My small part in the Hyperloop saga began early in June when I tried to visualize Elon Musk’s Hyperloop concept using only MS Paint and a few scattered clues.
I thought that maybe a simple infographic, bringing all those clues together in one place, would help get folks back on track. (Or is it on tube?) I did this mostly out of frustration with all the wild leaps that the story had been taking...and still is!Keep it simple.
What I ended up with was a kind of flow chart, a drawing that showed what I thought Hyperloop would do, but not necessarily how it would do it. I avoided being too specific about the how part of Hyperloop for a very good reason: When Elon Musk was asked whether Hyperloop could work, his reply was that it absolutely could.
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| Could this work? |
So, I’ll take the man at his word that he’s got ‘how’ covered.
Pie in sky? .... What do you think?
23 comments:
They are going to have to build a small test loop to flesh out the kinks. It's a good idea, but hypervelocity movement in a vacuum has deadly momentum repercussions if things stop quickly, so tons and tons and tons of failsafe are going to be required for this.
I hate to be all negative and stuff, but, if the idea cuts in on government graft, it's a no-go.
Cool concept but as Methadras points out, failure would be catastrophic. And just the fear of that failure, and claustrophobic tendencies, would make it unteneble for a lot of people. Imagine getting stuck in a pod that's inside a tube halfway between SF and LA.
C Stanley said...
Cool concept but as Methadras points out, failure would be catastrophic. And just the fear of that failure, and claustrophobic tendencies, would make it unteneble for a lot of people. Imagine getting stuck in a pod that's inside a tube halfway between SF and LA.
Well, there are way to mitigate that particular issue of stopping mid-transit. Each tube segment or at some point in the series of a segment, there would have to be a way to egress outside of the tube and to get topside. However, that means that the vacuum would have to be broken and an atmosphere restored to that particular area.
Contingencies need to be thought out carefully and each one needs to mesh with each other contingency in order to work and all have to have viable solutions that also mesh with each other. Something like this can't be taken lightly. If it was an atmospheric rail system that could attain those speeds, then you mitigate a lot of issues, but this is meant to be in a vacuum, so all kinds of precautions have to be accounted for. Plus the control systems have to be so fault tolerant that literally saying error free means just that, error free. It can never, ever under any circumstance have any errors or shit will go badly quickly.
It all comes back to Ray Bradbury & the Prune of TOMORROW.
"What are those guys trying to pull?"
I like airplanes, especially window seats. 500mph, can go to any city, wonderful view, and they never get stuck in the middle of nowhere. The only problem with planes is the stupid policy of keeping you on board for hours during a problem. Get rid of that shit, and you got the best means of transport ever, and probably well into the future. Put a damned USB outlet at each seat. What's that cost, maybe $5 investment per seat?
I don't want fed crappy food at great expense either. Just drinks, wifi, and phone service, and I'd have it all.
Also, airplanes are the safest mode of transport per mile ever invented, even safer than LSD.
The only problem with planes is the stupid policy of keeping you on board for hours during a problem.
Yeah, hit a little turbulence mid-flight and Bagoh wants to jump right out and catch thermals with his hang-glider.
And another advantage of air travel is that you can transport millions of people right over a pristine wilderness with no significant environmental effect whatsoever, or over a huge city without any disruption at all. It's virtually magic that we would wish for if we didn't already have it. All other technologies require a huge permanent foot print along the whole route, every route. Consequently, routes also can't be changed, where with air they can be changed mid-flight. It's just unequaled by anything we have now or on the drawing board.
When flying over Texas, you will often see what we call "cloud streets", which are rows of small cumulus clouds all lined up in a grid. Each cloud is the top of a thermal. Under those, you can fly as long as the sun is up. The world records of around 500 miles are almost all done there. Sometimes they look so perfect that I do just want to jump out.
I hope they plan on providing each passenger with an extra large barf bag.
In all seriousness, younger people I know are jazzed by cutting edge ideas like these. They are smart enough to know HSR is way too costly due to its infrastructure requirements. They also like the idea of dedicated high speed bus routes [inter-cities] that travel over 100 MPH and bypass car traffic via platforms built over existing highways.
All methods that require dedicated infrastructure along a fixed route are just foolish compared to air. Just keep improving air technology and stay out of the 19th century. Also in terms of terrorism, a plane is probably the safest as well. Most of the trip it's 6 miles high, and out of reach or assholes not on board.
