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Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’

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Re: Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’

#101

Post by ghostly_s »

ravenstine wrote: post #91
batrat wrote: post #16

I see so many negative comments about this, but in my opinion everything has to start somewhere. It doesn't matter how crazy and impossible it looks, it will be done eventually (and we have plenty of examples). Maybe we will not teleport in 2 seconds across the globe or this project will die, who knows if we don't try. A little bit of optimism doesn't hurt. Just saying. And for Virgin, it's not my money, if they want…

My instinct tells me negative comments aren't actually coming from the direction of "stupid idea! can't be done!". This isn't to say there aren't significant engineering roadblocks to the Hyperloop, but I don't think that's the root of the negativity. People are pointing out the glaring flaws in the Hyperloop idea, not because they can't or won't believe that crazy ideas are possible, but in reaction to the media's r…

He operates the first-ever successful private spaceflight company. (You can quibble with this but it's something close to the truth). Likening him to Barnum is a little insulting.

Re: Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’

#102

Post by detritus »

biznickman wrote: post #94

The viability of Hyperloop One should not be the focus in the context of this article. That's not what this is about at all. It's that Hyperloop One needed Richard Branson on board because Elon Musk is creating his own competitor now. This is an incredibly smart move to ensure the survivability of the business from a publicity perspective. Branson has a history of doing things that people thought impossible or just a…

Branson's missing a d from his almost nominatively-determining name — the guy's got a talent for self publicity over challenging the incumbency, which for the most part he hasn't since launching Virgin Airlines and Megastores, which were both back in the 80s.

Re: Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’

#103

Post by cma »

pasta wrote: post #33
lisper wrote: post #10

All of the Hyperloop development efforts are ignoring the elephant in the room: thermal expansion. If you do the math, the ends of a viable hyperloop track will have to move hundreds of meters [1]. No one has yet advanced even a viable idea for how to deal with that, let alone an actual design. Until that happens, the Hyperloop is vaporware. [1] It's a trivial calculation. The thermal expansion coefficient of steel i…

Yeah, Elon Musk never thought about that because he was busy landing rockets. Come on.. why do you think he did not think about that? By the way, curves in the track can eliminate this when they can slide a little. And I can imagine there are more and better solutions.

Elon can get things wrong. He already said after he had announced and hyped hyperloop he had to delay the white paper because it turned out his initial idea just didn't work and he had to come up with a new one.

In 2016 he said we would have full level 5 autonomy in self driving cars within two years. That means in all driving conditions a human could handle.

That seems exceedingly unlikely.

https://electrek.co/2017/04/29/elon-musk-tesla-plan-level-5-...

Re: Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’

#104

Post by jandrese »

Faaak wrote: post #6
sschueller wrote: post #3

When are we going to address the elephants in the room? Just the tube alone: - largest pressure vessel in the world. How do you keep it at near vacuum? - Thermal expansion over such a large distance, especially if the top of the tube is warmer than the bottom. - Safety, how does an evacuation look like if the tubes are sealed?. There are many more. Some how I feel like this is a "pipe" dream. Lots of marketing, very…

The CERN LHC tube is a 27km circle of vacuum and near-zero temperature, and they don't seem to have a problem with that (granted, they had some but it's solved now). Frankly, yes, there may be issues, but I'm confident that the Human race will be able to overcome those.

Thermal expansion is at least easy to manage if your system is kept near 0K in operation. It's only an issue when the system is turned off.

Re: Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’

#105

Post by lmm »

batrat wrote: post #16

I see so many negative comments about this, but in my opinion everything has to start somewhere. It doesn't matter how crazy and impossible it looks, it will be done eventually (and we have plenty of examples). Maybe we will not teleport in 2 seconds across the globe or this project will die, who knows if we don't try. A little bit of optimism doesn't hurt. Just saying. And for Virgin, it's not my money, if they want…

> It doesn't matter how crazy and impossible it looks, it will be done eventually (and we have plenty of examples).

Or it won't. Most companies fail, I expect most ideas do too.

> A little bit of optimism doesn't hurt. Just saying.

Yes and no. Optimism is worthwhile but realism is important too. It's cool that private companies are pursuing these ideas and I wish them all the best, but when I see people claiming that e.g. California's high speed rail is overpriced/pointless because of hyperloop then I want to scream. We shouldn't let our enthusiasm over these hyped ideas detract from implementing the more pedestrian approaches that are proven to work and address our very immediate needs.

Re: Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’

#106

Post by jahnu »

manigandham wrote: post #72

The engineering has never been a problem, vacuum-tube trains are an idea that's been around for centuries. [1] Removing friction and air resistance is a simple physics problem, and there are already operational maglev [2] trains so putting them in a low-pressure tunnel is not a major revolution. The real issue is the viability of such a transport because of the cost, complexity, and construction effort involved. We (…

"The engineering has never been a problem, vacuum-tube trains are an idea that's been around for centuries. [1] Removing friction and air resistance is a simple physics problem"

"simple"

Getting to Mars is a simple delta-v engineering problem. Nuclear fusion is a simple magnetic field engineering problem. Self driving cars are a simple programming problem.

Don't ever change, Hacker News.

Re: Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’

#108

Post by idlewords »

manigandham wrote: post #72

The engineering has never been a problem, vacuum-tube trains are an idea that's been around for centuries. [1] Removing friction and air resistance is a simple physics problem, and there are already operational maglev [2] trains so putting them in a low-pressure tunnel is not a major revolution. The real issue is the viability of such a transport because of the cost, complexity, and construction effort involved. We (…

"We can barely build a high-speed rail line effectively...'

There is no high-speed rail line in the United States. The nearest thing to high-speed rail is the Acela Express, which hits 240kph on 40km of track. But this is weaksauce by modern standards.

Re: Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’

#109

Post by cjbillington »

lisper wrote: post #54
Gustomaximus wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont know if this an elephant in the room. I'm guessing engineers have thought about this and just not discussed it publicly. They have some pretty smart guys. Also to nitpick, from "the ends of a viable hyperloop track will have to move hundreds of meters" - this doesn't have to be true. There can be absorption points along the track. Overlaps. Or maybe they tunnel the entire way where its cooler. Or wrap the tunn…

> There can be absorption points along the track Sure, but these have to hold a vacuum. No one has figured out a way to do that.

I work in a lab with vacuum systems that get heated and cooled and we just have segments of flexible bellows like this:

http://www.pchemlabs.com/subcatagoryb.asp?pid=flexible-bello...

Not sure if the same thing will work at larger scales, but I'm not sure its a fundamental problem.

Re: Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’

#110

Post by nbanks »

lisper wrote: post #54
Gustomaximus wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont know if this an elephant in the room. I'm guessing engineers have thought about this and just not discussed it publicly. They have some pretty smart guys. Also to nitpick, from "the ends of a viable hyperloop track will have to move hundreds of meters" - this doesn't have to be true. There can be absorption points along the track. Overlaps. Or maybe they tunnel the entire way where its cooler. Or wrap the tunn…

> There can be absorption points along the track Sure, but these have to hold a vacuum. No one has figured out a way to do that.

Gas pipelines hold hundreds of bar of pressure; I don't see how one atmosphere is a problem.
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