hyperloop

Cool Hand · Post by **Cool Hand** » Thu Aug 29, 2013 1:18 pm

Anaxagoras wrote:Well, the Denver International Airport cost shy of $5 billion to build, so let's say that, yes, it would probably cost less to build two new airports (although existing ones would seem to serve the purpose already and where would you put another airport in Tokyo? There are already 2: Haneda and Narita, although Narita is not actually in Tokyo.)

I don't know why. Trains could in theory carry more passengers, but is the demand really there? Plus there is already Shinkansen service between the two cities. A train can also stop at points in between, although that would slow it down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%8Dkai ... Shinkansen

Last year 143 million passengers rode the Tokaido Shinkansen (between Tokyo and Osaka/Kyoto, with Nagoya in between), and 67 million used Haneda Airport (to and from all the places it serves).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haneda_Airport

I can see that mode of transport being popular in Japan. Persons there are used to it and it has become part of its modern culture.

The article in the OP postulates that Americans will take to it and abandon cars, airplanes, etc. Not. Going. To. Happen. The US is a car culture and will not abandon its cars for trains for routine travel in the foreseeable future. This is not a technological issue; it's a cultural one.

CH

Pyrrho · Post by **Pyrrho** » Fri Aug 30, 2013 1:51 pm

Cool Hand wrote:
Anaxagoras wrote:Well, the Denver International Airport cost shy of $5 billion to build, so let's say that, yes, it would probably cost less to build two new airports (although existing ones would seem to serve the purpose already and where would you put another airport in Tokyo? There are already 2: Haneda and Narita, although Narita is not actually in Tokyo.)

I don't know why. Trains could in theory carry more passengers, but is the demand really there? Plus there is already Shinkansen service between the two cities. A train can also stop at points in between, although that would slow it down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%8Dkai ... Shinkansen

Last year 143 million passengers rode the Tokaido Shinkansen (between Tokyo and Osaka/Kyoto, with Nagoya in between), and 67 million used Haneda Airport (to and from all the places it serves).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haneda_Airport
I can see that mode of transport being popular in Japan. Persons there are used to it and it has become part of its modern culture.

The article in the OP postulates that Americans will take to it and abandon cars, airplanes, etc. Not. Going. To. Happen. The US is a car culture and will not abandon its cars for trains for routine travel in the foreseeable future. This is not a technological issue; it's a cultural one.

CH

Yup. Bill Agee bankrupted Morrison Knudsen Corporation when he tried to become a high speed train magnate.

Even tried to sell it in Hawaii.

Depends on public funding. In this economy the states can't afford it, and we taxpayers sure can't.

Rob Lister · Post by **Rob Lister** » Fri Aug 30, 2013 1:58 pm

Pyrrho wrote:
Cool Hand wrote:
Anaxagoras wrote:Well, the Denver International Airport cost shy of $5 billion to build, so let's say that, yes, it would probably cost less to build two new airports (although existing ones would seem to serve the purpose already and where would you put another airport in Tokyo? There are already 2: Haneda and Narita, although Narita is not actually in Tokyo.)

I don't know why. Trains could in theory carry more passengers, but is the demand really there? Plus there is already Shinkansen service between the two cities. A train can also stop at points in between, although that would slow it down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%8Dkai ... Shinkansen

Last year 143 million passengers rode the Tokaido Shinkansen (between Tokyo and Osaka/Kyoto, with Nagoya in between), and 67 million used Haneda Airport (to and from all the places it serves).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haneda_Airport
I can see that mode of transport being popular in Japan. Persons there are used to it and it has become part of its modern culture.

The article in the OP postulates that Americans will take to it and abandon cars, airplanes, etc. Not. Going. To. Happen. The US is a car culture and will not abandon its cars for trains for routine travel in the foreseeable future. This is not a technological issue; it's a cultural one.

CH
Yup. Bill Agee bankrupted Morrison Knudsen Corporation when he tried to become a high speed train magnate.

Even tried to sell it in Hawaii.

Depends on public funding. In this economy the states can't afford it, and we taxpayers sure can't.

It seems like it would work best between two cities which also have excellent public transportation. What good does it do to take cheap and fast long-haul transportation only to be stranded at your destination. By the time you rent a car (or pay for taxies) you've spent all you saved in transportation costs. The time you spend arranging all of that will kill your time savings too, pretty much. So I can see it for some cities, but only a few here.

See! I'm not a hater.

DrMatt · Post by **DrMatt** » Mon Sep 09, 2013 8:23 pm

If he fails, he'll be another kook. If he succeeds, he'll be John Galt--another kook.

Rob Lister · Post by **Rob Lister** » Mon Sep 09, 2013 8:59 pm

DrMatt wrote:If he fails, he'll be another kook. If he succeeds, he'll be John Galt--another kook.

