Like many others, I was awaiting Elon Musk’s announcement of what his “Hyperloop” transport system would be. To my somewhat disappointment, it’s a tube train: vehicles running in a semi-evacuated tube. A worthy goal, to be sure, but with his background in both electric cars and space transport, I was expecting something midway between the launch loop and the space fountain.
Thoughts?
I like it. I think it’s a pretty good first start.
Particularly disappointing since he said it wasn’t going to be a tube train…
I’m tempted to agree with you. If we in North America, with our underdeveloped high-speed railway infrastructure, can leapfrog past existing HSR with something like Musk’s tube train, all the better. It’s just that… that… the name “Hyperloop” led me to expect something more like the launch loop or space fountain. Definitely not what I expected.
Elon Musk sounds like a Harry Potter character.
All I could think when reading the article was how horrific a crash would be in a train going that fast.
Depending on the method of the crash, the people on the train aren’t likely to notice.
There’s nothing to crash into- the capsule is in an evacuated tunnel.
But if there’s some reason to stop, there are brakes.
Anything built by man has the capacity to fail. And a train traveling at 1G which suddenly loses it function is a pretty scary thought.
I get motion-sick just thinking about something that fast.
He said it wouldn’t be a vacuum tube, which it isn’t. Vacuum tubes require maglev and other expensive stuff; this idea is a lot cheaper.
I would love to see someone build an active megastructure, but frankly I think we’re decades off from it. Musk’s proposal easily fits within the bounds of current technology. It fits in the pattern of his other projects–take existing technology and build something that hasn’t been done before. Tesla uses laptop batteries, and SpaceX uses rocket systems that are almost indistinguishable from what NASA did in the 60’s. It’s the implementation that’s special, not the technology itself.
Speed doesn’t cause motion sickness; acceleration does. The Hyperloop is highly isolated from the environment and the ride will be smoother than any train, car, or plane.
The first reports of this thing were talking coast to coast travel in 45 minutes. Now I see they are talking about LA to San Francisco in 30 minutes. Two very different things.
I’ll go on to add (as a motion sickness sufferer) that it’s caused ‘uneven’ acceleration, a smooth straight boost won’t bother people.
And as you are inside the tube, there’s no disturbing background motion to upset your balance systems.
But no windows is a huge psychological barrier- people like to see out of things they are in.
Lots of potential solutions, I guess. But definitely needs to be addressed to create a marketable product.
Would putting “virtual reality” windows on the walls of the pod help or aggravate claustrophobia sufferers? By that I mean, essentially display screens that look like windows and either pipe in images from cameras outside the tube or just show a recording of the outside world synchronized with the speed of the pod?
Oh sure. You wouldn’t even need a lot of them, or very big ones. A few VR portholes would go a long way.
eta- some people still won’t like it. But more with vr windows than without.
I understould it to be built like the large electronic rail guns. These can produce speeds of 4,000 mph. I can’t imagine the cost of building something like that.
Exactly how many series of tubes does this country need?
We need to move to a 1 tube standard, before it’s too late.
I think it would just coast to a stop. In that way, its probably less scary then airplanes, where a serious mid-flight malfunction is really bad news.
A crash would certainly be horrific, but again, humans tolerate plenty of transportation methods that involve occasional fatal malfunctions.
