Hyperloop One Is Considering 11 US Routes for Its Futuristic Transport System

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Hyperloop One may turn out to be just another pipe dream, but there are some serious efforts underway to make it a reality. A public trial is on the agenda, and a couple of states have pitched themselves to be the perfect proving grounds for the speedy transport system. These would include Florida, whose Hyperloop would connect Orlando with Miami, and Nevada, whose track would bridge Reno and Las Vegas.

Hyperloop One is seriously considering building its high-speed transit system in several states in the United States. The Los Angeles-based startup held a two-day event in Washington DC this week to showcase its "Vision in America." The event served two purposes: one, to evaluate 11 US route proposals for the high-speed transit system, and two, to meet with federal regulators in Washington about getting the system up-and-running.
 
They need to actually demonstrate a WORKING high speed system at full size first.

All they've got thus far is a serious of experimental, unmanned cars that barely coasted after coming off the launcher and never really broke 60MPH.
Trains can already do that...
 
They need to actually demonstrate a WORKING high speed system at full size first.

All they've got thus far is a serious of experimental, unmanned cars that barely coasted after coming off the launcher and never really broke 60MPH.
Trains can already do that...

Heck, if they manage 200-300mph, I'd be thrilled.

We badly need some high-speed trains in certain parts of this country to deal with areas that have high costs of living (allowing people to move outwards) or traffic issues.
 
I see some of these proposed routes have stops in them.

With hyperloops major benefit being its high speed, and the need to accelerate up to, and slow down from that speed without too high G's, wouldn't intermediate stops be a problem?
 
Why Fucking Reno??? The place is a god damn toilet. I know I live there. How about LA to Vegas? Or Sacramento To LA? Fuck Reno.
 
i wish they'd bring it to the north.. a hyperloop from eastern washington(state) to Portland to Seattle then Vancouver, canada would be awesome.

Why Fucking Reno??? The place is a god damn toilet. I know I live there. How about LA to Vegas? Or Sacramento To LA? Fuck Reno.

because reno is outside of the Sierra Nevada range which means no tunnels.
 
i wish they'd bring it to the north.. a hyperloop from eastern washington(state) to Portland to Seattle then Vancouver, canada would be awesome.



because reno is outside of the Sierra Nevada range which means no tunnels.

Yeah, there's nothing like tunnels to add cost to a project.

Not something you want to do during a proof of concept. Down the road if the concept is proven out and it works, then tunnels become more feasible, but no one wants to spend billions on tunnels to test an uncertain tech.
 
because reno is outside of the Sierra Nevada range which means no tunnels.
Yeah but that sounds like a lot of 1 way traffic, people who'd rather go to a real gambling city will go to Vegas, Reno will dry up and become a ghost town that's primarily old people and Asians brought in by tour buses... whoops too late.... whoops they don't even have that with the number of Indian casinos they go to now.
 
Yeah but that sounds like a lot of 1 way traffic, people who'd rather go to a real gambling city will go to Vegas, Reno will dry up and become a ghost town that's primarily old people and Asians brought in by tour buses... whoops too late.... whoops they don't even have that with the number of Indian casinos they go to now.

reno is only what an hour away from tahoe, thats enough of a reason. but either way the initial plan is for it to be a test platform to see if it's viable.
 
Heck, if they manage 200-300mph, I'd be thrilled.

We badly need some high-speed trains in certain parts of this country to deal with areas that have high costs of living (allowing people to move outwards) or traffic issues.

High cost of living doesn't get helped by over subsidizing the movement of people into and out of it, actually its just going to make it worse. One thing I find amazing is how few people understand this. Public transportation into and out of high priced areas is in itself gentrification . Its all about the taboo topic that no one likes to talk about. I want you poor people to come work in service jobs for us for cheap, but I don't want to actually have to live next to you or pay you a decent wage. Yet why do so many people accept this and actually volley for these highly ethically questionable tactics? Public transportation in the USA doesn't work because public transportation here is not about moving people around to get them where they need to go its about moving poor people away from rich people to live as far away as they possibly can. So then the poor people cant afford to pay high rates, and the rich people don't want to take the public transit the poor people take. So then it all has to be subsidized by the taxes from the local up to the feds. Let the free market make it more expensive to hire employees in these areas and watch how the companies natural spread out and stop making these over priced over dense zones. Or let the free market control public transportation and they might actually make it useful and sustainable.
 
