This will be even worse than Concorde, as that plane made sense when it was designed in the sixties as fuel was dirt cheap back then, it's the steadily climbing oil prices that killed supersonic passenger flight
This hyperloop isn't even making sense now
People needing to travel in vacuum don't care about money that much. There were people spending multiple 1970 thousands dollars, or equivalent multiple tens of 2017 thousands dollars, to fly a Concorde. There are enough rich people, especially in California.
Hyperloop sounds like a good idea, and Elon Musk has unlimited amount of money from NASA and Tesla as well as his VC friends.
As for technical issues, remember how people thought going into space was impossible a decade ago? Now we have set foot on the moon and built at least 3 tiny cities in the sky.
Many people say the vacuum idea is bad, which I have to say this may not be true. First, space endeavor gave human race enough knowledge to build human-residing vacuum vessels properly, and who said it must be vacuum? How about filled with helium? How about filled with small molecular weight, non-flammable CFCs? How about filled with fire suppressant and hydrogen?
Hyperloop doesn't have to make money quickly. Tesla makes money, so does SpaceX. They can afford slower pace. Also, if the Hyperloop becomes a landmark, then people will spend big money to try it. Many people first time go to Shanghai will try its Maglev system, although the ticket is 15x the price of equivalent metro ticket, but hey, you don't get another commercial Maglev running anywhere else (besides the very short trial track in Korea and some experimental tracks in Japan). Hyperloop can be the same -- people go to California, and the first they thought is to try Hyperloop, despite 10x or even 100x the ticket price. It's the experience, rather than just moving form one place to another.
You can't really compare it to going into space. Every one agrees that space travel is the future of any living organism. Going twice the speed of a plane in a tube is not.
Filling it with something other then air doesn't solve anything. Helium would too expensive and we are going to run out of it if we don't use it wisely. The reason why it has to be a vacuum is that the air in front of the train needs some place to go. If you have a train in a tube you are pushing not only the train but a cylinder of air in front of it like an air compressor. Air is made of atoms that are already light; nitrogen is 14 and oxygen is 16 helium is 4. Its a giant gas compressor.
Yes rich people can afford it but to make money off it you have to able to let average people afford it. Look at airlines.
Look how long it takes to pump a vacuum. This tube will have leaks and it will need a massive amount of pumps just to maintain the leaks. How do you terror proof hundreds of miles of something? Look how much resources and time it take to secure the boarder of mexico; and people still cross daily.
The train really only connects two places. How many people need to go from LA to san Francisco? Would there be that many people to justify the cost? With a train you can make the track split with almost no additional cost. To make a hyper loop split would have massive cost as you can just lay down track next to the existing ones.
Then there is safety if it gets stuck or the inside catches fire. How many rescue doors do you put on the tube? How can you get fire fighters to a locations that's 10's mile from the nearest road? What happens when you open the door to the tunnel? Does massive amounts of air rush in? That would cause huge damage to the opening probably sucking the steel around the door in causing massive damage.
When one part of track is damaged the whole thing shuts down. The slightest air leak on one part shuts the whole system down unlike a train where spare track could be laid.
The whole things solves a problem that doesn't really exist. Not once have I heard anyone complain that it takes too long to fly or drive up California.
Beamin,
I lived in CA for basically 2/3 of my life up until now and people do complain about the time it takes to get from SF to LA and back all of the time. Driving takes most of a day, but flying only takes around an hour (of actual flight) but getting in and out of the airports doubles triples that, easily. Or more, sometimes.
The logical solution is a bullet train like the civilized countries have. But no, they want --- unproven technology.. don't get me started..
You're right, its sheer insanity to attempt to use a vacuum - for the reason that becomes incredibly obvious when you take that airplane flight you will see it as plain as the nose on your face, because you fly along it the whole way, the San Andreas Fault line.. dividing the state. Earthquakes and larger than life engineering projects coexist only with difficulty. Its nuts to build a system thats suspended in a tube that goes deep underground in an earthquake prone state. Plus, the deeper you go, the hotter it gets. You know why they claim they need to use a vacuum, Because people know its hot underground from hot springs, which the state also has a fairly large number of. If the train stopped, and vacuum was lost, how would they cool the tunnel? People would rapidly bake alive in there.
Let me tell you the story told to me by a lady I was briefly dating around a year after this happened.. She was driving over the (old) Bay Bridge to San Francisco, which means she was on the top deck, and suddenly she saw cars driving the WRONG WAY on the top deck back towards Oakland, and they were gesturing wildly to her - as if to say "Go Back" ... she didnt go much farther because she saw it, a huge gap had opened up and a BUS was balancing on it, there had been a huge earthquake..
