is barely profitable because they severely undercut the competition to get launches. Not even PayPal was profitable when it was acquired by EBay.

Same thing happened with Amazon. No profit for 12 years, and now they're printing money and are slowly driving the competition out of business. Who's going to disrupt Amazon now?

Re:But can it make a profit

[donaldm]

I still fail to see how this can Hyper-stuff can make a profit. ok, you can move up to 16 people between points at a very fast speed, yet the cars would need to be spaced far enough apart from each other to provide a save emergency stop if something went wrong with car up front.

If the tube was not evacuated then the cars in the tube could be stopped safely which is not that much different to underground trains that many major cities use. The problem you have is the Hyperlink tube is basically a vacuum tube which if ruptured (and it does not take much to do that) will send out a shock wave which would effectively pulverize pretty much all cars in the tube.

Rather than me waffle on try a simple Google search using "hyperloop flaws" and then decide for yourself. Don't believe the hype.

Re:But can it make a profit

[Anonymous Coward]

This argument makes no sense when you consider we later actually went backwards with air travel technology when the technology vs. affordability limit was reached (Concorde etc...).

Re: But can it make a profit

[Jesus H Rolle]

SpaceX is barely profitable because they severely undercut the competition to get launches.

To rephrase that, SpaceX charges far less than the competition while still turning a profit.

Re:But can it make a profit

[nukenerd]

People made all the same criticisms about air travel back in the 1920's. Their mistake was assuming that the technology would never develop much further than the (slow, cloth-and-wood framed, 1-2 person) aircraft that were in existence at the time.

You could build and fly bigger aircraft without changing the infrastructure. Not so with Hyperloop. Try a different analogy.

Re:But can it make a profit

[nukenerd]

I read that government is not involved.

Re:But can it make a profit

[Jeremi]

You could build and fly bigger aircraft without changing the infrastructure.

Untrue -- bigger planes required bigger runways and bigger terminals. And so, bigger runways and bigger terminals were duly built.

Re: But can it make a profit

[Anonymous Coward]

If they were publicly traded like their competition, I doubt their investors would put up with the low dividends. And unlike their competitors, SpaceX is not a conglomerate. If the sleeping giants wake up and start undercutting SpaceX in the future, there is nothing Musk will be able to fall back on for funding other than using his own money.

Re:But can it make a profit

[ChrisMaple]

Hand waving and ignorance is no replacement for solid engineering.

Re:But can it make a profit

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference was Amazon could have been profitable much earlier but they chose to invest the profits on capital expansion. Although Amazon controls about half of the online sales, only 10% of retail sales is made online.

Tesla doesn't have this advantage, they simple don't have the money to expand manufacturing capacity needed in order to cover their R&D costs. The old line, "make it up in volume," applies here. It is a chicken and egg problem for them. They need to sell more cars to cover their costs but cannot unless they have more money to make enough cars.

Re: But can it make a profit

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL. Then show some fucking proof. You just hand waved the situation away.

Pot meet kettle.

Re:But can it make a profit

[kaatochacha]

I've never liked this argument, as it's based on what we know is a successful technology: Flying.
You could just as easily say "This hyperloop is getting the some condemnation that Phrenology once received!"

Re:But can it make a profit

[nukenerd]

You can grow airport runways and terminal buildings progressively and relatively easily (as you can railway stations - the equivalent) - just buy some more land. Upgrading thousands of miles of railway lines however, including enlarging tunnels and strengthening bridges, is a task of a higher order.

UK railways suffer to this day with having been built too small. Upgrading Hyperloop to take larger vehicles would mean scrapping the entire tube and starting again. Fortunately I don't think that Hyperloop will be successful enough for that ever to be a problem.

Great idea

[Anonymous Coward]

This will put Elon in the history books! SpaceX and Tesla are great accomplishments but fixing and making our mass transit infrastructure better is historic. Regional travel between cities should be much faster and air travel is not the answer. With delays, and air pollution that aircraft create its not the long term answer. Plus underground travel is less prone to weather delays as long as a tube hasn't floated etc.

Re: Great idea

[prefec2]

If you want to see working mass transfer t systems, visit any other developed country. We already have that. Unfortunately, the stuff was not invented by an US American.