I see some of these proposed routes have stops in them.

With hyperloops major benefit being its high speed, and the need to accelerate up to, and slow down from that speed without too high G's, wouldn't intermediate stops be a problem?
The intermediate stops problem can be avoided by breaking trains into segments. Eg the train starts with 8 segments from the first station and the last segment breaks off at the first intermediate stop and slows down separately, and so on. So passengers going to certain stops will have to board a specific segment at the terminal.
 
Let's see if I have this right: The plan is to build a tunnel system, actively run a vacuum (or very low pressure) in it for minimal air resistance, and run pressurized trains through it. A few thoughts....

1. The cost of tunnels is astronomical. The first enabling technology would need to be cheap, fast, accurate tunneling devices. That's been sought after for decades. Good luck.

2. Pressurized trains in a vacuum. Let's see the passenger evacuation program. A hole in the train? Well, airplane passengers get 10 minutes of oxygen, which should be enough time to descend to thicker (breathable) air. A train in a tunnel can't just surface. Would there be multiple blow-out access tunnels which would allow air to slam into the tunnel in this case? How would that work? You can't just step outside and walk out...

3. The volume of a tunnel system needed to be in vacuum would be colossal. Nice energy drain. Airtight tunnels? More cost. Massively more cost. Otherwise, a constant evacuation of air would be needed.

4. The environmental factor. A vacuum deep underground would suck in every subterranean form of life. Every earthworm, mole, prairie dog, etc., would be pulled down to finally plop onto the tracks. ;)
 
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This is pretty exciting technology and I hope they really are able to get this done in the near future. The United States needs more tech passion projects to invigorate our economy and rally taxpayers around future proofing our infrastructure. While this won't fix the spaghetti car mess commute in cities like Boston, it's a step in the right direction.
 
Heck, if they manage 200-300mph, I'd be thrilled.

We badly need some high-speed trains in certain parts of this country to deal with areas that have high costs of living (allowing people to move outwards) or traffic issues.

The main problem isn't the trains themselves. We're perfectly capable of building conventional trains that exceed 150mph.

The problem is, the majority of the routes simply don't allow trains to get up anywhere CLOSE to maximum speeds.

It's like buying a Bugatti Veyron Super Sport, and trying to drive it during rush hour in gridlock. Sure, given the space to do so, it can hit 268 mph. But in gridlock, you'll be lucky to do 10 mph.

Not to mention that long distance passenger rail has almost always been a money-losing business. Amtrak itself wouldn't continue to exist without government subsidies.

There's also the fact that high speed rail is simply meaningless for freight carriers. Most freight quite simply isn't that time sensitive. And isn't worth the price premium of shipping it that fast. If it is, air freight has it beat hollow (freight planes fly faster than even a prospective Hyperloop dream train, and there's no pesky diversions from destination due to right of way up in the sky...)
 
These pretty much say it all.









Okay, Phil's presentation is smarmy and nose-in-the-air.
But he's not wrong...
 
Let's see if I have this right: The plan is to build a tunnel system, actively run a vacuum (or very low pressure) in it for minimal air resistance, and run pressurized trains through it. A few thoughts....

1. The cost of tunnels is astronomical. The first enabling technology would need to be cheap, fast, accurate tunneling devices. That's been sought after for decades. Good luck.

2. Pressurized trains in a vacuum. Let's see the passenger evacuation program. A hole in the train? Well, airplane passengers get 10 minutes of oxygen, which should be enough time to descend to thicker (breathable) air. A train in a tunnel can't just surface. Would there be multiple blow-out access tunnels which would allow air to slam into the tunnel in this case? How would that work? You can't just step outside and walk out...

3. The volume of a tunnel system needed to be in vacuum would be colossal. Nice energy drain. Airtight tunnels? More cost. Massively more cost. Otherwise, a constant evacuation of air would be needed.

4. The environmental factor. A vacuum deep underground would suck in every subterranean form of life. Every earthworm, mole, prairie dog, etc., would be pulled down to finally plop onto the tracks. ;)

I believe the plan is for above ground vacuum tubes.
 