John Galt would have built the thing and then talked about it, not talked about the thing and suggest someone else build it.

DrMatt · Post by **DrMatt** » Tue Sep 10, 2013 7:25 pm

When I first saw the OP, I thought it created shortcuts from here to there via another dimension. I was woefully disappointed.

Anaxagoras · Post by **Anaxagoras** » Thu Sep 12, 2013 5:15 am

Who is John Galt?

Doctor X · Post by **Doctor X** » Thu Sep 12, 2013 5:38 am

Some self-important deluded harridan's wet dream.

--J.D.

Anaxagoras · Post by **Anaxagoras** » Thu Sep 19, 2013 4:03 am

Elon Musk's Hyperloop Will Work, Says Some Very Smart Software

When Elon Musk unveiled the Hyperloop back in August, his critics were quick to scoff at his proposal for a new, superfast mode of transporation. A number of people derided Musk’s white paper as cartoonish and vague. Musk vowed to prove the naysayers wrong by building an actual physical prototype, but that’s not expected to arrive for years.

Meanwhile, some evidence has just appeared that shows Musk may indeed be onto something. Ansys (ANSS), a maker of very high-end simulation software used to design planes, trains, automobiles and all manner of other things, has fed the Hyperloop specifications into a computer and come away impressed. “I don’t immediately see any red flags,” says Sandeep Sovani, the director of land transporation strategy at Ansys. “I think it is quite viable.”

Rob Lister · Post by **Rob Lister** » Thu Sep 19, 2013 10:04 am

When Elon Musk unveiled the Hyperloop back in August, his critics were quick to scoff at his proposal for a new, superfast mode of transporation. A number of people derided Musk’s white paper as cartoonish and vague.

I don't remember 'cartoonish' being a popular criticism but it was certainly vague.

Musk vowed to prove the naysayers wrong by building an actual physical prototype, but that’s not expected to arrive for years.

I don't remember him vowing anything except to NOT build and to maybe build a prototype, if he found time.

Meanwhile, ... Ansys (ANSS), ... has fed the Hyperloop specifications into a computer and come away impressed. “I don’t immediately see any red flags,”

AFAIK, none of the criticism was directed toward the physics or theory of the principle. It was the pragmatism that got the guffaws. I wonder if their computer tested for that.

Rob Lister · Post by **Rob Lister** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 7:05 pm

Back in the news.

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2014/12/ ... e-reality/

Notable quote

Students from around the world working on the project now have stock options in the company.

Ahlborn says within about 10 years and with about $16 billion Hyperloop could become a reality.

Here, let me poor you a cup of pffft.

Not saying it is a scam, just that the difference between a scam and an honest effort will result in the same failure.

ceptimus · Post by **ceptimus** » Fri Dec 19, 2014 8:55 am

Brunel built an atmospheric railway back in the 1840s. The trains were powered by vacuum in a tube laid between the tracks. There was a piston that slid in the tube, attached to the train by a blade that ran in a slot at the top of the tube. The tube had some greased flaps that sealed the slot in when the train wasn't passing.

It was a failure partly because rats nibbled at the sealing flaps and so destroyed the vacuum. The railway line was retained but converted to normal steam locomotive power.

Rob Lister · Post by **Rob Lister** » Thu Jan 15, 2015 10:49 pm

I love Elon to death. I want to have his rocket baby. I want to give him a hummer in his electric hummer.

But this is such a dumb idea, pragmatically, that it just makes me lose respect for him. Sure, maybe it is a fun academic exercise but the thought of making it practical is just dumb, dumb, dumb.

It's okay, Elon, I still love you.

Rob Lister · Post by **Rob Lister** » Tue May 10, 2016 12:22 pm

LA to SF in 30 min: the hyperloop wars are on

On Monday, a crowdsourced enterprise led by NASA and Boeing veterans called Hyperloop Transportation Technologies announced it had licensed passive magnetic levitation technology to power its prototype system, which like other hyperloop templates, promises to shuttle humans and goods in a vacuum tube system at speeds up to 750 mph.

How fast is that? Zipping from Los Angeles to San Francisco would take 30 minutes as compared to a six-hour drive or an all-day train ride.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news ... /84137224/

Such fucking pie in the sky.

And that's not to mention the price tag. A tube system linking L.A. and San Francisco with hyperloop pods has been estimated to cost north of $6 billion.

More pie in the sky. I would bet well north of $6 billion. North pole north of $6 billion. $6 billion might cover the political graft.

Distance from LA to SF is ~600km

n July 2014 The World Bank reported that the per kilometer cost of California's high-speed rail system was $56 million ... per km

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Californi ... rojections

600km * $56m = 33 Billion.

