Hyperloop Alpha [pdf]

http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/hyperloop_alpha-20130812.pdf

by soupboy • 13 years ago

513 193 13 years ago

zeckalpha2• 13 years ago

Nice font. But looks good so far.

EDIT: There's a bit of minimally technical details, but this is neither highly polished (public-perception-focused) nor highly technical (engineer-focused). Is it a good balance or would one of the extremes have been better?

keiferski• 13 years ago

It says right at the beginning that the first section is an overview while the second section is more technical...

zeckalpha2• 13 years ago

So? It needed a section with more polish than the first section for not HN, and a more detailed technical section.

qrohlf• 13 years ago

Both would have been ideal - Ideally the webpage would have been a public-perception-focused with simple explanations (syringes with compressors!) and the concept sketches front-and-center, with a link for a more technically oriented whitepaper. That would have taken a lot more time though - the linked pdf is still impressive.

tfgg• 13 years ago

I think the occasional mention of safety on high-speed rail is a bit unfair, considering that good systems like the Japanese Shinkansen have never had a fatal accident:

"Risk of derailment is also not to be taken lightly, as demonstrated by several recent fatal train accidents."

newbie122• 13 years ago

There were two fatal high speed accidents just this summer in Europe-- the Spanish one killed 80 people.

jessaustin14• 13 years ago

Claustrophobes will not be eager to travel in this fashion.

nakedrobot22• 13 years ago

Travelling in any kind of tunnel is no more claustrophobic than this is it?

thenomad• 13 years ago

"The maximum width is 4.43 ft (1.35 m) and maximum height is 6.11 ft (1.10 m)."

Yeah, that's a little bit more claustrophobic than your average underground train.

jessaustin14• 13 years ago

The passenger compartment mockups indicate there won't be enough room to sit upright. I'm sure the seats will make this comfortable for people of average stature who aren't afflicted with claustrophobia, but there will be much less room than tunnels that accommodate e.g. upright humans or subway trains.

darkmighty2• 13 years ago

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.

escoz2• 13 years ago

Elon mentions in the paper that even on planes today landing procedures take over 30 mins, and during that time people can't get out of their seats, and everybody is ok with it. For longer routes you would definitely need more space, but then he also describes the model that would allow for carrying cars, which is a lot more space.

Someone4• 13 years ago

Then use http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130812-planes-that-can-pic.... Compared to that, this Hyperloop idea is best described as "No pilot. Less space than a 747", by teenage boys.

On the other, more important hand, at firt view, this looks feasible to me (taking into account who published it)

I do wonder about the "little noise" claim, though. That fan a few meters in front of you that compresses air so that you can float on it will not be noise-free. I also think those tubes could start resonating at times.

Finally: only about a thousand passengers per hour or, alternatively, going at close to the speed of sound, on guaranteed collision course, with 30s intervals?

poub• 13 years ago

Oh the irony if you try to access the bbc link http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130812-planes-that-can-pic... from the UK :

«BBC Future (international version) We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee. It is run commercially by BBC Worldwide, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC, the profits made from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new BBC programmes. »

jessaustin14• 13 years ago

The technical challenges posed by that design seem quite significant compared to those of TFA.

nakedrobot22• 13 years ago

This could be considered a "next generation train". Elon Musk as we know likes to consider things from "first principles". It looks like here, he has taken the first principles of high-speed "rail" travel on land, and come up with this.

I think our children might enjoy using it ;-)

Mindless2112• 13 years ago

Strange PDF title -- "Falcon 9v1.1 - Reentry Nozzle Study" -- is there some design reuse or just document reuse?

nickff3• 13 years ago

I bet they titled it like that to hide it from prying eyes. That way even if you found the account where it was being stored, you would have no idea it related to hyperloop; and there were probably people looking for this sort of document.

waskosky• 13 years ago

A funny mistake most likely, probably document reuse for basic layout. Download it again. It was just updated from "Nicholas Liggett" and "Falcon 9v1.1 - Reentry Nozzle Study" to "Elon Musk" and "Hyperloop Alpha"

darkmighty2• 13 years ago

When I was a kid I had a similar idea, a low pressure elevated concrete tube transport system. In my idea cars would get rails underneath them and freely enter/exit the tube at some key points. The cars would get a compressor to help keep the not-so-large pressure differential at bay; all inspired by evacuated tube documentaries.