Re: Great idea

[rally2xs]

Yeah, it works in relatively small countries with high population densities. Notice that they're proposing this in the NE Corridor, which is geographically limited and has a high population density. This ain't for Kansas. A universal solution for the USA to mass transit is likely never happening due to the expense of building such a system and having 3 people debark at Kansas City each time a train comes thru. Therefore, using public money to build any of these things is fundamentally unfair to those in Kansas and the rest of the wide open spaces since they'll never get any benefit from it.

Build it to carry passengers, vehicles, and cargo, THEN maybe its useful in Kansas, and would be a better candidate for public money spending. That might make it more deployable.

Re: Great idea

[prefec2]

True. It makes no sense to have such system in Kansas or North Dakota. Except for Bismark itself, maybe. However, it would work in both costal regions which would fix a lot of transport issues.

Re: Great idea

[rally2xs]

After following way too many 18 wheelers, and being run off the road 3 times in 1 year by big rigs changing lanes without looking (I always respond to "automated trucks" with the question, "Will they also not look when changing lanes?) I fantasize about a hyperloop big enough and powerful enough to accept an 18 wheeler, or several cars and rocket them to their next destination up to 300 miles away, thus relieving a massive amount of traffic from the interstate highway system which is in the process of failing due to overuse / undercapacity. Well, that's my dream, anyway...

Re: Great idea

[prefec2]

In Europe, they put trailors and trucks on trains which can go up to 160 km/h. They use them also for Alpes transit to relieve roads. On distances above 100km this is a faster mode of transportation. With some improvements in the loading process this could even be feasible for shorter distances.

A Terrorist's Wet Dream

[OYAHHH]

which will necessitate airport levels of security.

29 minutes huh? So does that mean passengers get 10 minutes to board/deboard this thing????? It's gonna have to be quickly loaded. Leaving 9 minutes of travel time?

What if a hyperpod can't leave on time? Are the margins of error such that it can be squeezed in prior to the next hyperpod? Or will that hyperpod need to be retired and the passengers put on another hyperpod. What does that do to scheduling passengers?

And how are passengers going to react to the acceleration/deceleration necessary to achieve a 9 minute travel time? To keep the math simple assuming a 226 mile distance between Washington and NYC at 226 MPH it would take one hour to get there. At 452 MPH it would take 30 minutes to get there. .... A non-changing speed of 1506 MPH will cover the distance in 9 minutes.

Based on the above limits I'm just not sure this thing has really been thought through.

Tell me oh /. Masters of the Universe where I am wrong?
 

Re:A Terrorist's Wet Dream

[ScentCone]

You're right. Musk doesn't have even ONE smart person who can do any kind of math working for him. You should remind him to do something about that.

Re:A Terrorist's Wet Dream

[SirSlud]

What you're saying is that you're not smart enough to recognize what you don't know.

Re: A Terrorist's Wet Dream

[Anonymous Coward]

Physics doesn't step aside for anyone, not even smart people.

Re:A Terrorist's Wet Dream

[swillden]

29 minutes huh? So does that mean passengers get 10 minutes to board/deboard this thing????? It's gonna have to be quickly loaded. Leaving 9 minutes of travel time?

The pods are small. Think subway car-sized, not jumbo jet sized. How long does the subway stop at each location? Two minutes? Pods are expected to have a maximum speed of 760 mph, which would cover 226 miles in 18 minutes.

And how are passengers going to react to the acceleration/deceleration necessary

Well, at 1/4 gee acceleration (8 f/s^2), you'd need 139 seconds to accelerate to 760 mph. For the described journey, you'd have to accelerate or decelerate 6 times, so that would take 14 minutes, leaving 11 minutes at top speed. During each acceleration or deceleration, you'd cover 14.7 miles, so the six accel/decel periods would cover 88 miles. At 760 mph for 11 minutes, you'd cover 139 miles, that adds up to 227 miles.

So, 1/4 gee acceleration is sufficient, and while what's about 3X the acceleration of a subway car, it's very tolerable. It might actually be more comfortable to do 1/2 gee for 66 seconds, or 1 gee for 34 seconds, on the theory that it's better to spend less time accelerating harder, to have more time at constant velocity.

Tell me oh /. Masters of the Universe where I am wrong?

In your initial assumption that loading and unloading a hyperloop car is like loading and unloading an airplane. Are there any other easy problems you'd like solved?

Re:A Terrorist's Wet Dream

[lucm]

What if a hyperpod can't leave on time? Are the margins of error such that it can be squeezed in prior to the next hyperpod?