She was one of the lucky ones, at the same time, one of the highways in Oakland had collapsed killing dozens of people who had been trapped below the top deck when it fell.
......
I just wish we in the USA had any trains that averaged more than about 100kph -- yes, some of the Amtrak trains peak as high as about 150kph but the average is almost certainly less than 100kph. It is unlikely we here will see anything better in the foreseeable future as a good many people have a political hatred of trains so no government money is going to future projects and the only long distance passenger service, the Amtrak I mentioned before, is way underfunded and has had one foot in the grave since the 70's. We in the USA like trucks and big cars -- anything that consumes huge quantities of fuel per passenger/pound.
Indeed; while it's really competitive for distances over 1000km (or perhaps a little more), it's brilliant for the 400-800km journeys.
You just need to ride the 2½hr AVE from Madrid to Barcelona (625km to drive) once to be a believer. For us here in Vancouver, that would mean Seattle in one hour and Portland in two.
I don't think Americans have a "hatred of trains" at all. We certainly all (those of us with common sense
prefer riding a train over taking a bus in traffic.
Energy-wise, trains are one of the most energy-efficient means of transportation. Countries with good passenger rail systems use a lot less fossil fuels.
Riding on a train is very relaxing.
I don't think Americans have a "hatred of trains" at all. We certainly all (those of us with common sense prefer riding a train over taking a bus in traffic.
Energy-wise, trains are one of the most energy-efficient means of transportation. Countries with good passenger rail systems use a lot less fossil fuels.
Riding on a train is very relaxing.
I would ride the train. The bus is a horrible experience in America used by the poorest most degenerate people (not all poor people are bad but all poor people who ride the bus are bad). It is too unreliable to get to work on it; even lines in the city that come every 30 minutes can take over an hour and a half.
I don't share your opinion at all. generalities that broad "are never true".
And of course, there are no poor Americans, just millionaires in waiting- in between their entrepreneurial adventures. [/sarcasm]
But, frankly, I was just talking about the traffic and the relative comfort of bus versus train travel.
Public transport is a great asset and towns that dont want it always regret it afterwards.. and the privatizers are the worst, they are just nuts to want to get rid of it. Huge mistake.
I am rooting for trains to make a big comeback.
I haven't watched the Linus video, but Thunderfoot has gone off the rails (pun intended) about the hyperloop.
There are legitimate criticisms and it may very well (likely) never see the light of day, but he does serious damage to his credibility by harming on things that are simply non-issues. He also makes lots of fundamental mistakes - either because he doesn't understand what he's talking about, or because he willfully portrays his criticisms in a dishonest manner because he thinks his audience is too dumb to know any better.
There are plenty of legitimate criticisms of the hyperloop to have to go out and make stuff up.
Quite a few on here have fallen into the same trap with their criticisms of the hyperloop.
As for Thunderfoot, I think he is annoyed that Elon Musk is so successful and well respected and he (TF) is getting by on public servant wages, yet considers himself more learned and intelligent. This comes through loud and clear with his incessant repetition about crowdfunding scams and how he could be earning $$$ if only he weren't so darn honest (yeah, right!). I also think he did pretty well on his original debunking video, according to Social Blade, and he's trying to replicate what earned him the most $$.
Flex is a particularly bothersome issue, because he's mentioned it several times, yet he still hasn't realized the existence of actual pipelines crisscrossing the continent already. It's a solved problem.
Except that they are apples and oranges.
1) Pipelines are pressurized
inside, not from the outside with vacuum inside.
2) They aren't even close to the same diameter.
3) They don't have to carry humans or massive moving projectiles at 1000kmh
http://naturalgas.org/naturalgas/transport/
I am rooting for trains to make a big comeback.
I like trains. Even our ones in Sydney where we stupidly run heavy rail right into the CBD.
I'm amazed when I go to cities like Paris et.al that have expansive underground rail systems
Sorry - but I just had an amusing mental image when I saw this oil pipeline...
Not many people know about this, but there is also a gase pipe network here in the netherlands and belgium.
No, not natural gas, bus stuff like Hydrogen, Oxygen and Carbon monoxide.
Building pipes shouldn't be the challenge.
y
This will be even worse than Concorde, as that plane made sense when it was designed in the sixties as fuel was dirt cheap back then, it's the steadily climbing oil prices that killed supersonic passenger flight
This hyperloop isn't even making sense now
As for technical issues, remember how people thought going into space was impossible a decade ago? Now we have set foot on the moon and built at least 3 tiny cities in the sky.
I guess you meant "a century"!
Even then, not everybody thought it was impossible.
Except that they are apples and oranges.
1) Pipelines are pressurized inside, not from the outside with vacuum inside.
2) They aren't even close to the same diameter.
