35 ms·

Hyperloop

• thatoneguy 13y ago
  From my skimming of the PDF, it sounds like a pneumatic tube transportation system with a compressor fan on the front of the vehicle that moves high-pressure air from the front to the back maintaining a low-pressure state around the vehicle. Kind of like an Earth-bound Alcubierre drive.
  • qiemem 13y ago
    The pumped air is also used to create an air cushion around the pod to keep it suspended at high speeds. Also, solar panels line the top of the tube so that it is self powering.
    • at-fates-hands 13y ago
      If this is going to be running above ground, how do they purpose to find space to even build this? http://mappery.com/maps/Los-Angeles-California-Transportation-Map.gif http://mappery.com/maps/Los-Angeles-California-Transportatio... My only guess would be to build it vertically. . which is were everything is going anyways, right?
      • barefoot 13y ago
        Pylons above the existing I-5 freeway.
      • athenagoras 13y ago
        It would not be built anywhere on the map in your link. The LA station is in Santa Clarita which is further north and west. It seems to me that he has laid out a route that avoids as much as possible dense urban areas. Even his extensions out to Vegas and San Diego by pass most of the urban development in the LA basin.
  • tootie 13y ago
    Does it support multiple pods in the tube at once?
    • bostonvaulter2 13y ago
      Yes but they need to be 5 miles apart so they would board approximately every 30 seconds and carry 28 people each.
    • jswhitten 13y ago
      Yes, a pod would depart every 2 minutes or less, which puts about 23 miles between them.
      • Florin_Andrei 13y ago
        I think it's actually more useful to think in terms of "2 minutes between them", as opposed to "23 miles". 2 minutes is all you have - to detect the situation, make a decision, then stop.
        • Turing_Machine 13y ago
          How much time do you have in heavy freeway traffic?
          • lmm 13y ago
            Four seconds, if you're driving the way you were instructed. But you've got multiple options: go left or right, and if you slam the brakes they'll stop you in time. If something broke the tube, are we looking at several pods slamming into the obstruction one after the other?
          • Florin_Andrei 13y ago
            The two situations you're comparing are vastly dissimilar.
    • Tloewald 13y ago
      Yes, but no discussion of how you'd bring the system down if one broke down mid-trip or how you'd bring it back up. The individual cars only carry power to maintain speed, no to accelerate, so if they have to stop because something goes wrong, a whole bunch of people are stuck in the middle of nowhere without a toilet (or air?)
• _random_ 13y ago
  I think his vision is based on Futurama: electric cars -> spaceships -> elevated transportation tubes -> hover cars -> robots. I bet if the government still goes with the traditional rail plan, then Elon will build "his own hyperloop", adding "blackjack..." and other stuff.
• Andrenid 13y ago
  Announcement any minute now according to Elon Musk's twitter: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/366964441159438337 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/366964441159438337 Edit: First article - http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-08-12/revealed-elon-musk-explains-the-hyperloop http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-08-12/revealed-elo... Edit2: Site OP linked to is up, but may be cached for you. Try http://www.spacex.com/hyperloop?1 http://www.spacex.com/hyperloop?1
• untog 13y ago
  A "coming soon" page is at the top of HN?
  • frankblizzard 13y ago
    for the second time now, yes. see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6201160 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6201160 which was closed
  • treeform 13y ago
    I think a lot of people (including me) are excited by what he has to say. By all indication it should have showed up 7min ago.
  • kevin_rubyhouse 13y ago
    It should have been already published (at 1:30 pacific time.) https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/366964441159438337 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/366964441159438337
    • btilly 13y ago
      SpaceX has a history of failed launches before settling into a routine of spectacular success. Hopefully their inability to publish this page on time will prove to be another example of the same. ;-)
• deleted 13y ago
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  • krallja 13y ago
    The Segway. New Coke. Google Wave. Musk's Hyperloop. Today is histrionic.
