71–80 of 202 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If someone shot the tube with a medium sized gun, would the impact cause an internal defect on the order of 0.5mm?
The tubes for the passenger-only version would be 20 to 23 mm in thickness. I'm not sure what damage a medium-sized gun would do to steel that thick.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Although it was effectively the case before, since 2008 PDF is an open format. It's quite misleading to compare it to a binary for which source is unavailable. Since the format specifies compression, not every part of a PDF file may be easily observed in a text editor, but there's a bunch of open software that can read (and edit, and produce) PDF.
Producing and reading PDF isn't the issue. Again, we have open source tools that will generate, mangle, introspect, disassemble, etc. to both ELF and PE binaries. What PDF is not is the "preferred format for development", no matter how good the open-source tooling is.
Claustrophobes will not be eager to travel in this fashion.
Exactly. I think this fails because of comfort requirements. If you stacked people inside airplanes like this, I'm sure they would be 10x more efficient and competitive with this proposal. I think this would be great for journeys of _under_ 30 minutes. And it wouldn't be for everyone, for sure -- so starting off as a niche transportation mode is not a great start.
IMHO Musk (or anyone who follows up) should drop the "passenger" version and go with the "passenger plus vehicle" version only. Because right now what people and the press are going to focus on is how small the cabins are, why there are no toilets, etc. On the other hand if you can imagine putting a car in there the claustrophobia argument disappears and you can think straight again...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The tubes for the passenger-only version would be 20 to 23 mm in thickness. I'm not sure what damage a medium-sized gun would do to steel that thick.
According to some quick youtube searching, armor-piercing rounds versus regular steel would create problems: http://youtu.be/q_zZd0NsYG4 .
Location is a primary reason why Musk can claim Hyperloop will be cheaper than high speed rail. As the paper correctly points out, right-of-way acquisition is very expensive. Bypassing major population centers is an easy way out of using eminent domain or expensive tunneling to build the system. The HSR project is required by Proposition 1A to pass through several population centers in the state and have a couple doz…
Yes. After all, the project whitepaper has the word "alpha" in the title, and the authors specifically say they are open to constructive feedback. Have you thought about emailing them about your concerns? I think they are valid.
IMHO Musk (or anyone who follows up) should drop the "passenger" version and go with the "passenger plus vehicle" version only. Because right now what people and the press are going to focus on is how small the cabins are, why there are no toilets, etc. On the other hand if you can imagine putting a car in there the claustrophobia argument disappears and you can think straight again...
It's interesting that the biggest line item in the costing is not the tube, nor the capsules, nor the vacuum pumps, nor the solar panels, nor the land, but the concrete pylons that support the tube - about two-fifths of the total. The pylons are planned to be 30m apart, making for about 25000 of them.
But that's the beauty of it! You can make those pylons anywhere, truck them in, and install them in whatever order you want. It's construction....that scales up almost effortlessly.
It's just fascinating to me that the most expensive thing (in aggregate) is also the "dumbest" part.
Location is a primary reason why Musk can claim Hyperloop will be cheaper than high speed rail. As the paper correctly points out, right-of-way acquisition is very expensive. Bypassing major population centers is an easy way out of using eminent domain or expensive tunneling to build the system. The HSR project is required by Proposition 1A to pass through several population centers in the state and have a couple doz…
>>I just think that Musk is oversimplifying the situation. Yes. After all, the project whitepaper has the word "alpha" in the title, and the authors specifically say they are open to constructive feedback. Have you thought about emailing them about your concerns? I think they are valid.