3) They don't have to carry humans or massive moving projectiles at 1000kmh
http://naturalgas.org/naturalgas/transport/
Thanks, interesting, high pressure natural gas (although I don't know where they get the 600x volume figure), that'll definitely help with rigidity.
I don't know enough about tubing, offhand, to know if that's enough on its own, or if the sheer size of pipe required to hold in the pressure (we're talking 2-5cm thick walls, I think?) will dominate on stiffness.
Does seem likely that, at only 15 PSI, they can get away with less. Especially if they do something to help the rigidity, like wrap a spiral rib around the tube to prevent crushing collapse (insert train car implosion gif here
).
Pipelines that big
have been made, though:
https://www.materialstoday.com/composite-applications/features/worlds-largest-high-pressure-large-diameter-grp/Here they talk about water pipes 2m around. That's enough to stand up in, or launch a car with two columns of reclined passengers.
But that doesn't matter much. I'm no structural engineer, I don't know more than the basics of calculating what size of pipe is needed here. As I've not seen any numbers presented here, at all, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess no one else here is, either...
Tim
As for technical issues, remember how people thought going into space was impossible a decade ago? Now we have set foot on the moon and built at least 3 tiny cities in the sky.
I guess you meant "a century"!
Even then, not everybody thought it was impossible.
I thought he meant the people who believe we haven't gone yet.
But yes, people used to believe there was air all the way to the moon, that birds migrated there, etc.
In the 18th century plenty of people thought it was just a case of the Montgolfiers making a better balloon.
But that doesn't matter much. I'm no structural engineer, I don't know more than the basics of calculating what size of pipe is needed here. As I've not seen any numbers presented here, at all, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess no one else here is, either...
Pipes can be built. We started installing ours a couple of weeks ago. Other (richer) teams have had one for about a year.
Thunderfoot doesn't have any amazing insights that nobody else thought of instantly. I'm not sure why people think he's saving the world or who he's saving it from. Nobody's being scammed or ripped off (unlike Batterizer, uBeam, Solar Frikkin Roadways, etc.)
Elon Musk has set up a team of real engineers who go over all the plans submitted by Hyperloop teams. They ask for more details about certain things, point out where the likely problems are, suggest improvements, etc. The teams themselves are there for ideas/imagination and to try out the different approaches to the problem.
Yes, that means Elon's getting a while bunch of R&D done for free but mostly it's just university students who:
(a) Are gaining experience building real stuff
(b) Can put "Hyperloop" on their CV
(c) Got to go to California for a week and take selfies standing under the SpaceX rocket.
No harm done, I say, and the queue to be on this year's Hyperloop team was a mile long after all the selfies were uploaded.
It'll be low pressure air, yes, but not vacuum. Vacuum causes all sorts of side effects, eg. cooling of all the massive electromagnets and batteries. What you need is a balance between air friction and not cooking the people/goods inside to medium rare.
Good to see you realise anything vacuum based on this scale is impractical.
So why are the test tracks obviously designed to be vacuum sealed with inches think port windows and complete welds?
I presume you agree that is a complete waste of time and money?
As for technical issues, remember how people thought going into space was impossible a decade ago? Now we have set foot on the moon and built at least 3 tiny cities in the sky.
I guess you meant "a century"!
Even then, not everybody thought it was impossible.
I thought he meant the people who believe we haven't gone yet.
But yes, people used to believe there was air all the way to the moon, that birds migrated there, etc.
In the 18th century plenty of people thought it was just a case of the Montgolfiers making a better balloon.
There was a great difference between ideas current among the general public in the 18th Century & scientific
thought in 1917.
https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/rocket/BottleRocket/20thBeyond.htm
Blueskull,
I smiled when I read your comment.
Don't you know the legend of Wan Hu, who 3600 years ago,
may have been the world's first "astronaut"? (A picture is attached below)
"Early in the sixteenth century, (BC) Wan, a regional government official "decided to take advantage of China's advanced rocket and fireworks technology" to launch himself into space.
He supposedly had a chair built with forty-seven rockets attached. On the day of lift-off, Wan, splendidly attired, climbed into his rocket chair and forty seven servants lit the fuses and then hastily ran for cover. There was a huge explosion. When the smoke cleared, Wan and the chair were gone, and was said never to have been seen again."
There are a
great many variations on this interesting and colorful story.
There must be some truth to the story, but the story also serves as a caution to would be astronauts, as the way its told, its just as likely that he was seriously injured and never left the ground.
Still, the story is one that has left a mark on many of us and now also the Moon, one which will likely live on forever as a crater on the far side of the moon is now officially named after Wan Hu.
https://history.msfc.nasa.gov/rocketry/06.html <<<- This web page at MSFC was where I first read about Wan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wan_Huhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wan-Hoo_%28crater%29I should note that Blueskull was right in the sense that many Chinese in fact did think it was impossible a just a few decades ago because there was a tendency there to express the opinion that the space missions of the US (and perhaps also Russia?) were fabrications on some level and were propaganda.