In other words, this has been proposed several times before. However, there are some key innovations here - namely the compressor/nozzle pair and the air suspension system - which may indeed change the game and make this viable.

alex-g2• 13 years ago

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.

toomuchtodo3• 13 years ago

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.

alex-g2• 13 years ago

I suppose that's true, though I don't know if that's a real difference compared to building other very long things that are the same all the way along, like roads and railways and the Great Wall of China.

It's just fascinating to me that the most expensive thing (in aggregate) is also the "dumbest" part.

TomGullen• 13 years ago

Also much easier to maintain and replace

RyJones2• 13 years ago

perhaps you can pour sections and truck those in, but there's no way in hell you're moving a precast that size on anything that doesn't float.

For scale, you know those 4' by 4' by 8' blocks of cement you see all over the place, used for erosion control and the like? They're called ecology blocks, they're about $20 each FOB the cement plant. You want them shipped? A lowboy can carry two or four at a time without exceeding load limits. When I looked into buying a couple hundred, having them shipped about sixteen miles, it was going to cost hundreds per block to truck it out plus renting a crane to unload/place them.

Those are tiny blocks with almost no rebar, no engineering, no preload, nothing.

jlgreco9• 13 years ago

You'd still have to pour the foundation in place though, right? Or can you make foundations off-site and then drive them into the ground?

adwf3• 13 years ago

They don't seem to break down the labour costs of building the tube/pylons very well. In my experience watching big government projects, that's where the massive overages start coming in.

It's easy to say that something will cost (eg.) $1bn if it's built in 2 years, but when most of that is labour and bureaucracy starts getting involved, the labour gets put on hold for a year or two whilst still getting paid. Suddenly the overall cost of the project has tripled without anything actually changing, except some bureaucrat sticking their oar in.

Maybe I'm just cynical, but the labour costs seem to be one of the least well defined aspects of this proposal. It's easy enough to make it look cost effective compared to existing rail projects when you don't factor that in.

Afterall do you really think that the HSV with two steel rails is costing $80bn+ because of the price of the components? Although I don't really know the specifics, I find it hard to believe that the rights of way cost that much either. It's usually down to contracting an entire company worth of engineers for 10-20 years that ramps up the costs.

hop• 13 years ago

I wonder what they have in mind for how stations will offload/onload capsules onto the loop. That will be heck of an engineering problem to solve - ultra high safety, pressurized environment, fast turnaround times...

My initial thought was they would have switches on the track like a normal train and capsules would veer off. But I bet they would come to a stop on there own and then get lifted vertically off the train and into a decompression area where they'd cue up.

jessaustin14• 13 years ago

This is addressed in the document. Essentially, each station is a terminus, so airlocks are transited at low speed. A turntable reorients trains for their next trip. The only switching required takes place entirely within the evacuated zone. (This is for when spurs are built to serve e.g. San Diego or Las Vegas.)

orofino5• 13 years ago

The focus from people on bathrooms is puzzling to me. I've been on buses, without facilities, that go for hours without stopping. This is a 35 minute ride with restricted movement, if you greatly fear being able to hold it for that long, there are other, less efficient methods of transport to accommodate you.

kailuowang2• 13 years ago

On a bus you have the chance to get off every 5-10 minutes, that's a big difference. There will be thousands of passengers on that day. Just imagine if you have to do this trip 10 times a day every day for 100 days, will you still take risk?

Update (since I've been downvoted):

All these buses analogy isn't exactly the same case because they still have the option to stop somewhere, which give the passengers the assurance that if they really can't hold it's not the end of the world. Taking that into consideration, I think it could solve most people's bathroom concern by adding bathroom stops to the loop, in the case of semi-emergency, ideally a pod should be able to make a stop upon request within 5-10 minutes without disrupting other pods. Some financial incentive might be needed for encouraging people to hold longer but I do see legal risks in that approach.

christoph• 13 years ago

That depends where in the world you are. I've been on many long distance buses in Asia that might not stop for 4 or 5 hours.

axelf• 13 years ago

I have taken a 40min commuter bus everyday for nearly 2 years and I never had to get off early to use the bathroom.

orofino5• 13 years ago

You're thinking city buses. I'm thinking long-haul busses (like greyhound in the US). Greyhound buses likely have facilities, what I'm actually talking about are the buses used a core parts of the transportation infrastructure all over South America. Many of these also have facilities but I've been on many where the bathroom isn't functioning or just plain isn't there. You can easily travel for 30 minutes to an hour without stopping.