There's multiple train stations in India that handle 500,000 to 1,000,000 daily passengers, and their railway infrastructure runs on switches and relays that were obsolete before man set foot on the moon. There's not a lot of room for errors there and yet they manage.

So I think it's fair to say that Elon Musk, his unlimited Mastercard and his legion of PhDs can figure out how to handle delays in a transportation system designed for thousands of passengers a day.

Re:A Terrorist's Wet Dream

[serviscope_minor]

which will necessitate airport levels of security.

So you won't be allowed on board with a pocket knife in case you demand the computer divert the pod down a different tube, but you'll be allowed on with 2 kilo of lipo batteries?

Even so I don't see why. We've had these things called "trains" for years which seem to work just fine.

29 minutes huh? So does that mean passengers get 10 minutes to board/deboard this thing????? It's gonna have to be quickly loaded. Leaving 9 minutes of travel time?

Um what? Have you ever used a mass transit system? If trains are leaving every 30 seconds (don't see that would be a problem, the Victoria line in London (google it if you like) can manage to send a train every 100 seconds, and they hold many people and in the morning are nearly full.

Re:A Terrorist's Wet Dream

[rally2xs]

The 29 minutes is the travel time, not the loading time. The loading time is to walk in and sit down. Baggage car might come after one for passengers, its not required to carry both in the same vehicle. Baggage transfer would probably be highly automated and therefore very fast.

I believe that these are tubes between 2 points, and each "point" requires getting up and changing vehicles, like hub airports. Vehicles leave whenever they are ready to leave. There should be no interleaving of vehicles running at speed on the tube and those accelerating to speed.

The target speed is around 700 mph.

Here's how it was originally conceptualized:

http://www.spacex.com/sites/sp...

Re: A Terrorist's Wet Dream

[ScentCone]

Physics doesn't step aside for anyone, not even smart people.

You're right! That guy builds rockets and actually uses them successfully definitely doesn't know that. You should also remind him of that.

Re: A Terrorist's Wet Dream

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL you Elon shills are so funny.

"The man built rockets and electric cars, he can do anythingzzzzzzzzzz, see it's that easy. Musk big dick. Me like big dick"

"Musk single handedly build rockets and cars by himself, I already paid for my ticket to mars, muskkkkk so big dick, me like big musk dick"

That's what you sound like all up and down this thread.

Re: A Terrorist's Wet Dream

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF did YOU ever do???

Re: A Terrorist's Wet Dream

[swillden]

LOL you Elon shills are so funny.

I accept your concession.

Not likely

[dcooper_db9]

The Inter-County Connector intersects with the BWI Parkway about five miles away. Getting that highway built took fifty years, got hung up for years on environmental studies and the Federal Government withheld funding. The state house is dominated by Democrats and Hogan is a Republican. Oh, and the Feds won't approve it's construction into DC? I doubt this is going to get done with little more than a few utility permits. Good luck though.

"begins digging"

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait for the ground to be broken before making such pronouncements.

10 miles?

[countach]

10 miles is a stunt. It would take most of this distance to accelerate and decelerate to the touted speeds. Lots of people are going to lose lots of money on this stupidity.

Wow this seems Amazingly Fast!!

[oldgraybeard]

Just wondering where the environmentalist are? And the environmental Impact studies that take years. The years of jumping through hoops to get government approval, etc etc, etc

Or is the fact that (WunderKind) Elon Musk owns the company doing this, means that nothing harmful or bad could ever come out of this.

Just to make it clear I am not against this, it just seems to be moving amazingly fast ;)

Re:Wow this seems Amazingly Fast!!

[RhettLivingston]

I'm pretty sure this is a state that allows fracking. The bar for approving underground stuff is low.

If he just takes it down to a depth that is extremely unlikely to hit anything ever put in from the surface or disturb any surface waters (necessary to avoid pumping like crazy anyway), there is little environmental impact that anyone cares about other than disposing of the removed material which should be very non-hazardous and possibly in demand for fill.

Re:Wow this seems Amazingly Fast!!

[lucm]

If he just takes it down to a depth that is extremely unlikely to hit anything ever put in from the surface or disturb any surface waters (necessary to avoid pumping like crazy anyway), there is little environmental impact that anyone cares about

This sounds like the premise of another high quality syfy movie

Re:Wow this seems Amazingly Fast!!

