Super fast travel Hyperloop transport system

[Vindekarr]

I am not as skeptical as you guys, i think if you put your mind to it, anything is possible :smile:

 

And it's naivete like that which makes engineers like me tear our hair out and have mental issues. The laws of physics, engineering, and logic are immutable, and there are ideas that, no matter how hard you put your mind to it, they will never be possible.

Edited July 27, 2013 by Vindekarr

[JimboUK]

I am not as skeptical as you guys, i think if you put your mind to it, anything is possible :smile:

 

No matter how hard you put your mind to it the laws of physics and thermodynamics won't change, nor will the political and fiscal realities.

 

Edit: Ninja'd

[Vagrant0]

I am not as skeptical as you guys, i think if you put your mind to it, anything is possible :smile:

It's not even skepticism. It's the part of having seen first hand, countless times, worthwhile projects being delayed, scaled down, or simply pushed well over budget because of certain civil or political elements. All it would take is one group of people to claim noise pollution or the loop lines to be an eyesore to essentially kill a project like this. Given the invested interest of not only the cities, but the people living in those cities (who would see their property value plummet), even if unfounded, it would still bog the project down.

[Tidus44]

@Thor -

Trains will never travel faster than 50 miles an hour.

 

No building will ever be taller than 15 stories.

 

Man will never run a mile in under 4 minutes.

 

No man will ever break the sound barrier.

 

It is impossible to send men into space or to land on the moon.

 

Alice laughed. There's no use trying, she said. One can't believe impossible things. - Lewis Carroll

 

You tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try. - Homer Simpson

 

There will always be people who will tell the world what cannot be done and then list a million reasons why not. Thankfully, people rarely listen to them because if they did, we would all still be sitting around in a cave wrapped in animal skins listening to Omgah grunt to the beat of a stick on a rock. But then those same "nay sayers" would probably kill Omgah for his blasphemy of doing something no one had done before.

 

While I have reservations that Mr. Musk's idea will be immediately workable (or even in the near future), I am quite interested in hearing what he has to say and what he hopes to accomplish when he makes his announcement in August. It should be interesting, probably quite motivational and hopefully inspiring. And even if it never happens because of some limitation.... no one dictates what one may dream.

As for the nay sayers - well, I'll listen to them when they own a company with a contract to launch satellites into space, shuttle supplies and astronauts to the space station, come up with an electric car and solar power systems, are multibillionaires because of what they have accomplished and hold the indisputable final word on the limitation of the laws of physics and technology for the universe.

 

 

Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done. - Robert A. Heinlein.

[Thor.]

Things we know so far round up :smile:

 

1. Its in a vacuum

2. its using magnetic levitation, its about time.

3. There will be no friction in this vacuum

4. There was a video stating in China the concept is already being tested.

5. It already has been in development for 4 years now. ETT behind it was mentioned on a youtube video 4 years ago.

5. Elon Musk is rich and has taken over the idea and concept even further, so he says.

6. its described to be between a shuffle board and rail gun, a Concorde jet, no train mentioned.

Even Elon Musk didn't mention it being in a tube, except ETT showed some concept design, but no tubes...

 

So far there is no mention of it being a train, other then the fact it works like one. The concept videos show what it might look like, but are they legit is uncertain at this time.

Edited July 27, 2013 by Thor.

[Vagrant0]

 

Even Elon Musk didn't mention it being in a tube, except ETT showed some concept design, but no tubes...

 

So far there is no mention of it being a train, other then the fact it works like one. The concept videos show what it might look like, but are they legit is uncertain at this time.

Can we agree that it would probably need some sort of rail or other physical guiding mechanism to keep whatever pods or transport container aimed at its destination? If so, then it still has the real issues related to constructing that mechanism on any scale. If not, then we are either talking about launching containers of people through the air at a destination (good luck getting test subjects), or we're talking about some sort of spacial dilation device to fold or compress the space between two points (possible, but probably not advisable within a planetary space, even if you could generate enough energy).

 

I'm not saying that it can't be done. I am however saying is that there are a good number of serious complications which would need to be solved to make anything of this scale to be viable.

[Thor.]

Not if they are using Magnetic levitation, the only thing they need to have something holding it in place like a rail gun on the sides of the tunnel. Something to stop the pods so to speak as it slows down.

Remember Magnetic levitation is something that does not need wheels or anything to hold it in place as it is floating in mid air.