Hyperloop is cool and whatnot, but doesn't seem remotely practical. High speed rail is proven, stupid fast, and can hump over existing infrastructure for short periods as new dedicated track is laid. Amtraks ONLY consistently profitable rail traffic is the northeast corridor which is a prime example of what passenger rail should look like in this country. Amtrak is dying because a Chicago to New York trip takes longer than going by covered wagon. Make that a few hour trip where you can sit back and get drunk on your laptop without dealing with getting in an airplane and you'd see rail take off like it is in Europe.
 
Hyperloop is cool and whatnot, but doesn't seem remotely practical. High speed rail is proven, stupid fast, and can hump over existing infrastructure for short periods as new dedicated track is laid. Amtraks ONLY consistently profitable rail traffic is the northeast corridor which is a prime example of what passenger rail should look like in this country. Amtrak is dying because a Chicago to New York trip takes longer than going by covered wagon. Make that a few hour trip where you can sit back and get drunk on your laptop without dealing with getting in an airplane and you'd see rail take off like it is in Europe.

Covered wagon FTW! Try not to die of dysentery on your business trip from Chi-town to NYC.
 
These pretty much say it all.




Okay, Phil's presentation is smarmy and nose-in-the-air.
But he's not wrong...

I agree it is nose in the air and it isn't all wrong, but it seems oversimplifying. Mind you I think Phil's analysis of sodium explosions is AWESOME.

The first five minutes he compares the hyperloop to large vacuum chambers and I really don't understand why. Is he trying to amaze me with how much bigger the hyperloop is than a really large vacuum chamber? I dont get it.

I didn't check his thermal expansion calculations, I'll assume they are correct. But he treats the hyperloop like one giant straight fixed tube. The tube will have bends and curves. The pillars will have play in all three axis. A lot of the length of the thermal expansion will actually be displaced in the bends and curves of the loop (basically, the tube will be lightly "buckling", similar to how thermal expansion curves are used in pipelines), not directly to the station. I don't know how much, but if he doesn't do those calculations I'm not really gonna trust him, and will be far more trusting of structural engineers that he thinks dont even bother to do these calculations (even though this is standard procedure whenever engineers lay down any pipeline of any kind).

edit: Thinking about it, I believe the pipe would need to "buckle" signficiantly to accomodate a large linear expansion. So the play in movement on the pillars would probably not be enough. Some other method would need to be used.

He notes that a sudden catastrophic failure of the tube will cause a shockwave to traverse the tube instantly killing everyone inside the tube. He demonstrates the effect with his little experiement will a metal ball being accelerated in a glass tube.
1) I dont know how likely this event even is. I mean, if the engines on a plane fail over the coean the occupants are almost guaranteed dead. We still fly planes over oceans all the time.... He points out that planes are designed to deal with dangerous situations, and I find it funny that he doens't point out how many accidents aircraft have had to had (and how many people have had to die) to get the design as good as it is. However, the argument then could still be made that it doesn't make sense to design a new mode of transportation when we already have this mature airplane technology, so I can't really fault him for that.
2) Hyperloop has emergency depressurization planned in the event of some catastrophe. If there are emergency valves located along the entire pipe then the tube can actually fill with presssure from many sources instead of from a single point. Why do I bring this up? That initial pressure wave is building momentum and energy as the air rushes in from a single catastrophic failure pouring in the from the atsmosphere to fill the vacuum. If as the wave travels at near speed of sound it begins to hit into other pockets of air, and eventually starts hitting other static 1 atmosphere air, it will begin losing energy. The wave will still continue but it will be losing energy along the entire length it travels.
3) He has doubts that the capsules will withstand a 1atm wave. That's great, I have doubts that they wont withstand it. I'm glad we can all have these doubts, I'll leave it to engineers to actually do calculations.
4) 18:20 30g is fatal, and 10g is probably fatal. Where did he get his? Pilots survive 10g (and even stay conscious with g-suits) routinely. Experiments have been done to show people can survive 40g.
5) I dont understand his metal ball experiment. He found a little metal ball, that is roughly the same size as the glass tube, and accelerated it across the tube to break out the other side. So he basically recreated a gun. I mean, really, he didn't even need to create that experiment, he could have just shot a rifle and said "see, pretty dangerous huh?".
a) Why did he choose a ball that is almost the same size as the tube. The capsule in the hyperloop is expected to be 36% of the cross-sectional area of the tube. There will be significantly less force on the capsule because of this. Try firing an improperly sized pellet from an air-gun. It's not gonna fly very far.... Try running your engine without piston rings, it wont work very well....
b) Where are the emergency brakes on his ball?
c) Where is the emergency depressurization of the tube just as the air begins rushing in.