Okay, but they'll cheaper than HSR. Because, ya know, Musk. But not that much cheaper.

OTOH, at 750mph a turn radius of 3 miles is ~2.5G, which is pretty uncomfortable. Better keep those curves very slow. That's horizontal and vertical, btw. Is that LA to SF trek a particularly hilly one?

I think vomit will be a integral part of the experience.

Anaxagoras · Post by **Anaxagoras** » Wed May 11, 2016 1:16 am

Rob Lister wrote: OTOH, at 750mph a turn radius of 3 miles is ~2.5G, which is pretty uncomfortable. Better keep those curves very slow. That's horizontal and vertical, btw. Is that LA to SF trek a particularly hilly one?

I think vomit will be a integral part of the experience.

Awesome!

Well, of course you could slow down to take the curves, and that would mean it's going to be more than 30 minutes.

There would be hills near LA and hills near SF I think, but the Central Valley is flat as a pool table. I spent a few weeks in Lemore to train for F/A-18s after I left my A-6 squadron in Japan.

In Japan, they tend to make a lot of tunnels for the Shinkansen. Those would add to the cost of course.

Anaxagoras · Post by **Anaxagoras** » Mon Aug 01, 2016 11:54 pm

[youtube][/youtube]

Analysis by Thunderf00t. I think he identifies a lot of fatal flaws in this scheme. The primary one being safety. Problems like thermal expansion problems, the fact that no one has ever made a vacuum tube even close to that size, problems like a single point of failure being likely to destroy the whole thing and kill everyone in it. Minor stuff like that.

Rob Lister · Post by **Rob Lister** » Tue Aug 02, 2016 1:22 am

Abdul Alhazred wrote:The best way to go would be high speed conventional rail.

No. That is not the best way. two dedicated airports and a bunch of planes is the way to go. You could build the airports and buy the planes at a tenth of what HSR would cost.

Rob Lister · Post by **Rob Lister** » Tue Aug 02, 2016 10:18 am

Abdul Alhazred wrote:
Rob Lister wrote:
Abdul Alhazred wrote:The best way to go would be high speed conventional rail.

No. That is not the best way. two dedicated airports and a bunch of planes is the way to go. You could build the airports and buy the planes at a tenth of what HSR would cost.
For relatively shorter trips (e.g. Boston to DC with a few stops in between), rail is more convenient. No three hour cab ride to downtown.

Is the three hour cab ride to and from the high speed rail station somehow more tolerable?

And it's cheaper to build if the right of way is already there.

Planes don't need right of way.

And airports bad neighbors.

I don't have a witty retort for that one ... verb or no verb.

Rob Lister · Post by **Rob Lister** » Tue Aug 02, 2016 10:47 am

Abdul Alhazred wrote:
Rob Lister wrote:
Abdul Alhazred wrote:
Rob Lister wrote:
Abdul Alhazred wrote:The best way to go would be high speed conventional rail.

No. That is not the best way. two dedicated airports and a bunch of planes is the way to go. You could build the airports and buy the planes at a tenth of what HSR would cost.
For relatively shorter trips (e.g. Boston to DC with a few stops in between), rail is more convenient. No three hour cab ride to downtown.
Is the three hour cab ride to and from the high speed rail station somehow more tolerable?
The train station is already downtown.

Nice try Troll Boy.

The airport is already there too. It is 3 miles from the train station. It takes no longer to get to it than to the train station, you verbless cunt.

Anaxagoras · Post by **Anaxagoras** » Tue Aug 02, 2016 10:53 am

Assuming you are already downtown.

In my own case here in Japan, if I wanted to go to Osaka for example, getting from my house to the nearest Shinkansen station is roughly comparable to getting to the nearest airport. However, once there it is probably easier to board the train than to board the airplane. It's been a while since I did it so, you know. If I were to do it though I think I would prefer the Shinkansen experience. It might be more convenient at the other end too.

Rob Lister · Post by **Rob Lister** » Tue Aug 02, 2016 11:01 am

I think here in the U.S., boarding a HSR is going to be as tedious as boarding a jet.

Does Ab-bull think HSR is going to be cheaper or faster than that, even if it had only half the security? Even if you stipulate the 3-hour cab ride that exists only in the mind of an insane person.

And lest we forget

Cost of building out that HSR: Double-digit billions estimate and double it again actual
Cost of adding flights to existing Airport: Zero.

Not to mention,...

google wrote:Cost: The lowest fare found on Acela Express was $198 roundtrip from New York to Boston, and $98 roundtrip on the slower regional service. From Washington D.C. to Boston, we found $314 roundtrip on Acela and $140 roundtrip on the regional train.