 

Actually in this video he does mention something about tubes.

 

 

Curious to see what he has in store :confused:

Edited July 27, 2013 by Thor.

[Vagrant0]

Not if they are using Magnetic levitation, the only thing they need to have something holding it in place like a rail gun on the sides of the tunnel. Something to stop the pods so to speak as it slows down.

Remember Magnetic levitation is something that does not need wheels or anything to hold it in place as it is floating in mid air.

Yes, but in addition to the actual weight of the track, it still has to support the weight of whatever container is running on that track. You know, gravity, equal and opposite forces, and all that stuff (maglev is not antigravity). Then the track itself would need to be structurally sound enough to resist the forces being exerted on it by a container moving several hundred miles an hour in addition to natural forces impacting both the container or whatever rails. If it were not structurally stable, even a small amount of sway in the track could lead to serious issues, maglev or not. All of that structure would have course add either extra weight to the construction, or extra cost using lightweight materials (with lightweight materials actually being more risky since they would be more easily moved by wind).

 

As for rail guns... I'm pretty sure we havn't actually built one of those successfully on any scale large enough to matter. The main reason being primarily due to the power requirements and the extremely low tolerances for any sort of straight barrel (threading the needle at 400mph and trying to account for wind disturbances). Using a curved barrel, like a particle accelerator brings with it vastly greater power requirements related to the mass of the object being propelled. To redirect a container weighing atleast 200lbs using magnetic forces in such a way around even a very gradual turn would require a rather insane amount of energy (likely more than we are capable of currently producing on a global scale) and probably magnetic forces several times stronger than those of an MRI (hope you like traveling naked or burning). So I'm sorry to say, but that is out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRI#Magnetic_field_2

 

Meaning that the guiding method would have to either be a tube or rail of some kind running the whole length of travel.

 

Maglev itself is not new technology, with several tracks existing worldwide and several projects started in the US by various companies, but they all have the same exact problems mentioned here. The only places where it has been successful have been either in developing countries who have little urban sprawl, or ones where the population density is so high in cities that they have to actively develop and implement ways toward mass transit. In the USA, we can't even keep our bridges in serviceable condition.

[Thor.]

I found another interesting conference 2012 basing the outlines of this technology

 

[Vagrant0]

I found another interesting conference 2012 basing the outlines of this technology

 

Except, a vacuum tube doesn't work on any reasonably large scale. We can't even make pipelines that don't leak, and for every additional car being added or removed from a voided network, you add a very large amount of air that would have to be pumped out... meaning extra energy. You'd quite honestly be better off keeping the tube pressurized and with a constant wind velocity so that the outside air is moving at roughly the same speed as the car.

 

 

The video does stress one of those points that has been mentioned here briefly... Governments don't want this. In addition to this, allowing such a system on a scale where it crosses country boundaries is just plain a BAD idea, especially if there are departure points (stations) in most cities. Either it would need to be regulated to an insane degree (hope you like body cavity searches and detailed medical screenings), or would require a utopian society where borders, diseases, and crime do not exist. Having it open to those in the lower income bracket would only make the related issues much more serious.

 

Let's face the facts here, the only thing keeping some diseases like SARs, malaria, tuberculosis, and similar from becoming global epidemics is that most of the affected areas are remote or travel is restricted among those inflicted. An open network would end up bringing people together in a common space which has always meant increased levels of disease.

 

Then there's the parts related to smuggling, trafficking, evading authorities, or other illegal activities which would all be made vastly easier even without an open network since a car could enter at one station and exit at any other long before any message could be sent ahead to watch for a person of interest. Crimes happening on train platforms are already very hard to track down, which is why train and subway stations are favorite places for pickpockets or other petty thieves. Within an open network, where cars can freely cross borders and stop or start from any location, where a single car can travel several cities away within 5 minutes, and crime response or prevention becomes impossible. Without strict security checkpoints, it becomes very easy to transport illegal objects long distances. Adding in a large population to the mix, and any time you might have saved in travel would be spent waiting in line trying to get through the checkpoint... The 1-2 hours you have to spend before you can even board a plane would seem like a brief experience in comparison. And all it takes is one idiot with the idea to smuggle explosives onto a car to damage the tube to end up making invasive screening mandatory for all passengers.

 

Regardless of everything else... Socially, and on a whole, our society just cannot support this.