Basically, mostly I just feel Phil's EGO in this video. He brings up some other points that may be valid, I'm really not sure, but the rest of the video makes it hard for me to take him seriously in this video. I didn't watch the others.
 
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36% percent of the cross-section of the tube??? If the tube is 2m in diameter, then, using radius^2 * pi = area

2m diameter = 1m radius ^2 * pi = 3.14m^2 cross-section area of the pipe.

36% of that is... 1.131m^2

Using the same formula, radius would then equal .36m. (Obvious, but had to do it. It works this way due to the 1m radius.)

A pod which is .72m in diameter is... 29.92 inches in diameter. Subtract out the running gear, flooring, materials thickness, etc. It leaves with a humans duct-taped into sausage shapes and shoved into coffins. I have to think the 36% figure is wrong. Or, people of the future will be smaller.
 
It leaves with a humans duct-taped into sausage shapes and shoved into coffins. I have to think the 36% figure is wrong. Or, people of the future will be smaller.

I've seen a 400lb person get out of a SmartCar. Anything is possible....
 
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The first five minutes he compares the hyperloop to large vacuum chambers and I really don't understand why. Is he trying to amaze me with how much bigger the hyperloop is than a really large vacuum chamber? I dont get it.

The point is, a fully operational Hyperloop will be THE largest vacuum chamber ON THE PLANET. And emptying it out will require VAST amounts of power. And if it isn't structurally perfect, or there's leaks anywhere...best case scenario is that it just isn't feasible (which it really isn't). Worst case scenario, they get it just barely working, and then people die.

I
didn't check his thermal expansion calculations, I'll assume they are correct. But he treats the hyperloop like one giant straight fixed tube. The tube will have bends and curves. The pillars will have play in all three axis. A lot of the length of the thermal expansion will actually be displaced in the bends and curves of the loop (basically, the tube will be lightly "buckling", similar to how thermal expansion curves are used in pipelines), not directly to the station. I don't know how much, but if he doesn't do those calculations I'm not really gonna trust him, and will be far more trusting of structural engineers that he thinks dont even bother to do these calculations (even though this is standard procedure whenever engineers lay down any pipeline of any kind).

Yeah, you really CAN'T have that kind of behavior in a vacuum chamber. The stresses exerted by the vacuum alone are already horrendous. Add to that the stresses of expansion and contraction in the structure and you're looking at a structural failure. Not as a possibility, as a CERTAINTY.

And oil pipelines are multi-walled structures. All the Hyperloop sections we've seen thus far are thin, single-walled metal tubing.

He notes that a sudden catastrophic failure of the tube will cause a shockwave to traverse the tube instantly killing everyone inside the tube. He demonstrates the effect with his little experiement will a metal ball being accelerated in a glass tube.
1) I dont know how likely this event even is. I mean, if the engines on a plane fail over the coean the occupants are almost guaranteed dead. We still fly planes over oceans all the time.... He points out that planes are designed to deal with dangerous situations, and I find it funny that he doens't point out how many accidents aircraft have had to had (and how many people have had to die) to get the design as good as it is. However, the argument then could still be made that it doesn't make sense to design a new mode of transportation when we already have this mature airplane technology, so I can't really fault him for that.

We fly over oceans all the time because the technology is there to make it safer. And transoceanic flights generally have enough system redundancy that they could lose multiple engines and still limp along until they reach safety.

In a long single vacuum chamber, you have no redundancies against an air pressure shockwave. You have no way to avoid it.

