3 ms·
He also said that there aren't any rails and it runs on the ground. At the moment, we have a Concorde without wings[0] (a lifting body Concorde, perhaps?) cross
by qxcv 14y ago
He also said that there aren't any rails and it runs on the ground. At the moment, we have a Concorde without wings[0] (a lifting body Concorde, perhaps?) crossed with a railgun without rails. Sounds like vaporware.
[0]: It could still have wings but operate under ground effect, though it seems that it would be difficult to keep your leading edge intact travelling just above a hard surface "twice as fast as an airliner". "Twice as fast as an airliner" is Mach 0.85 * 2 = Mach 1.7 at FL360, which translates into Mach 1.5 at sea level. One useful thing we learn from this is that this system will basically have to be propelled by compressed air or electromagnetic force, since props don't work over Mach 1 and we don't have electric turbines.
- lnanek2 14y agoHmm, well I guess roads are cheaper than rails (i.e. rails along the entire route of the trip, not speed up rails like in a rail gun). And powering something from fixed locations (guns) is cheaper than bringing your engine with you. So maybe it is like a train, one person per, but it runs on cheap road like track, and it's propulsion is provided by fixed stations. If each track was a straight run from station to station you could just ditch the wheels and whatnot and fire the thing between stations along the ground. There's no way it could move so fast and still use car roads, unfortunately, so it will still have problems buying track space or building tunnels or building elevated paths. Too bad it runs on the ground.
- eru 14y ago> Hmm, well I guess roads are cheaper than rails [...] We could look that up. But considering that roads and rails the world over are often build by governments or government owned corporations, I expect Elon Musk to have found a much cheaper way to build his infrastructure.