We're largely (70%) talking about commuters here, they're taking this twice a day, most days out of the year. Again, I'm not sure why for 90%+ of people that this would be an issue.

marze• 13 years ago

Yeah. Adult diapers! Problem solved.

tarblog• 13 years ago

"methods of transportation"

spikels• 13 years ago

If not using the bathroom for an hour is an issue you should see a doctor. Not only are there good treatments to alleviate this, but it may be an indication of a serious medical problem. Get it fixed then enjoy life including perhaps the Hyperloop.

conanbatt• 13 years ago

I agree with the sentiment, but its part of the disadvantages of this transport. You cant travel with babies or little kids in them, and you certainly cant do it sick.

However its not such a big flaw, specially to warrant 63billion to alleviate.

phaemon2• 13 years ago

There are conditions with no cure that make it difficult to go an hour without using the bathroom. I think the people with those conditions are well aware that it's a "serious medical problem" without your advice.

Your post was about as useful as telling someone in a wheelchair to see a doctor to get their legs fixed (hey, it may be an indication of a serious medical problem!)

hackula1• 13 years ago

I would point people towards the Stadium Pal, described by David Sedaris. Essentially, it is a urine bag strapped to your leg attached to an external catheter. I am not sure if it works for women, but I am sure Musk could figure that out.

orofino5• 13 years ago

Similar, though less invasive, solutions exist for 'emergencies' on private planes and such. They come with support for both male and female genitalia.

Niten• 13 years ago

Well it's not just a matter of bathrooms.

Even on a commuter bus or plane, if someone has a medical emergency and needs to get off right now, the bus will pull over or the plane will land. In this design you'd have to just sit there, helpless, until the vehicle reaches its destination. Heck, even if you're a doctor in the next seat you wouldn't be able to get up and help your fellow passenger.

bwaldrep• 13 years ago

They discuss this in the paper. In the event of a medical emergency the pod will proceed to the destination as normal, and paramedics can be waiting at the end. In the absolute worst case you are looking at ~30 minutes before you can get to medical attention. That's not obviously worse than the time it would take a plane to descend from cruising altitude to the nearest airport, land, and taxi to a gate.

LockeWatts2• 13 years ago

Landing a plane will guaranteed take more than 35 minutes. With the hyperloop, it's simpler and more efficient to just have EMTs called and on station when the car arrives.

h4pless• 13 years ago

Yeah, I believe this is the best point in the argument against pod transport. Even taking doctors out of the equation, if someone were to go into cardiac arrest on a plane, pretty much anyone on the plane would be qualified to operate an automatic external defibrillator and all flight attendants are required to be trained in CPR. The opportunity for first aid in this situation is the difference between life and death and it is unavailable in this pod design. 3 minutes without oxygen to the brain and serious brain damage is likely; 15 minutes without oxygen and you're pretty much guaranteed never to recover if you aren't already dead. If you have a cardiac episode on the hyperloop and need to be resuscitated, there's a good chance that the only good that those EMTs will do when the train arrives at its destination is to remove your dead body from the train.

teeja• 13 years ago

It's a very small space, with no apparent facility to handle not just #1 and #2, but severe gastric distress. The other passengers then get to look forward to up to 25 minutes in that closed space. There's no stewardess, no way to stop the vehicle. An "emergency evacuation module" shouldn't take much room.

jessaustin14• 13 years ago

The design incorporates very powerful air compressors and water pumps, and generates, transfers, and isolates a great deal of heat. The cabin will be very well-ventilated, because if it weren't then passengers would die of something other than methane poisoning.

bbrooks• 13 years ago

What's the ideal format for an open source whitepaper? Certainly not PDF. Straight up HTML on Github?

asveikau• 13 years ago

latex.

jessaustin14• 13 years ago

What disadvantages do you perceive for PDF?

mpyne5• 13 years ago

The same ones that we perceive for "open source development" on compiled binaries.

