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Hyperloop Gets Test Track in California

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Re: Hyperloop Gets Test Track in California

#71

Post by netfire »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #56
huuu wrote: post #18

* Invent something totaly new * Test it on a small scale * Get a lot of negative comments on HN Com'on people. This might be the transportation of the future!

I could see this becoming a new way to transport goods but as outlined in the hyperloop white papers there is little room for error when transporting people and I'm not so sure that's the best, initial approach. I think using this as a delivery system first, prove it out and increase safety as you go along is the way to go. It should be far cheaper to do it on physical goods first (hell you may even be able to skimp…

We'd like to think that there is little error when it comes to transporting people, but most (if not all) of our current means of transportation are prone to accident. Here's some stats:

- For planes, there were 4,394 near-misses in 2012 [1]

- There were an estimated 5,419,000 automobile accidents in 2010, just in the US, resulting in 32,999 deaths [2]

- And the recent Amtrak train derailment, which could have been prevented (although why the prevention mechanism needs to be in the track, and not on the train itself seems strange). [3] There is also an estimated 2,280 collisions at public/private crossings resulting in 267 deaths in 2014. [4]

The question in my mind is whether the proposed Hyperloop system would be more prone to accident than our current systems of transit. I doubt our current means of transit would fare well under some of the proposed scenarios in the comments.

[1] - http://news.discovery.com/tech/airplane-near-misses-how-ofte...

[2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in...

[3] - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/13/derailed-amtrak-tra...

[4] - http://oli.org/about-us/news/collisions-casulties

Re: Hyperloop Gets Test Track in California

#72

Post by stcredzero »

dragonwriter wrote: post #36
stcredzero wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But don't we have a window of minutes to shut down the system in case of an earthquake? I thought we could get advance warning from P waves. (This doesn't work if you're in the epicenter, unfortunately.) If the car gets badly damaged, but the passenger stays alive, and the system can be fixed in a reasonable amount of time, then this is fine performance for a major earthquake event. High speed trains have similar per…

> But don't we have a window of minutes to shut down the system in case of an earthquake? No. > I thought we could get advance warning from P waves. (This doesn't work if you're in the epicenter, unfortunately.) Yes, but the advance warning is on the order of seconds, not minutes (per Wikipedia, for deep, distant , large earthquakes, 60-90 seconds is possible, but that's still at most a minute and a half.)

Even so, I thought that the failure mode for tube misalignment of hundredths or even tenths of an inch would result in stoppage, and perhaps damaged "track" and cars, with trapped passengers. This isn't so different from the performance of high speed rail during natural disasters.

Re: Hyperloop Gets Test Track in California

#73

Post by HCIdivision17 »

msandford wrote: post #53
rmxt wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thermal is an issue that gets worse with distance. Did you look at the article that I posted above? If you are proposing expansion/slip joints at every pier, that runs directly counter to the proposal which states that expansion joints will only be needed near the stations. [1, pg. 27] If we go according to the proposal, the slip joint at the stations on the test track will only need to accommodate ~9 feet of movemen…

> Thermal is an issue that gets worse with distance. I would respectfully disagree. The rail industry has figured out how to do Continuous Welded Rail (CWR) quite well, using the elasticity of steel. http://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2011/03/08/distorted-rail... Similarly the tube for the Hyperloop doesn't HAVE to free-float against its foundations. It might be easier or harder depending on various factors to work o…

That is one of the coolest articles on field engineering I've seen in a while. Thanks a lot for sharing it - it really brings out how something like the hyperloop can be tackled. So far, thermal effects have been my main point of curiosity, but the idea of calibrating the steel to take care of it will likely be the ... easiest? way around the problem.

At their desired vacuum pressures, the steel doesn't need to be anything special, so I would love to see the mechanical engineering that goes into designing the 5 mile track's materials.

Re: Hyperloop Gets Test Track in California

#74

Post by danielweber »

Animats wrote: post #66

They have a web site.[1] They claim to be hiring. They claim to have funding. The web site looks like someone loaded up the generic cool new startup template and stuck in some concept art in the indicated places. There's no useful information about the technology or the business. The big problem with this is not the technology. It's land acquisition. As with high speed rail, you need a right of way that's straight or…

The Hyperloop paper (as originally proposed) was going to use pylons to ease land acquisition costs. How much this helps is unclear to me.

Re: Hyperloop Gets Test Track in California

#75

Post by danielweber »

digikata wrote: post #47
ChuckMcM wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the purpose, but what I don't understand yet is why would you ask retail investors to fund it at this level of risk? Remember, these guys aren't associated with Musk in any way [1], they are just taking the ball and running with it. So huge risk, probably going to flame out, very small chance they become the folks with the 'expertise' in building Hyperloop type systems and thus the primary engineering co…

As long as the investment context is disclosed, why shouldn't there be long range, high-risk investments available in the market to interested buyers? Edit: I agree with you that the risk is very, very high. But, it at least gives a non-zero potential for investment return - which on that level is better than, say, Kickstarter.

Selling an unready product to retail investors indicates more of a desire to pay themselves six figure dalaires for 5 years and then somberly declare the thing a failure.