2) Hyperloop has emergency depressurization planned in the event of some catastrophe. If there are emergency valves located along the entire pipe then the tube can actually fill with presssure from many sources instead of from a single point. Why do I bring this up? That initial pressure wave is building momentum and energy as the air rushes in from a single catastrophic failure pouring in the from the atsmosphere to fill the vacuum. If as the wave travels at near speed of sound it begins to hit into other pockets of air, and eventually starts hitting other static 1 atmosphere air, it will begin losing energy. The wave will still continue but it will be losing energy along the entire length it travels.

Honestly, it's likely the pressure wave is going to hit the capsule before the system could significantly repressureize.

So unless the breach happens at the far end of the "loop" while the capsule is in transit, don't expect it to be pretty.

3) He has doubts that the capsules will withstand a 1atm wave. That's great, I have doubts that they wont withstand it. I'm glad we can all have these doubts, I'll leave it to engineers to actually do calculations.
4) 18:20 30g is fatal, and 10g is probably fatal. Where did he get his? Pilots survive 10g (and even stay conscious with g-suits) routinely. Experiments have been done to show people can survive 40g.

You just said it. G suits. They're also not looking at running headlong (at 200mph) into a pressure wave when this high G event happens.

c) Where is the emergency depressurization of the tube just as the air begins rushing in.

There's no such thing as an "emergency depressurization" on a vacuum chamber that big. The volume is simply too large, and it takes significant quantities of time to depressurize a space that massive.

Even if it WERE possible to dump the full volume of the chamber INSTANTLY, you wouldn't do it.
Because, quite simply, the structure itself would have to be MASSIVELY, RIDICULOUSLY reinforced to handle the kinds of stresses that would involve. As would the travel capsule.
 
Perhaps the large hadron collider was built as a PRECURSOR for this? I mean, think about it: what other use for a miniature black hole would be better than putting it in a sealed tube to create a "free" vacuum?

Yeah. Game, set, match. :)
 
Yeah, you really CAN'T have that kind of behavior in a vacuum chamber. The stresses exerted by the vacuum alone are already horrendous.
Transmission pipelines carry over 700 PSI of natural gas and can be quite big. These are the same pipelines that bend, expand, and contract every single day. However, my previous comment about the natural curves in the pipe buckling and being able to accomodate the linear expansion is probably not correct. It would have to buckle sideways signficantly (like tens of meters) and most likely the pillars would not accomodate this.
http://lancasteronline.com/news/loc...cle_4a4fe722-077e-11e4-9616-0017a43b2370.html


We fly over oceans all the time because the technology is there to make it safer.
Maybe plane analogy was misleading. What's the probability that the tube will catastrophically fail? I don't really care about powerful waves travelling the tube if it doesn't happen very often. Planes crash and people die in them, it happens. People still fly. I dont think data for this exists, it needs more testing.



You just said it. G suits. They're also not looking at running headlong (at 200mph) into a pressure wave when this high G event happens.
"Early experiments showed that untrained humans were able to tolerate a range of accelerations depending on the time of exposure. This ranged from as much as 20 g for less than 10 seconds, to 10 g for 1 minute, and 6 g for 10 minutes for both eyeballs in and out.[14] These forces were endured with cognitive facilities intact, as subjects were able to perform simple physical and communication tasks. The tests were determined to not cause long or short term harm although tolerance was quite subjective, with only the most motivated non-pilots capable of completing tests.[15] The record for peak experimental horizontal g-force tolerance is held by acceleration pioneer John Stapp, in a series of rocket sled deceleration experiments culminating in a late 1954 test in which he was clocked in a little over a second from a land speed of Mach 0.9. He survived a peak "eyeballs-out" acceleration of 46.2 times the acceleration of gravity, and more than 25 g for 1.1 seconds, proving that the human body is capable of this. Stapp lived another 45 years to age 89[16] without any ill effects.[17]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-force


There's no such thing as an "emergency depressurization" on a vacuum chamber that big. The volume is simply too large, and it takes significant quantities of time to depressurize a space that massive.

Even if it WERE possible to dump the full volume of the chamber INSTANTLY, you wouldn't do it.
Because, quite simply, the structure itself would have to be MASSIVELY, RIDICULOUSLY reinforced to handle the kinds of stresses that would involve. As would the travel capsule.
I don't know what you mean. If you have safety intake valves along the pipe they can all open at the same time. If they are big enough/numerous enough the pipe will fill with 1 atm relativeily quickly. Speed of sound is 300m/s. If you slow the capsules, open all of the valves, and fill the tube in under 20 seconds then incoming wall of air will have travelled 6 km before the pipe is filled with air from safety valves. If you keep capsules far enough apart during transportation, lets say 16km apart, that means the wave has to travel through regular static air for another 10km, slowly dissipating energy the entire way.
 
