Seems to me, that Hyperloop is not only the future, it will benefit all of us and save us a lot of time.

[Space Lynx]

Watch this video in full before commenting please. Keep in mind, even in the pandemic like now, hyperloop would still be better than all other modes of public transport (the pods are more sanitary since only small number of people for each one, versus air being exchanged on an entire train, etc.

it is inevitable to me that due to climate change, we will all be on like a hyperloop system in around 100-150 years, or automated cars at 100%. but to me it seems like Hyperloop is the future. logically speaking it makes a lot of sense. it has almost no maintenance, doesn't cost much to build (don't have to barrel through hills like a railroad track, just build your columns higher or lower for various terrain, etc.

there is a working hyperloop in middle east (I might have the location wrong, I don't know) somewhere Richard Branson's company made, so yeah it's not just hypothetical.

this is an awesome video and it is very much the future imo, it makes a lot of sense, 0 emissions, way faster than normal transport or even bullet trains, easier to build and faster than bullet trains (hyperloop will go 670mph in some sections), etc:

 

[Remeca]

No. It is not practical in reality at all. No more promises and 3D renderings. All the prototypes fail for a reason. High speed rail is a better investment.

 

[Space Lynx]

No. It is not practical in reality at all. No more promises and 3D renderings. All the prototypes fail for a reason. High speed rail is a better investment.

did you watch the video? they have a working prototype...

high speed rail has emissions, this doesn't also train tracks are hard to build and maintain, this is not.

 

[Shrek]

A vacuum tube is easy to build and maintain? Direct to destination?... that is what a car does.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

A vacuum tube is easy to build and maintain? Direct to destination?... that is what a car does.

Cars are disgusting polluters. Fast trains across large countries are much better, direct, and faster.

 

[Remeca]

did you watch the video? they have a working prototype...

I have watched dozens of videos on the topic, and it just isn't feasible, practical, cost effective or safe.



How many seals do you need for 500km of near vacuum tube? How many pumps do you need along the track to keep the near vacuum? How do the prototypes account for thermal expansion? How do you get people out of the tube in the event there is an accident that doesn't kill everyone? How will the survivors breath?

This idea has been around for a long time, what has changed to make it feasible now?

high speed rail has emissions, this doesn't

That isn't true.

also train tracks are hard to build and maintain, this is not.

That isn't true.

 

[Space Lynx]

This idea has been around for a long time, what has changed to make it feasible now?

The video was posted yesterday, official channel of Virgin Hyperloop. They have a working prototype, for the third time. You should probably watch this video as it is the latest and most up to date one, and perhaps you can figure out for yourself what they did, they explain a lot of it there. I'm not an engineer though so I can't repeat or verify any of it as progress. I am simply saying they have a working prototype now, and they MUST know about all the issues you talked about, yet they are still investing billions into it, so... they must have figured something out.

 

[Remeca]

The video was posted yesterday, official channel of Virgin Hyperloop. They have a working prototype, for the third time. You should probably watch this video as it is the latest and most up to date one, and perhaps you can figure out for yourself what they did, they explain a lot of it there. I'm not an engineer though so I can't repeat or verify any of it as progress. I am simply saying they have a working prototype now, and they MUST know about all the issues you talked about, yet they are still investing billions into it, so... they must have figured something out.

You're repeating their objectively false claims, so why would I believe anything they have to say? It's all puffery to get more investors on board. This isn't going anywhere. None of their claims have been demonstrated. There are too many problems they are ignoring, while making the same old false claims that make people think it's a great new technology. It isn't, it's as old as trains and planes, and there's a reason we have planes and trains now and no hyperloop.

 

[Fourstaff]

Due to the geographical spread, all rail transports in US (including Hyperloop) has the "last mile" problem. Take for example: Long Island is 150km (100 miles) long, do you stop every 5 minutes? Or have a complex timetable for some service to skip stops? Or build massive stations to take the thousands of individual pods?

 

[Space Lynx]

Due to the geographical spread, all rail transports in US (including Hyperloop) has the "last mile" problem. Take for example: Long Island is 150km (100 miles) long, do you stop every 5 minutes? Or have a complex timetable for some service to skip stops? Or build massive stations to take the thousands of individual pods?

They show this in the video. The tubes will easily jettison off, its a very simple solution really, and I believe their aim is thousands of individual pods, or not single person but smaller than what you may be thinking, again the video shows estimates and 3d graphics for how they imagine it will all play out.

You're repeating their objectively false claims

so science can never progress? how do you explain Elon Musk's reusable rocket breakthrough?

this video was literally posted yesterday, I'm just saying, it seems like they are making progress and I think that is cool. I do hope it is the future. It would be neat to visit big city museums, etc in short amount of time with no flying, etc. I dislike flying immensely, afraid of heights and such.

