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Weather creates a whole mess with tons of missed connections and cancelled flights that can take up a a couple days to sort out. This means that air travel in e
by tdb7893 9y ago
Weather creates a whole mess with tons of missed connections and cancelled flights that can take up a a couple days to sort out. This means that air travel in entire states grinds to a halt a couple of times each year.
- lisper 9y agoFair enough, but in the meantime passengers are not trapped aboard airplanes (which are considerably more comfortable than hyperloop pods). On a few rare occasions passengers have been trapped on airplanes for several hours. This was considered unacceptable and led to major changes in policy.
- eridius 9y agoPassengers still get trapped for hours on airplanes sitting on tarmacs. I feel like there's a couple of stories about that per year, and that's just what gets reported in the media.
- lisper 9y agoNo, they don't, not any more. https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/tarmac-delays-airline-passenger-rights-33011.html https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/tarmac-delays-airlin... Even back in the day when it did happen, it was because of policy, not physical constraints.
- ricardobeat 9y agoThree, or two, hours still counts as 'trapped for hours'. Airplanes are not comfortable at all, and no hyperloop pods actually exist - that statement makes no sense.
- lisper 9y agoExcept that airplanes are designed to be occupied for hours. In particular, airplanes have bathrooms.
- eridius 9y agoAIUI airplanes just sitting on the tarmac don't have AC (because they're not running their engines).
- lisper 9y agoAIUI? (But this is another good point: a failed hyperloop also won't have A/C. That will be a potentially life-threatening problem in Dubai, where the first hyperloop is likely to be built. Summer temperatures there regularly reach 45C.)
- eridius 9y agoAIUI means As I Understand It. Why can't a failed hyperloop have A/C?
- lisper 9y agoAh. So first, commercial aircraft typically start their engines immediately upon leaving the gate. An extended period of time without A/C is extremely rare, and nowadays regulations require A/C for any tarmac delay over an hour. Second, the reason you can't have A/C in a failed hyperloop is that there's nowhere to discharge the heat. As long as the pods are moving you can discharge heat into the tube (because it's not a hard vacuum) but as soon as they stop you can't do that any more.
- eridius 9y agoDischarging heat is a good point. I imagine you could probably design the pods such that if they break down, they could extend radiators to contact the hyperloop wall in order to discharge heat that way. Though actually this raises another question in my mind. How do spacecraft handle heat? Or is the problem with spacecraft keeping them warm enough, rather than dealing with excess heat?
- lxmorj 9y agoYou could easily build in emergency-use-only, slow-speed-required exit valves..
- bonesss 9y agoI kinda can't imagine them not having something comparable to the safety mechanisms in the Chunnel... Basic repairs, emergencies, etc can't require a full service stop across the line. There are solutions used in similar situations that are baseline operational requirements.