Elon Stevens mashup?
And again, the [hyperloop] is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big [plane]. It's a series of tubes.
Hyperloop speculation – launch assist for electric aircraft
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Re: Hyperloop speculation – launch assist for electric aircraft
#32Is there a complete list of Musk's statements about Hyperloop, constraining its nature?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperloop
So Musk himself decribed it as a "cross between a Concorde and a railgun and an air hockey table". So why do people keep talking about tubes ?
Wouldn't a Ground Effect Vehicule (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_effect_vehicle) fit the descripton better ?
Edit : thought a self powered super-sonic GEV would be hard to pull of.
Re: Hyperloop speculation – launch assist for electric aircraft
#33I remember a similar project from the French TV news. The airplanes were ultralight drones (no pilot and only as many passenger as taxis). I can't find the source.
Re: Hyperloop speculation – launch assist for electric aircraft
#34Elon Musk said it was nearly impossible to get injured in his system. Which means that any aircraft travel is out, because all it takes is an engine failure to kill everyone on board. The safety reason is a big reason why I'm going with the underground tubes between LA and SF.
The construction cost alone for building a tunnel underground would be in the several billion dollars. I don't think it will be underground. At least not most of it.
Re: Hyperloop speculation – launch assist for electric aircraft
#35"It leaves when you arrive" This doesn't work for an electric aircraft, or many normal public transport methods as they are all focused on batching people up into large groups (planes, trains, etc). Also, Elon has called Hyperloop 'another type of transport', i.e. nothing like we already use, whereas I would say this idea is just an aircraft with a new type of launch system; not as different as Elon suggests it will…
> Also, Elon has called Hyperloop 'another type of transport', i.e. nothing like we already use, whereas I would say this idea is just an aircraft with a new type of launch system; not as different as Elon suggests it will be.
I'll stick to my reasoning [1], firmly grounded in poesy, and proclaim this the strongest counterargument (slightly rephrased): Elon is simply too proud to call such a system a 'fifth mode of transportation'.
Re: Hyperloop speculation – launch assist for electric aircraft
#36I've been out of the loop for a while. How long is speculation about the master plan supposed to go on until Musk reveals what it is?
> I've been out of the loop for a while.
I see what you did there.
Re: Hyperloop speculation – launch assist for electric aircraft
#37One of my takes on it is that it has to be some sort of land/underground interconnection between cities.
My reasoning behind this is that he is open sourcing the designs. My guess behind this is that if it is a ground based system that requires right of way/property access etc. then there is tons of transaction costs & government regulation that would prevent copy cats from destroying the first mover's capital investments that would normally be protected via IP law.
If it didn't have these high transaction costs associated with it, then any actor could come and undercut your system after the tech behind the open source designs becomes cheaper. Traditionally this would be protected because of IP laws. However, he's dismissing this route & letting anyone up to the challenge take on the construction challenge with him. I'm guessing this is likely because the government won't eminent domain/allow/permit etc. extra routes between SF & LA etc. if there's already a hyperloop.
Re: Hyperloop speculation – launch assist for electric aircraft
#38I'll re-issue my prediction: an STP hydrogen tunnel with elecromagnetic levitation (my favorite being Inductrack, known for its passive failsafe) and propulsion, and wheels for low speeds, makes a lot more economic sense than an evacuated tunnel. Much less drag, much higher speed of sound.
The other things that any modern engineer would never do that an 1870's railroad technician somewhere built into SOP, like mixed speed segments, frequent braked unbanked turns, single-tracking, and manual signalling / switching and grade crossings, will also be consciously avoided; the FRA regulations are built on making operating under such principles safer. Applying modern real-time at-speed routing to rail is something the PRT guys have been dreaming about for decades - the money and organizational will just hasn't been there to make it happen at a scale sufficient to make it cheap enough to justify.
Re: Hyperloop speculation – launch assist for electric aircraft
#39I'll re-issue my prediction: an STP hydrogen tunnel with elecromagnetic levitation (my favorite being Inductrack, known for its passive failsafe) and propulsion, and wheels for low speeds, makes a lot more economic sense than an evacuated tunnel. Much less drag, much higher speed of sound. The other things that any modern engineer would never do that an 1870's railroad technician somewhere built into SOP, like mixed…
Sounds like an insane fire hazard. With large volumes of hydrogen and breathable air in close proximity, otherwise minor failures would be catastrophic.
Re: Hyperloop speculation – launch assist for electric aircraft
#40About the land access concern, in France we had the aerotrain which was developped as an alternative to high speed train but did not survive the conventional railroad lobbies. There is still 60 km of test track south of Paris. The track is 10 m above the ground and is built using pillars every 20 m. It has been there for more than 40 years for it's considered too expensive to dismantle for actual very limited annoyme…
Germany has something similar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transrapid The Asian maglevs are german engineering.
Not like Asia is awash in maglevs, I think the shanghai airport link is the only commercial one.