With that said, it's not hard in this case to C&P to something more suitable for GitHub and really get things kicked off, but LaTeX would be more suitable.

pooyak• 13 years ago

I converted the PDF to a rough markdown: https://github.com/pooyak/hyperloop/blob/master/document/hyp... Needs more clean up, but still easier to work on.

resu2• 13 years ago

If the U.S. doesn't take this on, I hope another country with a big appetite for enormous public transit projects takes this on. Japan, Korea, and China, I'm looking at you...

ianb2• 13 years ago

China seems set on a different path, but I guess you never know. Korea seems too small to benefit. And Japan perhaps too mountainous?

Looking at California: http://bit.ly/1eFevxA And Japan: http://bit.ly/19ZXwbJ I don't see any roads in Japan that are nearly as straight as I-5.

The places where this would make sense have destinations fairly far apart, but not too far apart, with somewhat amenable landscape between them. The Midwest would work, Australia, Russia. Probably Brazil, Argentina? Probably a bunch of connections in Africa or maybe the Mideast... but that wouldn't work for other reasons. East coast seems a bit cramped.

thret• 13 years ago

In Australia this could potentially be viable between Melbourne and Sydney, but probably only if it doubles as a cargo train. I doubt there is enough daily people traffic to warrant it otherwise?

It is around 900km though, almost a straight line along the Hume highway and the busiest city-pair in Australia by a long way.

resu2• 13 years ago

The public in East Asian countries see public transit in a different light than most North Americans, partly due to a lack of cars and the population density. They are probably the some of the few governments that can afford to foot the bill for such an unproven project with potential for dramatic benefits (and cost savings over building HSR), but also with the risk that the 10 billion or so could go down the toilet. Europe would be another ideal target, but I doubt any governments there have the appetite for big capex infrastructure projects right now.

ash• 13 years ago

Russia

Yes, 630+ km Hyperloop between Moscow and Saint-Petersburg would be a great project. Problems:

1. Winter. Would solar panels give enough energy during winter?

2. Highly-inflated cost due to corruption. I would speculate corruption is a big problem for California HSR too, given its cost.

3. "Russian Railways" company monopoly for all intercity railways in the country.

skilesare• 13 years ago

The Republic of Texas would be a good fit. But Southwest Airlines is located here so it would never get through the legislature.

rwmj• 13 years ago

It's interesting that the Shinkansen has raised sections built on pylons, especially the new bits they built in the last few years in the built-up areas in the north of Japan.

nickpinkston• 13 years ago

As does the Chinese system and for the same reasons Musk addresses.

nsxwolf• 13 years ago

It's too bad the tubes and trains can't be made transparent. Imagine the view!

stcredzero2• 13 years ago

Use the technology from Google Streetview to composite the views from cheap cameras mounted at 1/24 second intervals at the top to the tube. You use a cluster of these for a 360 view.

bloaf4• 13 years ago

What will probably happen is that you get a transparent car and advertisements on the inside of the tube.

prawn3• 13 years ago

That fly past a metre from your face at 1,000 km/h!

bobsil1• 13 years ago

Cows on I-5. Greatest benefit is it's an enclosed tube, odors not allowed.

erikpukinskis2• 13 years ago

They should fly a helicopter down the California coast with a 4k camera pointed out towards the ocean and then mount 30" LCD screens next to each seat and play back the video at high speed, with image stabilization, correlated with the position of the train.

thrill• 13 years ago

Each passenger gets an Oculus Rift headset and can choose their virtual route.

andyl• 13 years ago

So where is the 'loop'. Seems like this should be called 'hypertube'.

braum2• 13 years ago

the "loop" is likely at the end of each line so the pods can turn around.

escoz2• 13 years ago

did you read the paper?

nickff3• 13 years ago

loop /lo͞op/ Noun A shape produced by a curve that bends around and crosses itself.

tlb4• 13 years ago

I worry that the necessary straightness of the tube will be difficult to achieve. The pads float 0.5 to 1.3 mm from the inside of the tube, so deviations from straightness on that scale will cause the pads to crash. Any contact at 760 mph would probably damage the pad, plugging the air holes.

bloaf4• 13 years ago

If someone shot the tube with a medium sized gun, would the impact cause an internal defect on the order of 0.5mm?

conroy• 13 years ago

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.

dedward• 13 years ago

Isn't there some kind of inverse square law affecting the force between the walls and capsule? The closer you get to contact, the harder it pushes back?