Does anyone think the round trip ticket for the newly construct $100 billion HSR is going to be cheaper than the existing Acela Express? Of course not. But on the upside, HSR will only take ~twice or trice as long as flying and cost only 5 or 6 times as much. Hey, maybe they can hire James Kerasiotes to head up the construction.

Rob Lister · Post by **Rob Lister** » Sun Apr 09, 2017 1:23 pm

More hyperloop nonsense.

Thursday Hyperloop One executives announced that they've finished constructing their 1,640-foot-long "DevLoop" test track in the desert outside Las Vegas. But they also revealed possible U.S. routes for their high-speed transportation solution "to initiate a nationwide conversation about the future of American transportation" -- five of them suggested by state transportation department officials from Texas, Florida, Colorado, Nevada and Missouri.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/17/04/0 ... test-track

A star trek type transporter and warp drive will happen before this is ever deployed. Roughly 4/5th's of Slashdot contributors think it is wondrously likely. The remaining 1/5th can't type because they're double-facepalming.

If they're truly going to test this thing, breach the tube anywhere along its length while a 'pod' is moving through it. They'll be a 15 PSI wall of air moving through the tube at roughly 400 mph.

http://www.atomicarchive.com/Effects/effects4.shtml

It will utterly obliterate the pod and all's it's passengers. You'd have a difficult time finding pieces of human meat bigger than a baseball.

ceptimus · Post by **ceptimus** » Sun Apr 09, 2017 3:24 pm

Rob Lister wrote:If they're truly going to test this thing, breach the tube anywhere along its length while a 'pod' is moving through it. They'll be a 15 PSI wall of air moving through the tube at roughly 400 mph.

That's only true for a catastrophic total failure breach where all or most of the cross section of the tube is exposed to the air - even then the effects would fade away a few tens of miles along the tube after the flow resistance of the tube has enough length to become effective.

For a 'small crack or small hole' type of breach the effects would be much less dramatic and scary.

But I agree with you that there is no way this is going to be built for the foreseeable future - it would require the economy to change beyond recognition before it might ever become cost effective, even if the safety and practicality issues could be overcome.

ed · Post by ed » Thu Aug 31, 2017 3:50 pm

There is this

Got a bud who is trying to commercialize the cat, brought up to date of course. Has a lot going for it between cities that are near the H2O.

Flew on one once from St. Thomas to San Juan, fun experience.

ceptimus · Post by **ceptimus** » Thu Aug 31, 2017 10:18 pm

ed wrote:...brought up to date of course. Has a lot going for it between cities that are near the H2O.

The Italians are noted for their design flair when it comes to flying boats. I give you the Caproni Ca.60

Grammatron · Post by **Grammatron** » Thu Aug 31, 2017 10:32 pm

Needs more missile launchers.

Witness · Post by **Witness** » Thu Aug 31, 2017 10:46 pm

Witness · Post by **Witness** » Thu Aug 31, 2017 11:18 pm

Righto!

Witness · Post by **Witness** » Mon Sep 04, 2017 12:23 pm

Spoiler:

Pyrrho · Post by **Pyrrho** » Mon Sep 04, 2017 4:50 pm

Rob Lister · Post by **Rob Lister** » Mon Sep 04, 2017 5:56 pm

hyperloop traffic jam

Doctor X · Post by **Doctor X** » Mon Sep 04, 2017 10:21 pm

But solar freakin' roadways, people!

--J.D.

Witness · Post by **Witness** » Tue Sep 05, 2017 4:44 pm

ceptimus · Post by **ceptimus** » Thu Oct 12, 2017 4:42 pm

Richard Branson, founder of Virgin, has invested an undisclosed amount of Virgin's funds in Hyperloop One. It must be a pretty big investment as Branson now has a seat on the board of the Hyperloop company and it's been rebranded as Virgin Hyperloop One.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-41595297

Doctor X · Post by **Doctor X** » Thu Oct 12, 2017 5:14 pm

--J.D.

Anaxagoras · Post by **Anaxagoras** » Thu Oct 12, 2017 11:20 pm

More evidence that being a billionaire isn't always evidence of smarts. The hyperloop is a pipe dream, not a serious business proposition.

Doctor X · Post by **Doctor X** » Thu Oct 12, 2017 11:58 pm

Anaxagoras wrote:The hyperloop is a pipe dream. . . .

--J.D.

Anaxagoras · Post by **Anaxagoras** » Fri Oct 13, 2017 12:03 am

I accidentally made a funny!

Witness · Post by **Witness** » Fri Oct 13, 2017 2:02 am

India announces plans for its own 250mph Hyperloop transport system that will travel 25 miles in just SIX MINUTES

http://kuwaitpage.online/blog-info/949/ ... ix-minutes

But how will they cling to the carriages?

sparks · Post by **sparks** » Fri Oct 13, 2017 2:38 am

With handcuffs of course.