How easy would it be to derail a train? Any body can with no special training and little personal risk.
I agree who The HO!!! Jet plane travel is still the safest and cheapest to transport people with. You GO HO!!!
Furthering Bagoh's point, I did some calculations regarding the CA High Speed Rail project. I think it consumed a billion dollars a couple of years ago just to think about it.
In any event, here is the reasoning. Instead of getting $80B bonds at 5% interest, or whatever it will cost, use the 5% of $80B and buy people plane tickets from SF to LA. At $200 a pop, that's about 55,000 plane rides a day.
And, there is no maintenance costs! The Airlines will pay for them.
And guess what else? The passengers will be happy because it will take a few hours less time than the HSR.
And even, you could reduce the cost of the subsidy by the cost of an HSR ticket, which looks like it is going to have to be around $200.00.
So you don't need to do anything at all! It's amazing. Government does nothing, better service, lower cost. Who would have thought that?
Bagoh20 sez:
How easy would it be to derail a train? Any body can with no special training and little personal risk.
The advantage to trains is people trains generally kill only the people on them. Planes can hit and kill people who aren't on them.
Remember how Al Qaeda shut down Spain and effected those wimp's election?
If you have ever been on Japan's subway system, you will realize the incredible fortitude of those people, who after the Sarin gas attacks still boarded those insanely packed trains to go to work. I've been on those trains. Insane trains.
All methods that require dedicated infrastructure along a fixed route are just foolish compared to air.
I was about to talk about how this statement is so wrong (mass transit works with hub and spoke, roads work for any to any traffic, including police, fire and medical), but then I remember I live in the country.
One of my neighbors up the way had one of his relics or something catch fire, and the helicopter flying over our house way too low dumping water from the lake near bye, along with the funny plane dumping chemicals in the wrong place, put it out. I don't know why the firetrucks came. There isn't any water around. Fortunately, only an acre burned.
Of course I'm talking about commuting distance, not just around town, but all these ideas are for distance for obvious reasons.
There simply is no reason to build a road, rail, or tube to go somewhere once you can fly. It's nonsensical to us flighted creatures.
Of course I'm talking about commuting distance, not just around town, but all these ideas are for distance for obvious reasons.
Bagoh, you need to up your game. This sentence makes no sense, and I can't recall a single sentence like this in all the many I read from you on Althouse. They all made sense, and were perfectly formed.
I interpret. "If you are transporting people, it's best to use air."
Sorry, but if you need to transport lots of people for war, you need to use boats.
Same for heavy things overseas. And its good to use rail for heavy stuff in the US. It's cheap.
Rail is better than air for the chunnel, and the Osaka/Tokyo bridge (though I would not want to live that way).
An "ideal" people mover would be mag lev trains in a vacuum, and could approach escape velocity safely and use little energy.
I'm PO'd that our stupid governor wants to push through HSR, an insanity. But each mode of transportation has its advantages and disadvantages. For Goodness sake, some people like to go on Cruises.
Dante, I misused the word "commuting. I meant "traveling".
As soon as you throw in the cost and limitations of a ground-based system to move people hundreds of miles or more, it's a no brainer that air is best. You don't need to build or be dependent on anything en-route.
For commuting you need something else entirely, and it doesn't need to be moving at 100 mph to cover 5 or 10 miles through town.
Bagoh,
Rail costs 3/100ths of a cent to move a ton one mile, but air costs 46300/100ths of a cent to move a ton one mile, or 10000 times as much (see here.)
There are examples of > 100 mile rail working in Japan, for instance.
Meanwhile, the whole idea of moving people around makes less and less sense. The internet means distance travel is less and less important, and sending bits over a wire is really safe. In fact, I once thought it would be fun build a business of video conference kiosks at airports (video conference will only get better), and you fill in the blanks about what ad would be best.
Spelling it out, the equation isn't as simple as you are suggesting.
But Dante, you are missing my points. Air travel requires no enroute infrastructure at all, zero. Not just zero cost, zero environmental effect, zero time to build it, and the routes can be changed instantly and without cost. On the performance side, the speed is 5 times as fast as rail. I still see no comparison, unless you just look at the one narrow value of direct transport cost per pound between points that never need to change.
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