It should be largely self-correcting.

tlb4• 13 years ago

He doesn't properly address thermal expansion of the entire system. A long straight steel tube from SF to LA will expand a total of 300 meters over a 40C temperature change. Where does it go?

mpyne5• 13 years ago

If I read it right, the movement is absorbed by shock absorbers that need to be installed for earthquake protection anyways. You just need to make sure that the segment between the lateral movement/shock absorbers are sized such that the differential thermal expansion doesn't violate the deflection requirements.

nickff3• 13 years ago

The paper describes having a telescoping section on each end to accommodate thermal expansion, but the previous commenter is stating that it is likely this telescoping method will not be sufficient, as the variation in length of the structure will cause significant bending of the pylons themselves. Between the ends, there is no mechanism to allow for thermal expansion, which will either cause massive axial stress on the steel tube, bending of the pylons, or both. The shock absobers will not have sufficient travel to address this, (100s of meters); axial bearings on the tube may be required.

erikpukinskis2• 13 years ago

I don't know how to do the math, but couldn't it be absorbed by the horizontal play at each plyon? Imagine the tube "zig-zagging" a tiny bit at each column.

tlb4• 13 years ago

To absorb the 15mm expansion over each 30M long tube, you'd need to zig-zag nearly a meter. At full speed you're passing through 10 tubes per second. It would literally shake your head off.

Someone4• 13 years ago

"By building a system on pylons, _where_the_tube_is_not_rigidly_fixed_at_any_point" [...] "A telescoping tube, similar to the boxy ones used to access airplanes at airports would be needed at the end stations to address the cumulative length change of the tube"

So, the tube is lying loose on the pylons, and he assumes it will keep its shape while expanding.

I think that is highly optimistic for a tube that is a straight line, even more so for one that is curved.

If he manages to accomplish that, the end stations will move over 300 meters, in total. Hopefully, when the tube contracts again, the motion will be reversed perfectly. Otherwise, that end station in LA could slowly move north or south over the years.

schiffern2• 13 years ago

If he manages to accomplish that, the end stations will move over 300 meters, in total.

Where are you getting this idea from? That seems like an insane implementation compared to using accordian-like flexible section[s].

eco• 13 years ago

How does rail address this?

jevinskie• 13 years ago

The gaps between each section of rail can be quite large.

tod222• 13 years ago

Prior to the use of continuous welded rail there were gaps between each 39 foot section of rail.

Nowadays with welded rail, careful compliance with construction standards is required. Slow orders are issued during heat waves and frequent track inspections are conducted to look for potential or actual sun kinks.

A good summary of the issue can be found in the Heat Orders FAQ from Virginia Railway Express. [1]

[1] http://www.vre.org/feedback/frequently_asked_questions/faq_h...

triplesec• 13 years ago

Does it have to be steel? Any other materials we can be considering? Some interesting new forms of carbon...?

thedrbrian• 13 years ago

If you want it building for a reasonable cost then it's steel or nothing.

blackjack482• 13 years ago

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 dozen stops. Notably, Hyperloop proposes to bypass all of the SF peninsula, San Jose, and Central Valley cities like Fresno and Bakersfield. HSR was politically viable because these regions were included in the project. Furthermore, the route and station map appears to hint that Hyperloop's stations are positioned away from city centers. For example, the "San Francisco" station appears to be located in the East Bay and the "Los Angeles" station is closer to Burbank. This is quite significant from an urban planning perspective as it means that short haul transit or car trips have to be accommodated for a majority of those people who want to use the system. It also adds to the total travel time needed to get from door to door for a greater number of people than does HSR.

I'm not saying that Hyperloop is an inherently flawed project or that HSR is the perfect solution to the state's long-haul transportation needs. I just think that Musk is oversimplifying the situation.

enraged_camel2• 13 years ago

>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.

blackjack482• 13 years ago

I'm fairly certain they've realized this. My guess is that "Proposed SF-LA tube costs billions less than HSR" makes for a better headline.

joe_the_user• 13 years ago

For example, the "San Francisco" station appears to be located in the East Bay and the "Los Angeles" station is closer to Burbank. This is quite significant from an urban planning perspective as it means that short haul transit or car trips have to be accommodated for a majority of those people who want to use the system. It also adds to the total travel time needed to get from door to door for a greater number of people than does HSR.