I joke about this with my Chinese friends.
Now of course we're all exploring space and likely at some point in the near future, I strongly feel we'll be exploring it together. How would we not be?
I cried while I watched the first Chinese spacewalk. It was such a amazing moment for all of us.
"We come in peace for all mankind"
As for technical issues, remember how people thought going into space was impossible a decade ago?
Now we have set foot on the moon and built at least 3 tiny cities in the sky.
Many people say the vacuum idea is bad, which I have to say this may not be true. First, space endeavor gave human race enough knowledge to build human-residing vacuum vessels properly, and who said it must be vacuum? How about filled with helium? How about filled with small molecular weight, non-flammable CFCs? How about filled with fire suppressant and hydrogen?
New York's subway and public transit system is extremely popular,
used by everybody who lives there (almost) and its a huge asset to that city.
The city could not function as it does without its subway. The same goes for San Francisco which has one of the best in the country. They make it easy to live in both cities without a car. A car, if you own one, basically just sits in your insanely expensive garage (which costs more than rent does to many people) and just gets used for shopping and trips outside of the area that's served by the transit systems. Its a great way to live where you can do it.
LA, in contrast, lost its trolley system in the 50s and 60s and they basically had to rebuild one, at tremendous cost. When I was growing up, the opinions expressed earlier were typical of LA residents who seem to have had their really great Red Cars (before my time but family members who grew up there told me about them) replaced by freeways by means of an extensive indoctrination that cars were good and public transit bad. It was a huge mistake that has left us at the mercy of the energy industry!
I am rooting for trains to make a big comeback.
I like trains. Even our ones in Sydney where we stupidly run heavy rail right into the CBD.
I'm amazed when I go to cities like Paris et.al that have expansive underground rail systems
New York's subway and public transit system is extremely popular, used by everybody who lives there (almost) and its a huge asset to that city.
As is the Tube in London, it's an amazingly efficient system that works.
It's not pleasant to travel on as it's overcrowded at peak times, unless of course you enjoy being crushed and experiencing other people's armpits but it definitely gets you from A-B and it's fast.
I could go on and on about the strange things and people I've seen on subways and buses in SF and NYC. Both cities have "Night Owl" buses and trains that run all night long, also. I wonder if there would be a "Night Owl" hyperloop between SF and LA!???
I am sure that if there is, it would become the setting for a great many film plots, its just inevitable.
Both BART and Caltrain trains can go >70 MPH when there is a straight run of track and no stops right ahead.
Currently, you can take BART pretty far southward. Suppose a train linked San Jose with the Santa Cruz/Aptos/Monterey area, then either followed the route taken by Hwy 101, (and the San Andreas Fault!) or (how?) went inland (over the Coast range which means mountains) and went down the Central Valley to somewhere in what might now be considered to be LA's northern suburbs... a fast train would work if it didn't had to slow down for freight traffic.
If you go via the Central valley, Grapevine Pass is the main obstacle a very fast train meets going from north to south into the LA basin. Its a very long, gradual ascent and descent.
New York's subway and public transit system is extremely popular, used by everybody who lives there (almost) and its a huge asset to that city.
As is the Tube in London, it's an amazingly efficient system that works.
It's not pleasant to travel on as it's overcrowded at peak times, unless of course you enjoy being crushed and experiencing other people's armpits but it definitely gets you from A-B and it's fast.
Try the clean efficient metro systems in many Asian cities, like Hong Kong and Singapore, and you'll see the London Tube for the broken down piece of junk it really is. While these Asian cities had to face the full cost of building from scratch in recent decades, often with the massive impact of carving through a dense city landscape, London only had to stump up reasonable maintenance costs for the older lines. They have consistently failed to. My kids, raised in Hong Kong, think its hilarious being shaken around on the London Tube trains.
Try the clean efficient metro systems in many Asian cities, like Hong Kong and Singapore, and you'll see the London Tube for the broken down piece of junk it really is. While these Asian cities had to face the full cost of building from scratch in recent decades, often with the massive impact of carving through a dense city landscape, London only had to stump up reasonable maintenance costs for the older lines. They have consistently failed to. My kids, raised in Hong Kong, think its hilarious being shaken around on the London Tube trains.
Oh I don't disagree that it's in dire need of a lot of money being spent but it still works, it's fast, reliable and not that expensive, there is a lot of investment being made too but it's far from enough.
Public transport in London compared to most of the rest of the UK works really well, that's not to say it's a pleasure to use or it doesn't have its problems.