We need a state of the art, but workable system, not "pipe dreams", forgive the pun.

If you were to start on a system today, it probably wouldn't be completed for 20 years... so if we want to actually ENJOY it, we need to start yesterday.
 
Basically, mostly I just feel Phil's EGO in this video. He brings up some other points that may be valid, I'm really not sure, but the rest of the video makes it hard for me to take him seriously in this video. I didn't watch the others.
Exactly. Most of his debunking videos where he demonstrates that the theory is flawed at it's core are perfect. But here he's just trying to demonstrate pitfalls, and possible complications and all the factors that need to be taken into consideration. He demoted himself into a sophisticated naysayer. It's all and well that you can see how many things can go wrong. Now go ahead and figure out how you can prevent those things from going wrong.

That's why we have engineers to solve engineering problems. If we stopped every project where we found something that can go wrong, well we wouldn't have many nice things, to use the popular cliché.
 
They really can't go another 80 miles to add Milwaukee to the Midwest one? :(
I always thought there needed to be a good high speed rail connecting Minneapolis, Madison, Milwaukee, Chicago and then somewhere in Indiana or Ohio. Adding Milwaukee to the loop would be fantastic. Adding Madison would be phenomenal. There are few good transportation options to Madison. I feel like the 3 M's should be an easily traveled corridor (Milwaukee, Madison, Minneapolis).
 
Exactly. Most of his debunking videos where he demonstrates that the theory is flawed at it's core are perfect. But here he's just trying to demonstrate pitfalls, and possible complications and all the factors that need to be taken into consideration. He demoted himself into a sophisticated naysayer. It's all and well that you can see how many things can go wrong. Now go ahead and figure out how you can prevent those things from going wrong.

That's why we have engineers to solve engineering problems. If we stopped every project where we found something that can go wrong, well we wouldn't have many nice things, to use the popular cliché.

We want to believe, it's human nature, but here's one problem engineering alone can't easily solve:

Vulnerability. The hyperloop, assuming everything else is perfect, is massively vulnerable to random single point attacks. It's a much more "valuable" target for psychological reasons than a pipeline. It's also a massively large, hard to defend, target with multiple points of failure.

Just looking at the tube, I'm guessing a hardened 7mm Rem Mag round would cause a catastrophic failure of a tube section. Now I can hit a target the size of a quarter at 300yds without a sweat, that tube is the equivalent of the barn behind the quarter. A moron with a basically sighted rifle should be able to hit the tube.

Then there's the support stanchions. Hundreds of them, and all it will take is some slow thermite to wreck the envisioned support drawings. Heck some faster thermite on the tube would generate a spectacular effect. How about drone delivery?

Security would have to be TSA like at the terminals, a small explosive on a car would effectively block the loop (at a minimum, it might rupture) to traffic until cleared. I'm assuming clearing debris on the tracks would be a challenge, but since every seal is another point of failure, there can't be too many access points.

Speaking of that, a nice long metal tube in the sun. That would be fun to be stuck in while a section is being repaired/replaced!

Vacuum pump sabotage. We'll assume there will be many along the length to minimize decompression time and complexity. Not only that, but they'd probably be required to account for "leakage" through the tube and to allow controlled repressurization.

Then there's the finicky maintenance. How much to keep a bunch of master welders, on-call 24x7, in case work needs to be completed? Remember that small leaks will mess with the environment needed to keep it functional.

I think we'd be better off investing in a Shinkansen style train loop. 200+ mph with multiple trains. They have it running over 400 miles already. Nothing super special, but it runs comfortably and on-time. I know it's not as "sexy" but perhaps if Mr. Musk applied his money to improving high speed trains directly, like he is trying to with solar panels, he could probably make some decent breakthroughs. It's not like the Hyperloop doesn't require land to build on, so it needs right of way just like a train.
 