I'm not an urban planner but it seems to me that accommodating one station in each city's boondocks might actually be easier than accommodating transit to several stations in the most central areas. San Leandro has a lot more room to build than SF and a lot of people will be coming to the SF HSR station if it's built there (even with a San Jose station).

waterlesscloud• 13 years ago

Burbank isn't even the boondocks. It's just part of the San Fernando Valley sprawl. You literally couldn't tell where it ends and Los Angeles begins without the signs.

Well, ok, and the nicer road surfaces.

Having said that, the map actually looks like it terminates at the northern tip of the valley, where there are current no mass transit rail lines, so you'd be looking at buses or cars from there.

Understandable as land acquisition costs skyrocket once it hits the valley. Still, it's a little misleading cost-wise for that reason.

melling• 13 years ago

That's correct. California waited almost 50 years to build a high-speed rail, and now the "that stuff only works in Europe" mentality is going to be painful to swallow. When I was a kid in the 1970's, I'd see shows with Californians bragging about how they loved their cars, and mass transit wasn't needed. It's really kind of embarrassing how Americans couldn't plan for the obvious.

Unfortunately, It's not going to get any cheaper, and only becomes more difficult as the state becomes more crowded. If "Governor Moon Beam" had build his trains in the 1970's like he tried, we'd now be planning for a 300mph maglev by 2030, just like Japan.

kalleboo• 13 years ago

For example, the "San Francisco" station appears to be located in the East Bay and the "Los Angeles" station is closer to Burbank.

They did this a lot in Japan as well for the Shinkansen. There are a lot of Shin<City-Name> stations built expressly for the Shinkansen because the city center was too crowded. Once the train line is in, a new city blossoms up in the activity around the station.

tomrod• 13 years ago

How does one maintain oxygen ratios?

cocoflunchy• 13 years ago

Interesting quote:

    The intent of this document has been to create a new open source form of 
    transportation that could revolutionize travel. The authors welcome feedback 
    and will incorporate it into future revisions of the Hyperloop project, 
    following other open source models such as Linux.

landhar• 13 years ago

I would really like to see people starting to build small scale models from this design. It could become the new version of building a rocket in your backyard.

sylvinus2• 13 years ago

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...

ianb2• 13 years ago

It would seem to make the stations a lot more complicated – they'd need to handle the car loading, the accompanying traffic, and the security would be really challenging.

LockeWatts2• 13 years ago

Can we not be thinking about adding the inefficiency of the TSA to such a nice system? The security theatre needs to end.

enraged_camel2• 13 years ago

I disagree. The "passenger plus vehicle" option is definitely more complicated, and in the first version of any project you need to keep things as simple as possible. I mean, the system in question is as complex as it is. I think the "passenger plus vehicle" version is included only to make the case for the additional possible uses of the system.

prawn3• 13 years ago

Disagree completely. I'd ditch the vehicle option. If the earliest forecast is for this to be built in seven years, how much will the driving landscape change in that time? Robo-cars even? This is primarily for commuters who can walk/taxi/rent at the destination. Even travellers will do the same.

If you want to take your car, drive it IMO. When you fly, there is no expectation of taking your car along with you and this should be similar - focus on what we will need rather than on what a minority could fancy.

sylvinus2• 13 years ago

I agree to your point about taking your actual car. Loading cars inside would indeed complicate the system a lot.

What I tried to say was more about the psychological impact of imagining a car fit in the capsule, even if the same space is just taken by larger seats.

sukaka• 13 years ago

Could someone buy land in the potential path of this hyperloop then block access or sell the rights or land to make a profit?

sczkid• 13 years ago

No, because of the principle of eminent domain, meaning the government of California can forcefully purchase the land for public use: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain

Legally, whoever tried this would be forced to give over the land for "fair market value", and if they were difficult about it they'd probably receive much less.

JulianMorrison• 13 years ago

Eeeh, that looks awfully cramped. Especially for anyone a little overweight.

drgath• 13 years ago

No more so than flying coach. It actually looks more like flying business class on BA.

adwf3• 13 years ago

Looks like a good idea, but the major glaring technical point that seems to be missing is the issue of horizontal stability within the tube.

When you get very low friction, high speed and no tracks, you're going to start having attitude problems without the right control surfaces available. Don't want to be spinning passengers around the roof of that tunnel!

jessaustin14• 13 years ago

The train could be just very bottom-heavy.

adwf3• 13 years ago

Perhaps on a straight, but in the bends or slopes you'd still need some sort of control. I'm visualising the kind of oscillations that luge or bobsled riders get in the winter olympics when they come out of the corners.