• deleted 13y ago
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  • ehsanu1 13y ago
    I think you're not seeing the latest updates. Here's a direct link to the pdf: http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/hyperloop_alpha-20130812.pdf http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/hyperloop_alpha-201...
  • avree 13y ago
    The page contains a full description of the Hyperloop and a link to a PDF with technical details. You're linking to your own HN story, which has fewer comments, and fewer details in the actual story. (Also, why not link directly to the _actual_ news story @ Businessweek as you mention?)
    • czottmann 13y ago
      By the time I've posted both the Businessweek link and the comment the SpaceX.com page was a mere placeholder. A few minutes later their site cache cleared. Context is everything. ;) In any case, I've deleted the comment you were referring as it's not relevant anymore.
• lem72 13y ago
  I have never been more excited for a coming soon page.
• sethbannon 13y ago
  It's very interesting that this is a SpaceX project. Why not Tesla, or another company entirely?
  • fourstar 13y ago
    Probably because SpaceX has more autonomy since it doesn't need to meet the expectations of shareholders -- the same reason Musk isn't planning on an IPO with SpaceX for a really really long time.
    • cryptoz 13y ago
      I think the SpaceX IPO is planned for about 5-10 years from now - that's not too long. The only indication we have is that MCT will be making regular trips to Mars before SpaceX IPOs, and they seem pretty set on that happening in the next decade.
  • deletes 13y ago
    They just quickly needed a webpage to display the data.
  • kevin_rubyhouse 13y ago
    Elon said that he isn't going to work on his Hyperloop idea. http://www.businessinsider.com/musk-too-busy-for-hyperloop-2013-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/musk-too-busy-for-hyperloop-2...
  • tephra 13y ago
    He has said that he will not do it himself, just publish the idea and let someone else do it.
  • gkoberger 13y ago
    EDIT: It was posted both places, so I wouldn't read into it at all (http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/hyperloop http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/hyperloop http://www.spacex.com/hyperloop http://www.spacex.com/hyperloop) ----------- I wouldn't read into that. Musk has said he has no intention of developing it; he probably just needed a place to put it. SpaceX makes as much sense as anything else. That being said -- hopefully he lied when he said he had no interest, in order to quell speculation until the announcement. Kind of like how Apple says they'll never ever launch certain things... right up until they do it.
• polarix 13y ago
  HYPE*rloop
• deleted 13y ago
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• bobzimuta 13y ago
  Cache needs busting http://www.spacex.com/hyperloop?a=b http://www.spacex.com/hyperloop?a=b nm, they fixed it
  • dwaltrip 13y ago
    Hot damn it's there
  • jcfrei 13y ago
    thanks! here's the actual pdf: http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/hyperloop_alpha-20130812.pdf http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/hyperloop_alpha-201...
• pedelman 13y ago
  http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/hyperloop_alpha-20130812.pdf http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/hyperloop_alpha-201...
• rbhatia 13y ago
  its up now
• deleted 13y ago
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• mwein 13y ago
  It's now up on http://www.spacex.com/hyperloop http://www.spacex.com/hyperloop
• MarcScott 13y ago
  It's there now. No longer a holding page
• deleted 13y ago
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• aresant 13y ago
  "In the case of the Hyperloop, Musk started focusing on public transportation after he grew disenchanted with the plans for California’s high-speed rail system." And who says that big government stifles entrepreneurial innovation? If ALL Musk does with the Hyperloop announcement is shed more light on the potential debacle that is to be our $70b+ high-speed rail in California, we owe him a debt of gratitude. PS - Direct link to the Hyperloop plans .PDF http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/hyperloop_alpha-20130812.pdf http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/hyperloop_alpha-201...
  • zeckalpha 13y ago
    Comments on the whitepaper: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6201728 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6201728
  • melling 13y ago
    So, we have "light shed" on the current "debacle" and neither system gets built. That's a win? HSR was first commerically available in 1964. Yes, it got really expensive waiting 50 years. I imagine it'll be even more expensive in another 20-30. California is going to get even more crowded.