We want to believe, it's human nature, but here's one problem engineering alone can't easily solve:

Vulnerability. The hyperloop, assuming everything else is perfect, is massively vulnerable to random single point attacks. It's a much more "valuable" target for psychological reasons than a pipeline. It's also a massively large, hard to defend, target with multiple points of failure.

Honestly I Don't really get the whole vacuum idea. Wouldn't it be much more feasible to just slightly increase the pressure behind the train, and slightly decrease it in front of it? You achieve the same effect the negation aerodynamic drag. But which much smaller consequences in case of failure.

Also I always imagined it would work in an airlock style. As in the segment the train is currently in and the one it is going to next would be isolated from the rest of the system at all times. Meaning a single point failure could never cause catastrophic failure of the entire line. Of course that would mean you need individual pressure regulation for each segment, but that might not be impossible say putting a separate pump station every 2 miles underground.

That's what I'm referring to when you come up with engineering solutions. Even I can come up with ideas how to mitigate risk and I'm not an engineer. So it's a shame that Phil only wants to drum up everything that can fail instead of looking at it objectively.
 
Also I always imagined it would work in an airlock style. As in the segment the train is currently in and the one it is going to next would be isolated from the rest of the system at all times. Meaning a single point failure could never cause catastrophic failure of the entire line. Of course that would mean you need individual pressure regulation for each segment, but that might not be impossible say putting a separate pump station every 2 miles underground.

That's what I'm referring to when you come up with engineering solutions. Even I can come up with ideas how to mitigate risk and I'm not an engineer. So it's a shame that Phil only wants to drum up everything that can fail instead of looking at it objectively.
Problem solved right here. Air locks & underground air pumps every 2 miles, take that engineering degree! o_O
 
Problem solved right here. Air locks & underground air pumps every 2 miles, take that engineering degree! o_O
Sarcasm will get you nowhere fast. Point out what's wrong with that idea.

Did you know that electrified railways used to have huge substations every few miles to feed the overhead wires? This wouldn't be much different than that.
Also how would you imagine the pressure would be sucked out from a 70 mile line at a single point only.
It took them half an hour just to depressurize the measly test track they built.
 
Sarcasm will get you nowhere fast. Point out what's wrong with that idea.

Did you know that electrified railways used to have huge substations every few miles to feed the overhead wires? This wouldn't be much different than that.
Also how would you imagine the pressure would be sucked out from a 70 mile line at a single point only.
It took them half an hour just to depressurize the measly test track they built.
Cost? Reliability?

This thing is suppose to average 600mph - that's a mile just under 6 seconds. The proposed loops are hundreds, and in one case over 1000 miles long. You just easily doubled the cost, and we're not even getting into underground air pumps.

Don't worry, I already have my own transport solution in the works, just a few more kinks to iron out.
gemma-cannonball-2.jpg
 
Cost? Reliability?

This thing is suppose to average 600mph - that's a mile just under 6 seconds. The proposed loops are hundreds, and in one case over 1000 miles long. You just easily doubled the cost, and we're not even getting into underground air pumps.

Don't worry, I already have my own transport solution in the works, just a few more kinks to iron out.
I wasn't talking about the cost and reliability of the entire system. I was only asking why do you think having separable sections is such a bad idea?
If it was worth it to put up substations to feed power to electric lines this certainly wouldn't be prohibitively expensive for a project like this. The idea is to find out if it's feasible or not. And I'm not saying it is. But if everyone just focusd on why it will go wrong, instead on how to make it not go wrong we wouldn't have built anything new ever. I'm not saying my idea is feasible at all. I didn't actually do a study on cost but when it comes to safety no cost is too high. Or if the cost of safety is too high then maybe it's time to rethink the project. But if people in the early 1900s would've just said Ah fuck it, what if you fall out of the sky? Let's scrap this plane idea. Instead they persisted and worked out eventually how not to fall out of the sky.

And since the hyperloop is not funded by money stolen from gullible people trough crowdfunding I have no problem with it. It's certainly not impossible, but it is possibly too expensive to be feasible. But as long as musk puts his money where his mouth is at, I'm eagerly awaiting the results. If it fails we learned something, if it succeeds even better. I certainly won't be the first person to travel on it that's for sure.

This might all be just a big joke to you, but I'm actually interested in innovation.
 
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