 

[joemama]

Looks like it will take a long time until it can actually go into practice, it is just too complicated for our current technology level

 

[Remeca]

I would say, talk to me again when there has been a demonstration of a pod carrying at least one human sized passenger, traveling in a near vacuum, faster than any in-service rail train. It hasn't happened yet.

The video also doesn't answer any very basic reality based questions, like what if someone shoots it? That would rapidly pancake/dismantle the entire tube. If it was ever in operation, I would never ride on one, and after the first catastrophic failure, nobody else will either. Making earth travel more dangerous than space travel sounds like a supremely bad idea.

The video merely restates the same bull buzzwords like "zero emissions" and "faster than any train" hyperloop salesmen have been pitching for years, still without a simple demonstration of such.

 

[ShiBDiB]

train tracks are hard to build and maintain, this is not.

That's a confidently incorrect response...

 

[Fourstaff]

They show this in the video. The tubes will easily jettison off, its a very simple solution really, and I believe their aim is thousands of individual pods, or not single person but smaller than what you may be thinking, again the video shows estimates and 3d graphics for how they imagine it will all play out.

If you look at MTA's website, we are talking about hundred thousand riders per day, up to tens of thousands for the busier stations. how big of a station would they need in order to manage all these pods starting and stopping?

From my experience with various subways around the world, it takes a lot of minutes just to navigate from your basic 2 platform station to street level, let alone the massive number required for this pod concept.

 

[Space Lynx]

If you look at MTA's website, we are talking about hundred thousand riders per day, up to tens of thousands for the busier stations. how big of a station would they need in order to manage all these pods starting and stopping?

From my experience with various subways around the world, it takes a lot of minutes just to navigate from your basic 2 platform station to street level, let alone the massive number required for this pod concept.

well as my original post says, I said in 100-150 years, when we realize it is the only option due to climate change/limited natural resources. You won't have streets anymore, pods will go to houses, to Wal-Mart, everywhere. It will be an entire ecosystem that is built on top of the roads (this is just my guess btw, I am not claiming it as science, just saying it seems like the natural progression of things in 100-150 years... assuming we haven't destroyed ourselves by then)

That's a confidently incorrect response...

Oh? When is the last time you carved out the middle of a giant hill to make a train tunnel through it? You won't have to with hyperloop, it can more easily go around, just adjust the column lengths, etc.

 

[Remeca]

You can't have pods traveling in near vacuum tubes at high speeds. The air will build up a pressure wave in front of it until.... There's a reason many renderings have giant turbines on the front of them, and then read about why this idea was abandoned a century ago. This is a ridiculous waste of money and resources, isn't green, isn't futuristic, and isn't better than anything we already have.

 

[Fourstaff]

well as my original post says, I said in 100-150 years, when we realize it is the only option due to climate change/limited natural resources. You won't have streets anymore, pods will go to houses, to Wal-Mart, everywhere. It will be an entire ecosystem that is built on top of the roads (this is just my guess btw, I am not claiming it as science, just saying it seems like the natural progression of things in 100-150 years... assuming we haven't destroyed ourselves by then)

100-150 years is sufficiently far enough to claim possibility, and both of us will not be around to prove it. In that case, then they should stop this Hyperloop experiment until 80 years later, since it shouldn't take more than a couple of decades from proof of concept to mass deployment.

As for the maintenance side of the story, anything that deals with pressure or temperature differential costs a lot of maintenance money. This thing with vacuum + meglev means it will be at least an order of magnitude more expensive as conventional railtracks.

 

[Space Lynx]

100-150 years is sufficiently far enough to claim possibility, and both of us will not be around to prove it. In that case, then they should stop this Hyperloop experiment until 80 years later, since it shouldn't take more than a couple of decades from proof of concept to mass deployment.

As for the maintenance side of the story, anything that deals with pressure or temperature differential costs a lot of maintenance money. This thing with vacuum + meglev means it will be at least an order of magnitude more expensive as conventional railtracks.

I think the idea is to try to save the Earth before it is to late, I think that is what Richard Branson is hoping for with this, but I honestly have no idea. I'm pretty sure Elon Musk thinks its too late to save Earth, hence his hyper focus on self-sustaining colonies on Mars.

You can't have pods traveling in near vacuum tubes at high speeds. The air will build up a pressure wave in front of it until.... There's a reason many renderings have giant turbines on the front of them, and then read about why this idea was abandoned a century ago. This is a ridiculous waste of money and resources, isn't green, isn't futuristic, and isn't better than anything we already have.

I'm not disagreeing with you at all, I just found that video interesting and it was just posted yesterday. I think it's just neat to think about and discuss is all. I hope they do figure it out personally, if it was truly impossible, I find it hard to believe they would still be trying though.