[Anonymous Coward]

The environmentalists are OK with it. It removes vehicles and short airplane trip emissions. Not too much to impact underground either.

Still not convinced hyperloop is even feasible.

[Anonymous Coward]

Did Elon ever adress concerns multiple people brought up on basic feasibility?

Musk hyperloops us all

[Anonymous Coward]

This is another Musk cash cow where he will subsist on billions in taxpayer and VC dollars to solve a problem that doesnâ(TM)t actually exist. New York to DC is about three hours by train; who cares if that gets cut down to 30 minutes? Is that really worth billions of dollars? Congratulations, Elon; your big idea is basically a faster subway.

First letâ(TM)s see Musk demonstrate that he can run an actual business by selling more than he spends, then maybe his proof of concept for Hyperloop will be worth paying attention to.

Re:Musk hyperloops us all

[lucm]

New York to DC is about three hours by train; who cares if that gets cut down to 30 minutes?

Basically any person who has to travel from New York to DC on a regular basis. It may sound strange to you, but for most people out there time is valuable.

Capacity is actually a loading problem

[FeelGood314]

The spacing at low speeds is actually the limiting factor. I suspect the experience will be like loading onto the 8 person gondolas at a ski resort. Which have a capacity of about 1.1 person per second which is entirely limited by the ability for humans to get in and out of the gondolas. For reference a highway lane has a maximum throughput of 0.5 vehicles per second.

Hype - PR - loop

[spinitch]

As others stated the \. Headline is WRONG or at best very misleading. Please fix and stop such tactics to build traffic. I enjoy many of the intelligent as well as amusing posters but loath to support such a poorly administered site.

Historical electric cars

[DrYak]

Also, making an electric car that people actually want to buy? Just a few years ago almost all engineers in the automobile industry (including, and especially those with well over 35 years of experience) would have told you that was impossible too.

And those engineers would have been fools themselves for completely ignoring all the other companie who have been successful at building electric vehicles, some of them for 35 years or more too.

(Random example : Citroen has been making electric trucks and minivan used by the french postal service - the extremely frequent strart/stops and the rather short distances make EV way better than ICE. Even on the only NiCd battery tech available back then)

(Other random example : a few swiss mountain touristic regions have been completely closed to cars, and have been using electrical vehicles instead for several decade already).

Elon Musk didn't really start a revolution here. Actually what he managed was to take a concept and tweak it enough to make it palatable to the very peculiar north American market. Which by itself is no small feat.
But nearly everyone speaking against EV is completely ignoring past successes.

read on

[lucm]

Maybe you don't know him that well. I suggest to read this story from joelonsoftware:

Then I sat down to write the Excel Basic spec, a huge document that grew to hundreds of pages. I think it was 500 pages by the time it was done.
[...]
In those days we used to have these things called BillG reviews. Basically every major important feature got reviewed by Bill Gates. I was told to send a copy of my spec to his office in preparation for the review. It was basically one ream of laser-printed paper. I rushed to get the spec printed and sent it over to his office.
[...]
I noticed that there were comments in the margins of my spec. He had read the first page!

He had read the first page of my spec and written little notes in the margin!

Considering that we only got him the spec about 24 hours earlier, he must have read it the night before.

He was asking questions. I was answering them. They were pretty easy, but I can’t for the life of me remember what they were, because I couldn’t stop noticing that he was flipping through the spec

He was flipping through the spec! [Calm down, what are you a little girl?]

  and THERE WERE NOTES IN ALL THE MARGINS. ON EVERY PAGE OF THE SPEC. HE HAD READ THE WHOLE GODDAMNED THING AND WRITTEN NOTES IN THE MARGINS.

He Read The Whole Thing!

https://www.joelonsoftware.com...

Bill Gates was the real thing.

Re:Hyperoop?

[LesFerg]

No, but they have just put a big curse on the project, thats some big oops to come.

Tinfoil hat time...

[DarthVain]

Just a bit of paranoid speculation that perhaps all this hyper-loop stuff is essentially a money laundering scheme for the government to subsidize and fund Musk's other projects (Rockets, Cars, Batteries) without seemingly doing it directly which might have political ramifications. This type of project is the kind of thing easily in the many many billions, and will take decades to complete, both of which could be inflated at cost and length of time, essentially providing Musks ventures (which haven't or won't show much positive profit income for some time to come) cash to keep developing and improving for a long time to come. Maybe I just watch too much Ozark...