    • Shivetya 13y ago
      Not building the HSR that is envisioned is the win.
    • tptacek 13y ago
      That's an argument in favor of a useful HSR system. But politics have resulted California's HSR system being deliberately pessimized; it may do more harm than good to the HSR cause, right?
      • slacka 13y ago
        “The man who moved a mountain was the one who began carrying away small stones.” -Chinese Proverb I've lived in China for over 3 years, and spend countless hours riding the HSR system. HSR combines the speed of a plane, with the cost and convenience of a regular bus. Traveling through the countryside of China at 380km/h made me feel like I was in the future. Coming home and seeing the the sad state of our infrastructure was a harsh reality check. Granted China has a massive manufacturing/mining complex and cheap labor. But if we hadn't squandered 5 Trillion on "War on Terror" and domestic spying, I'm sure we could kept our lead in infrastructure and still has some left over to boost education / R&D spending. In the past 20 years China's moved their mountain. Hopefully the hyperloop will help us to catch up.
• Lewton 13y ago
  Holy hell A 57 page document I expected mostly fluff.
  • andrewfelix 13y ago
    Don't speak too soon. There is quite a bit of fluff amongst that 57 pages. This is mostly conceptual.
  • hnha 13y ago
    To me those sentences don't really fit together. 57 pages is a lot so let's hope it actually is not mostly fluff. I won't read that so I would be much happier with a 100 word tldr.
    • kilroy123 13y ago
      Personally, I'd prefer a video explaining this to the layman.
      • scotth 13y ago
        The first few pages are an explanation in layman's terms.
        • hnha 13y ago
          thanks, you made me download it :)
  • Florin_Andrei 13y ago
    "Mostly fluff" is not exactly this guy's style.
• jared314 13y ago
  > Hyperloop is considered an open source transportation concept. I'm glad they didn't just let the idea die on a drawing board somewhere because of a lack of time/money. Now, someone has to just develop it faster than someone else can legislate against it.
  • toyg 13y ago
    Given the sort of heavy infrastructure required and their related permits, I'd assume that whoever actually starts an effort to build a HL-like system, will have local politicians on board.
    • r00fus 13y ago
      These days, politicians have to stay bought. And any competitor or detractor can derail your effort by buying off one of the local politicos. This is one of the biggest reasons northern CA doesn't already have a bunch of such systems already in place.
  • digikata 13y ago
    It would be more interesting to see a company with the technical (and probably political) chops to pick it up. GE comes to mind because they have the industrial and scale out know how in multiple system areas needed for hyperloop. But maybe it would interfere to much with their air and train businesses. Then again, if you established yourself as being able to build all components of a hyperloop system, I imagine that could be a long lucrative business market... The question for GE and other similar industry companies which have build-in capability to construct this is if they can lift themselves out of the comfort their existing markets.
• venomsnake 13y ago
  (Figure 1). The only system that comes close to matching the low energy requirements of Hyperloop is the fully electric Tesla Model S. Shameless plug of the day :) So far it does not break too much of the laws of physics and is indeed workable.
  • MBCook 13y ago
    I also enjoyed that the vehicle carrying option could hold larger vehicles "like the Tesla Model X".
    • escoz 13y ago
      Not only that, but they would also use a lot of technology that Tesla/SpaceX now has a lot of experience in: battery, eletric engines and turbines, the metal for the ski pads, etc. There's a reason why he is making the plan completely free: he has a lot to benefit if this ever really happens. I would love to see this happen though, and to see Elon become a trillionaire.
• swalsh 13y ago
  From a telecommunications stand point, we were just starting to get handovers to work on high speed rail, now we have to get it to work on super sonic transport? come on now :D
• revelation 13y ago
  The aerodynamic power requirements at 700 mph (1,130 kph) is around only 134 hp (100 kW) with a drag force of only 72 lbf (320 N) Mind blown.