 

[joemama]

well as my original post says, I said in 100-150 years, when we realize it is the only option due to climate change/limited natural resources. You won't have streets anymore, pods will go to houses, to Wal-Mart, everywhere. It will be an entire ecosystem that is built on top of the roads (this is just my guess btw, I am not claiming it as science, just saying it seems like the natural progression of things in 100-150 years... assuming we haven't destroyed ourselves by then)

If it's 100~150 years, I would still bet on improved automobiles such as a whole system of auto driving electric cars, the hyperloop idea is limited by it's mobility, you need to have tubes going everywhere to make it happen and the tube maintenance is a big problem.

 

[Fourstaff]

I think the idea is to try to save the Earth before it is to late, I think that is what Richard Branson is hoping for with this, but I honestly have no idea. I'm pretty sure Elon Musk thinks its too late to save Earth, hence his hyper focus on self-sustaining colonies on Mars.

If the objective is to save Earth, this will not be the solution. We will be emitting crazy amount of CO2 just by building a parallel set of infrastructure to get this hyperloop up, and will still need to maintain existing infrastructure to transport bulky objects. Sounds like a no-win scenario to me.

 

[Space Lynx]

If it's 100~150 years, I would still bet on improved automobiles such as a whole system of auto driving electric cars, the hyperloop idea is limited by it's mobility, you need to have tubes going everywhere to make it happen and the tube maintenance is a big problem.

perhaps if we have a breakthrough in batteries I'd agree with you, eventually we run out of oil.

I guess if we figure out Fusion which is a long shot still but hopeful... then we could have unlimited hydrogen power I suppose.

battery based cars are still again dependent on natural resources that can't last forever.

If the objective is to save Earth, this will not be the solution. We will be emitting crazy amount of CO2 just by building a parallel set of infrastructure to get this hyperloop up, and will still need to maintain existing infrastructure to transport bulky objects. Sounds like a no-win scenario to me.

I have no idea on this, I'm in the Elon Musk camp at this point, in the sense we need to colonize Mars sooner rather than later, since we can't seem to control our short term greed.

 

[droopyRO]

yperloop would still be better than all other modes of public transport (the pods are more sanitary since only small number of people for each one,

If people would get easely covid or other airborne disease from riding public transportation, we would have millions of cases each day. It only matters what is practical and can be implemented around the world. If a few wealthy countries make a fancy train, it changes nothing globally. I don't see this being implemented in our lifetime nor do i see colonizing any planet as a posibility without a major power source that dose not go kaboom with the power of millions of kilograms of TNT

 

[Space Lynx]

If people would get easely covid or other airborne disease from riding public transportation, we would have millions of cases each day. It only matters what is practical and can be implemented around the world. If a few wealthy countries make a fancy train, it changes nothing globally. I don't see this being implemented in our lifetime nor do i see colonizing any planet as a posibility without a major power source that dose not go kaboom with the power of millions of kilograms of TNT

Oh, I don't see either one ever happening either, that is the great irony of our species, capable of so much, yet so little.

 

[mtcn77]

How many seals do you need for 500km of near vacuum tube? How many pumps do you need along the track to keep the near vacuum? How do the prototypes account for thermal expansion? How do you get people out of the tube in the event there is an accident that doesn't kill everyone? How will the survivors breath?

People need to understand jakuzis work with the same Venturi principle that can collapse a stupid Hyperloop tunnel. The collapse happens when the 'vacuum fails', so it is inherently critically unsafe as even transient vacuum loss will meet with huge air velocity that will surpass operating stress limits.

Haven't we experienced pressure shock from passing cars at the side of the road? Tunnels will be just as reliable as hovercrafts are which aren't long term durable. Anything working with pressure is doomed to plastic deformation.(unless we cover the entire site with metallic glass).

Hyperloop is only viable since steel (and rare metals for magnets) to make maglev infrastructure is so expensive and the dream is to make it out of concrete(sort of). We know how tensionally durable that is.

 

[Vayra86]

Cars are disgusting polluters. Fast trains across large countries are much better, direct, and faster.

Sure, until you find out you need a whole list of transportation to really get where you need to be. This requires planning, preparation, time, all those things people really like to skip past so they can get in the car and drive, typing the destination on nav while they nearly hit a kid on a bike as they drive out of town.

Let's face it, we're lazy motherfuckers.

I think the idea is to try to save the Earth before it is to late, I think that is what Richard Branson is hoping for with this, but I honestly have no idea. I'm pretty sure Elon Musk thinks its too late to save Earth, hence his hyper focus on self-sustaining colonies on Mars.

The ideas there are to make money and have fun doing it. If we wanted to save the Earth, we'd be talking about reduction, not changes. Changes like these are just progress, they're not saving anything.

Save the Earth... means less people. Did you hear China just lifted its child birth limitations? Good luck placing your solar panels and tubes.