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Discharging 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 hyperloo
by eridius 9y ago
Discharging 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?
- lisper 9y agoSpacecraft use radiators to radiate excess heat into space. Depending on how close they are to the sun they can have both heating and cooling problems simultaneously. The side facing the sun can get too hot and the side away from the sun can get too cold. Thermal management of spacecraft is an engineering discipline unto itself. (I used to work for NASA.) Radiating heat to the tube won't work because the tube is either above ground, in which case it's likely to be much hotter than ambient if the sun is up, or underground, in which case you've effectively wrapped the tube in a nice insulating blanket of dirt, and again there is no place for the heat to go.
- eridius 9y agoI mean, you could build an active cooling system for the tube, and start it up whenever you have a broken-down pod radiating heat into the tube, though that seems like a lot of effort / complexity. Maybe the focus should be on how to get people out of a broken-down pod within a reasonable period of time rather than cooling said broken-down pod. Unfortunately I don't have any ideas on this front.