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Hyperloop

spacex.com

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Re: Hyperloop

#831

Post by stcredzero »

robomartin wrote: post #572

None of this is to say that Hyperloop is a bad idea. The idea sounds very interesting and I'd rather spend sixty billion building a Hyperloop --even if it fails-- than the ridiculous California high speed rail project. Cost is probably off by an order of magnitude, if not more. Why? Unions and other groups. Building anything in this country costs massively more (and takes significantly longer) than one could imagine…

> Cost is probably off by an order of magnitude, if not more. Why? Unions and other groups.

If this was done right, why would the unions would be involved with anything other than the pylons?

Re: Hyperloop

#832

Post by thrownaway2424 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #800
thrownaway2424 wrote: post #689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, Oakland is a much more sensible location of the initial terminal for any rail system. It's very well-connected to SF, has a complete lack of powerful, moneyed NIMBYs, and it would be easy to punch the line through to SF once it's proven.

> To be fair, Oakland is a much more sensible location of the initial terminal for any rail system. It's very well-connected to SF, has a complete lack of powerful, moneyed NIMBYs, and it would be easy to punch the line through to SF once it's proven. The East Bay (and even Oakland specifically) does not have a complete lack of moneyed NIMBYs. There are at least as many of those in the East Bay as in SF and the Penin…

I don't think that's really true. The people in Oakland who would be NIMBYs and have enough money to be effective at it all live in the hills, or in Piedmont. The people who live in the flat parts of Oakland, and to a large extent all of the flatlanders of the East Bay, don't have anything to fight with.

Now compare to the kind of 19th-century legacy gazillionaires along the CAHSR route in Atherton.

Re: Hyperloop

#833

Post by hussong »

tfgg wrote: post #255
yid wrote: post #102

> Risk of derailment is also not to be taken lightly, as demonstrated by several recent fatal train accidents. Interesting. No comment on the potential outcome of a passenger-filled capsule being ejected from a burst tube on high pylons at 350mph.

Also, I wonder what HSR incidents he's referring to. The Spanish relatively low-speed human error crash? Systems like Japan's Shinkansen have never had a fatal accident, despite operating at the edge of technology for 50 years. I don't think a derailing accident is at all likely on a modern system like California's plan or the UK's HS2.

Check out Eschede.

Re: Hyperloop

#834

Post by dragonwriter »

codfrantic wrote: post #749
dragonwriter wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the pictures, 1.10m heigth with 1.35m width looks more right; in any case, there's no simple typo: If the feet are correct, (6.11 ft), then it should be 1.86m, not 1.10m (or 2.10m as you suggest.) If the meters are correct (1.10m), it should be 3.61 ft (not 6.11 ft).

Wouldn't they write 6 foot 11 inches as 6.11 (eventhough it's confusing and wrong). Because that would make it 2.10 meters.

I suppose that's the most plausible explanation. (Doesn't seem to match the height-width relationship in the sketches, but its the only thing that makes the particular numbers used understandable as a fairly simple-to-explain error.)

Re: Hyperloop

#835

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

XorNot wrote: post #716
escoz wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He does mention luggage would be 1) handled by hyperloop employees 2) removed from the pod all at once to be handled at a different time. Probably more like these pods, which are mostly "blast resistant" http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6918501.html

The big benefit of being "not a plane" is that your emergency measures can be built around that concept. There's also a big benefit to only moving 30 people at once - terrorism looks for mass casualties or mass hostages. Blowing up a hyperloop is basically like bombing a bus - no one really bothers to try. The big benefit of hyperloops over planes would all depend on how quickly you could brake those pods and re-pres…

> Blowing up a hyperloop is basically like bombing a bus - no one really bothers to try.

Oh, bus-bombing happens; mostly in the middle-east, but it did happen in London once. You can google it.

I also expect that an explosion inside a depressurised pipe would shut the whole thing down in a way that an explosion above a road surface would not.

Re: Hyperloop

#836

Post by antitrust »

aresant wrote: post #32

"In the case of the Hyperloop, Musk started focusing on public transportation after he grew disenchanted with the plans for California’s high-speed rail system." And who says that big government stifles entrepreneurial innovation? If ALL Musk does with the Hyperloop announcement is shed more light on the potential debacle that is to be our $70b+ high-speed rail in California, we owe him a debt of gratitude. PS - Dire…

> And who says that big government stifles entrepreneurial innovation?