Re: Hyperloop Gets Test Track in California

#77

Post by danielweber »

stephengillie wrote: post #19
ChuckMcM wrote: post #9

Sigh "The 5-mile test track is estimated to cost about $100 million, which Hyperloop Transportation Technologies hopes to pay for with its initial public offering (IPO) later this year, according to Navigant's blog." Run away, run far far away. They might as well do a kickstarter. Seriously, what sort of "business" is a 5 mile test track? Lets say you charged $25 for a "5 minute ride on the hyperloop!" and you got 8…

This reminds me of the Seattle Monorail, which continues to operate today. For a few dollars, you can ride swiftly and smoothly from one part of Downtown Seattle to another part of Downtown Seattle. Some day, scientists hope, the value of the monorail will be seen. That day, we expect to extend the rail line to other communities. Meanwhile, we just pulled a tunneling machine out of its boring hole, continue to expand…

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

Re: Hyperloop Gets Test Track in California

#78

Post by danielweber »

VLM wrote: post #24
geon wrote: post #8

> The problem with traveling in an evacuated tube is, if you lose the vacuum in the tube, everybody in the tube will crash Wouldn't that be a "crash" into a gradually rising air preassure? Something like a smooth deacceleration.

I wouldn't worry about an air valve being left open quite as much as the vacuum being broken because a big chunk of concrete (or whatever) is now sucked into the tube in the path of the train. Perhaps in the very unlikely event it ever rains again in California, water in the tube could be an issue, or lightning damage. That brings up the logical question of how many customers you'll have if none of them have any wate…

> because a big chunk of concrete (or whatever) is now sucked into the tube in the path of the train

1 atmosphere of pressure isn't going to suck in anything concrete, except maybe in dust format.

Re: Hyperloop Gets Test Track in California

#79

Post by BinaryIdiot »

netfire wrote: post #71
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could see this becoming a new way to transport goods but as outlined in the hyperloop white papers there is little room for error when transporting people and I'm not so sure that's the best, initial approach. I think using this as a delivery system first, prove it out and increase safety as you go along is the way to go. It should be far cheaper to do it on physical goods first (hell you may even be able to skimp…

We'd like to think that there is little error when it comes to transporting people, but most (if not all) of our current means of transportation are prone to accident. Here's some stats: - For planes, there were 4,394 near-misses in 2012 [1] - There were an estimated 5,419,000 automobile accidents in 2010, just in the US, resulting in 32,999 deaths [2] - And the recent Amtrak train derailment, which could have been p…

Oh I'm in complete agreement with you I just think it would be cheaper / more profitable to initially transport goods (saving money on safety features you may need for people) and then using that to build up to people transportation. Rather than hoping an IPO gives them enough money just for a test track I'd rather them hope for far less money and test transporting non-humans.

Re: Hyperloop Gets Test Track in California

#80

Post by ChuckMcM »

digikata wrote: post #47
ChuckMcM wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the purpose, but what I don't understand yet is why would you ask retail investors to fund it at this level of risk? Remember, these guys aren't associated with Musk in any way [1], they are just taking the ball and running with it. So huge risk, probably going to flame out, very small chance they become the folks with the 'expertise' in building Hyperloop type systems and thus the primary engineering co…

As long as the investment context is disclosed, why shouldn't there be long range, high-risk investments available in the market to interested buyers? Edit: I agree with you that the risk is very, very high. But, it at least gives a non-zero potential for investment return - which on that level is better than, say, Kickstarter.

This statement : "why shouldn't there be long range, high-risk investments available in the market to interested buyers?"

Implies that they are not, and it is not true. Long range, high risk investments are available to any interested buyer.

Generally the challenge that comes up is that the SEC has set standards for someone to meet in order to be a "qualified" investor. Some people interpret those standards as a way of "keeping people out" of investing, but that is not the case. They are there for two reasons, one so that when those people lose all of their investment they aren't "damaged" and more importantly so that unscrupulous sales people cannot dupe people who are unable to distinguish risk for themselves into investing.

So I understand when a smart person who is chafing under the restriction of not being qualified from preventing them from a certain investment. But they have to realize that they are not the ones being protected. The elderly who are being promised a "guaranteed" 20% return on the last of their life savings by a boiler room broker, they are being protected.

Further, qualifying, is simply a matter of building up your portfolio to demonstrate you have the knowledge and presence of mind to make those decisions and if they go badly you knew the risks. The youngest person I've met who was a qualified investor was one pretty much right out of high school. He had started with $5,000 in a Charles Schwab account (his college fund) and moved it over to E-Trade when it was at $30,000 and was over a million about a year after he had graduated high school. He read a lot, developed a much deeper understanding of finance than I will probably ever have, and showed me just what was possible for someone determined to get there. Nearly every day there are stocks that move up by more than a few percent, and if you can anticipate that movement more often than not you can move a portfolio along.

And I would have no trouble whatsoever with these guys on a road show trying to drum up investment. And as I've said I'll read their S-1 with interest. I would not want them to do this raise on the general market because that opens up defenseless people to get hurt by folks who just want to push shares.

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