High speed and low friction could mean a lot of potential lateral movement that needs to be controlled somehow. Maybe releasing some of the stored compressed gas in controlled bursts like used in various space endeavours. That would have the added benefit of off-loading some of the potentially dangerous steam.

magoon• 13 years ago

This is supposed to be for commuters? I worry not many would commute daily from LA to SF.

Also, travel time to the station has to be taken into account, even more so if we compare it to driving.

noisy_boy• 13 years ago

Yes they don't because its not feasible _yet_. If your residence/office is within 30 mins from the stations at points of origin/exit, then with this, it'll be about 1.5 hours end-to-end (I'm sure auxiliary services would spring up to support this like shuttle buses etc). I know people who change buses, trains and do some walking, chalking a total of that much right now everyday while working and staying in the same city.

Egregore• 13 years ago

If this system will evolve, how switches will work between different routes? Will it be only from station to station?

fludlight• 13 years ago

Cool concept, but a 500 mile bridge? Elevated transportation routes are expensive [1,2,3]. The utopian dreams tend to give way to an ugly reality [4,5].

The $1 billion budget for land and rights of way also seems wildly optimistic for razing a path through multiple heavily populated metropolitan areas with astronomical real estate prices. And let's not underestimate the tenacity and ingenuity of a determined opposition [6,7].

[1] The 3.2 mile, mostly elevated [1a] BART/OAK connector with dinky little cable cars will cost $361mm for the capital construction alone[1b].

[1a] http://bart.gov/docs/oac/OAC%20Project%20Alignment%20Map%20S...

[1b] (slide 36) http://bart.gov/docs/oac/Microsoft%20PowerPoint%20-%20OAC%20...

[2] http://www.nationalaffairs.com/doclib/20080528_197905505cost...

[3] http://www-pam.usc.edu/volume2/v2i1a3s2.html

[4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=DkZ...

[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embarcadero_Freeway

[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_revolts#California

[7] http://dc.streetsblog.org/2012/06/25/indianas-big-dig-raises... (this one is hilarious)

eru2• 13 years ago

In Singapore all short haul trains (called MRT) are either underground or on Pylons. Seems to work out well enough there.

simonebrunozzi2• 13 years ago

Yes (I lived in Singapore for 2.5 years) but they go quite slow. Top speed of the most recent, unmanned MRT (yellow line) is about 65 Km/h.

jhaglund• 13 years ago

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

In 1905, they built 128 miles of railroad connecting the Florida keys. Since then, engineering has advanced significantly. Overland is still easier than overseas.

rossjudson• 13 years ago

I was trying to figure out where I'd seen this before.

http://www.thecomicking.net/2012/06/25/the-core/

The (terrible) movie "The Core" has a vehicle -- the Virgil.

xoail• 13 years ago

Honestly, this paper should be made as a mandatory reading in schools. Honoring modern science and economics.

205guy• 13 years ago

So what happened to section 5? Is that redacted by the NSA?

kingkawn2• 13 years ago

How would you rescue when pod breaks down mid tube?

drhodes• 13 years ago

The pods have something similar to landing gear for use at speeds less than 100 mph. Still, what happens to pods that are sandwiched between two malfunctioning/mangled pods? I think they should have contingencies where sections of tubes may be excised safely.

realrocker• 13 years ago

Anyone has the resources from this pdf and willing to commit to github? Lets start forking!

triplepoint217• 13 years ago

I sent a request to their feedback email seeing if they would be open to something of that sort. Copy pasting formatting to Markdown/ReST wouldn't be too bad, but it seems to me polite to ask permission.

sschueller• 13 years ago

Isn't the pod going to be extremely loud?

oskarth• 13 years ago

Why is everyone so negative?

Musk just posted a innovative, open-source, thorough, alpha design study which addresses a real problem.

Personally I think it's great, and I hope it gets taken seriously by the right people.

vpuzzella• 13 years ago

Cool stuff here, but I'd rather see them focus their efforts on moving cargo rather than people.

Find a way to remove the cargo (trucks) from the commuter transportation system (roads & highways) and you'll improve the lives of many more people.

Moving cargo is a lot easier than moving people because it doesn't complain or need to go to the bathroom. It also won't be missed by most people if it's destroyed.

Hyperloop Alpha [pdf]

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