"A brilliant exploration of new ideas in business argues that government is behind the boldest risks and biggest breakthroughs"

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/32ba9b92-efd4-11e2-a237-00144...

I don't have much of an opinion on this topic, since it seems to me that any large concentration of money and smart people produces innovation (so do lone geniuses). But I thought this article was interesting.

Re: Hyperloop

#837

Post by stcredzero »

Daniel_Newby wrote: post #714
LockeWatts wrote: post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you take your political opinions and shove them down a dark hole somewhere? Most people are here for a discussion of the technology, not your rhetoric.

American unions are political patronage jobs. They will quite cheerfully spend the entire budget digging holes and filling them back in. If you do not account for this, you will have no budget left for technology. Making the design an open source project is a major step towards European style (socialist) unions, where the unions help decide what to do and how to make it succeed.

> Making the design an open source project is a major step towards European style (socialist) unions, where the unions help decide what to do and how to make it succeed.

The difference between European unions and US unions is probably a big part of the reason for the negative connotation of the word "socialist" in the US. If US unions behaved like those in Europe, we would have a more positive connotation.

Re: Hyperloop

#838

Post by LockeWatts »

thatswrong0 wrote: post #829
LockeWatts wrote: post #776

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, your political opinion reinforced by your own personal experiences is what passes as fact now? By golly, I've never met someone so enlightened. Please, tell me more.

What would it take to convince you? A peer reviewed study? Just take a look around at what unions have been up to in this country. Look at the union-born gigantic pension issues in California and Illinois. http://www.illinoispolicy.org/blog/blog.asp?ArticleSource=60... or http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-01-29/news/ct-met-su... Check out what unions did/do to convention centers in Chicago and Las Vegas. http:/…

It would take some logical argument as to why the concept of collective bargaining is a bad one.

Re: Hyperloop

#839

Post by ctdonath »

smadge wrote: post #757
sitkack wrote: post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NASA total budget over its lifetime: $790.0 B in 2007 dollars. Just the book cost of the wars since 2001, http://costofwar.com/ 1.45 T not including future costs (debt payments, health care, net drag on economy) are roughly 2 more entire lifetime-NASAs. Wow. How much innovation have those two wars earned us? How about large scale funding of science and technology is an "engine of innovation", whatever that term means…

That's what I'm advocating, that the government spend more money on science and technology. The government is able to take risks in investing in unproven technologies and sciences where industry can't, because they aren't concerned with profit. I'm not an apologist for the wars.

Problem is, we don't have more money to spend on anything. The US government is spending twice revenue - not a position where you hemorrhage cash & credit with no concern for profit. (And no, it's not going to "stimulate the economy" back up to break-even.)

On top of that, the government used to take such risks in unproven technologies, underlined by tolerating the non-trivial odds of spectacular lethal failure...but that was decades ago. Now it can't even make a bus door without plastering eighteen warning signs around it [1].

Exploratory spending is great when you have money to spare. We don't. Now we have to rely on Elon Musk et al to pursue outlier projects - and they only reason they can is because of the big literal payoff if it works.

[1] - Have you counted 'em? I have. 18.

Re: Hyperloop

#840

Post by dragonwriter »

rayiner wrote: post #578
hyperbovine wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhm, LA alone has more people than DC and Boston combined. Plus another 9 million living in the Bay Area. This is far and away the most obvious candidate for direct HSR in all of North America.

The core cities on the DC BAL PHL NYC BOS route total 11.5 million, while LA + SF is only 4.5 million. Thats arguably the more important figure because the relative advsntage of rail diminishes if you have to drive in from the suburbs. Also, four of those five cities have well developed public transit systems centered around the rail station. Metro area total for the five cities is not including any other regions in…

> arguably the more important figure because the relative advsntage of rail diminishes if you have to drive in from the suburbs.

A major premise of the California HSR plan is that it isn't just about the main HSR lines, but upgrades, improvements, and new lines for connecting conventional regional and commuter rail, light rail, and other public transit.

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