Despite the fact there are more billionaires than ever, it's funny how small the group of bold innovators are. It always seems to be the same few people.
I'd argue that Bill Gate's work has a better return of investment for society.
Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’
141–150 of 517 posts
Re: Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
"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.
Ok, we did get rovers to Mars decades ago so I'm sure you know what I mean here, but you seem to be making my point that it's not worth it. Simple isn't the same as easy, but an evacuated train tunnel with air or magnetic tracks does not require new science. The physics are well understood and simple. The hard part is evolving the tech to be reliable and cheap so that people will use it and pay for it - but that does…
>so putting them in a low-pressure tunnel is not a major revolution.
>evacuated train tunnel with air or magnetic tracks does not require new science. The hard part is evolving the tech to be reliable and cheap so that people will use it and pay for it - but that doesn't seem to be within economic reach, and that's before factoring in construction and upkeep.
You seem to be suggesting that a) we could have done this before because the tech has always been there. b) we can't do this now because the tech is not reliable or cheap.
I'm not sure how you can rectify these two arguments since this tech is more reliable and cheaper now than it ever has been.
Re: Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’
#143The 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.
Thank you. It's always easy till you start doing it.
Re: Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
What about building a high speed train? Proven technology, works in a lot of countries. LA to SF in 2 hours. Is it really that bad?
Someone made the argument that in the US our rails were built by men half killing themselves for low wages and with very few safety standards. That means a modern buildout is much more expensive than it was historically and the political will to build that budget is difficult or impossible. Hyperloop is a run around that problem. Largely autonomous/low staffed boring that's non-union labor, non-public sector can make…
Re: unions, there are sandhogs unions, wouldn't they be relevant? Ex: http://www.sandhogs147.org/
Re: Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
Gas pipelines use Expansion Loops [1] to pick up expansion slack. The problem is that, in order to push people through the tube at 700mph at acceptable G's, you can't put bends like that in the HyperLoop. If you try to send people down a pipeline at 700mph, you would end up with paste at the other side. Gas pipelines are surprisingly un-straight, bendy, and bumpy
[1] https://static.interestingengineering.com/images/import/2017...
Re: Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’
#146Something I wrote a while ago.... w/ back of the napkin calculations....... Why I wouldn’t invest a money into Hyperloop - Stabilizing a single fault line risk pylon is more than $250K. - How many million are needed for vacuum pumps to evacuate 100+ million cubic feet of of pipe to 100 Pa? - Hot air discharge needs to go somewhere. For every 1 bar pressure, you need ~200 to ~400 cubic meters of volume which is larger…
When Musk first said that an LA SF Hyperloop could be built for 1/8th the cost of the equivalent HSR, I chuckled and then waited for the punchline, which still hasn’t arrived. It’s a cool idea and I do want to see more prototypes and feasibility studies, but people need to get off the hype train (no pun intended) and be realistic about the cost.
I'm not saying the hyperloop is a good or bad idea, but any suggestion that it would be cheaper than the equivalent HSR seems utterly insane. How could it possibly be cheaper? You have the same ROW requirements, exponentially more expensive track, and the overhead of the fact that it's brand new technology. The fact that the vehicle itself might be cheaper than an HSR train after the tech scales up is almost an afterthought next to those costs.
Re: Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
When Musk first said that an LA SF Hyperloop could be built for 1/8th the cost of the equivalent HSR, I chuckled and then waited for the punchline, which still hasn’t arrived. It’s a cool idea and I do want to see more prototypes and feasibility studies, but people need to get off the hype train (no pun intended) and be realistic about the cost.
Is this not an attempt to just derail CAHSR, or HSR in general? Nearly every anti-HSR comment is now 'we should build hyperloop instead!'.
That's impressively cynical, but Musk obviously stands to gain a lot if people keep California using roads. California wants to go green and he sells the best technology for green road-based transportation.
Re: Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’
#148The 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 (in the USA) can barely build a high-speed rail line effectively
We went to the moon. We send car sized rovers to Mars. We certainly can (in the technical sense) build a friggin' train. Its a political problem that keeps us from doing it. So its more like "we won't build high speed rail", and there are plenty of interesting reasons why this is so.
The point is that the mystical sounding Hyperloop might be just what the doctor ordered to shake up the political landscape and get something to budge because ooohh... futuristic! It might just be a brilliant end-run around the current political stalemate. At the most local level it has the potential to turn "nah, I don't want a train running through my back yard" to "oh wow, my community is part of the enlightened future of humanity!"
Re: Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’
#149The 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.
200kmh/h is the generally accepted threshold for high speed rail.
EDIT: from the UIC website:
"In any case, high speed is a combination of a lot of elements which constitute a whole "system": infrastructure (new lines designed for speeds above 250 km/h and in some cases, upgraded existing lines for speeds up to 200 or even 220 km/h),..."
Re: Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
Out of curiosity, have you ever built anything big? I say this because the tone of your comment is dismissive, however it seems quite low-effort. I can translate your criticisms into criticisms of building subways in 1863: - if you build a subway it will be the biggest underground railway ever built. - Rocks. They could fall in front of a subway car and cause a huge accident. - safety. what if all the lights and powe…
Also, planes are a terrible idea. I mean how do you evacuate people from them if something goes wrong? I think this whole airplane thing is just vaporware.
The question isn't "will this ever work?", the question is (while keeping with your airplane analogy) is Elon Musk's design closer to the Wright brothers airplane or Da Vinci's ornithopter. I'd guess the latter personally.