4 ms·
sorry for being kind of a buzz kill - but I'd rather see elon musk venture away from traditional engineering ventures and going into life sciences. the hyperloo
by jcfrei 14y ago
sorry for being kind of a buzz kill - but I'd rather see elon musk venture away from traditional engineering ventures and going into life sciences. the hyperloop seems like an interesting concept, but I don't really see where it fits in, given that his electrical revolution of individual transportation succeeds. Very densely populated areas like new york are already reasonably served by a metro - scaling that system might be cheaper and equally effective as the hyperloop described by jacques mattheij. building new tunnels is very expensive and would probably account for most of the costs in this endeavor. additionally finding spare space in dense cities to construct such a hyperloop might be very difficult besides existing sewer systems and electrical lines, offsetting the benefits of the hyperloop (after all this would require massive public funding)
expanding this system to long distances would be really interesting, however even more expensive, given the need to construct long tunnels or tubes.
- jpatokal 14y agoWhatever the Hyperloop is, it's a long-distance transport mechanism, not a replacement for the subway -- he said so much himself: http://inhabitat.com/elon-musks-hyperloop-train-could-travel-from-los-angeles-to-san-francisco-in-30-minutes-flat/ http://inhabitat.com/elon-musks-hyperloop-train-could-travel... Techwise, I still think the Lofstrom loop theory sounds the most likely: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_loop http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_loop
- danpalmer 14y agoMusk has said that he doesn't want to be involved in Hyperloop, and after publishing it next month will just leave it up to others to build/test/commercialise/etc. I guess he doesn't have much time being two CEOs and a CTO.
- aik 14y agoI'm curious what your overall point is? The purpose of new innovations is to improve something. It's possible that in the very short term something like wouldn't be the most cost effective thing, however it's not about the very short term, but rather about the potential. In most existing transportation systems, the potential of the system without large changes has probably mostly been realized. The potential of something like this may be much larger, which is why it would be worthwhile.
- jcfrei 14y agomy overall point is that I would rather see musk devoting his time to more promising and (in my opinion) more valuable projects (which danpalmer just said he would)