  • acadien 13y ago
    But that's at a pressure of 100Pa (1/1000 atm). How much power does it take to maintain a vacuum of 1/1000atm in a tube hundreds of miles long? It seems this point is skipped over in the whitepaper, so perhaps its negligible. Edit: yes I was referring to the power to sustain a vacuum in a leaky system, of course no power is required to maintain a vacuum in a perfectly sealed system :)
    • btgeekboy 13y ago
      I think that's handled by the rooftop solar cells.
      • rozap 13y ago
        Right, but that power is coming from somewhere, which costs something. Not a deal breaker, but saying "only 134hp" is sort of missing the point.
    • ansible 13y ago
      How much power does it take to maintain a vacuum of 1/1000atm in a tube hundreds of miles long? It doesn't require any power, if there are no leaks. The power required will be determined by the amount of leakage that is considered tolerable to the system.
      • nawitus 13y ago
        There'll certainly be leaks, it's another question how much.
      • hristov 13y ago
        But there will be leaks. He himself said there would be leaks and he would use commercial pumps to continuously keep the vacuum.
• jessaustin 13y ago
  I think it's interesting to devote so much space in the introduction to hypothetical supersonic air travel. Might this be what Musk actually intends to do next?
  • VandyILL 13y ago
    In an interview last we he stated that his next company would be vertical take off supersonic electric jet, if he decided to start another company. He said he's not likely to start another company any time soon.
• pjungwir 13y ago
  The key advantages of a tube vs. a railway track are that it can be built above the ground on pylons and it can be built in prefabricated sections that are dropped in place and joined with an orbital seam welder. Did anyone else read this and imagine laser beams fired by satellites?
  • druiid 13y ago
    Not really. It's a valid welding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_welding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_welding), but I imagine it might be quite a task to scale it up to pipes as large as would be needed for this project.
    • hyperbovine 13y ago
      For some reason Elon Musk is extremely enamored of welding technology. I remember seeing a page on an old version of the SpaceX site containing a high-level overview of the Falcon 9, where they went out of the way to mention how great circumferential friction stir welding is compared to whatever NASA used to do. And here he is bragging about it being the large stir welded thing ever created: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2009/01/musk-ambition-spacex-aim-for-fully-reusable-falcon-9/ http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2009/01/musk-ambition-spacex-.... It's a revolutionary vehicle in many regards, but Elon seems to have a particular soft spot for welds.
      • digikata 13y ago
        Makes sense, most of the volume in a rocket is a tube structure. I imagine that SpaceX has spent a lot of time evaluating ways to precisely and cost-effectively build tubes...
    • spikels 13y ago
      Orbital welders can be used in pipes on any size (smaller sizes often need special welders). Not sure what the record is but they are commonly used on water pipes that are several meters in diameter. Should work fine for the Hyperloop tube. Seems like all the required technology is proven but I'm sure we will hear more from all the experts in the various fields.
• deleted 13y ago
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• chrismealy 13y ago
  So, it's a two-lane highway where the cars are 5 miles apart? How many people will be able to use this thing?
  • aaronmarks 13y ago
    From the report: "...with capsules departing as often as every 30 seconds from each terminal and carrying 28 people each. This gives a total of 7.4 million people each way that can be transported each year on Hyperloop."
    • acadien 13y ago
      That seems like a pretty optimistic estimate, but I suppose its a guessing game for such a hypothetical system anyways. Also, for comparison BART ridership tops up at over 100 million a year[1], and 6 million fly between LA and SanFran annually[2]. [1] http://www.bart.gov/docs/barttimes/BTimes0707.pdf http://www.bart.gov/docs/barttimes/BTimes0707.pdf [2] http://cahsr.blogspot.com/2009/10/la-sf-nations-second-busiest-air-route.html http://cahsr.blogspot.com/2009/10/la-sf-nations-second-busie...
    • cma 13y ago
      Eventually hits up against this problem: http://books.google.com/books?id=DenWKRgqzWMC&pg=PA67&lpg=PA67&dq=schelling+ski+lift&source=bl&ots=dMjA9zdq94&sig=0Chc-xZxKhla1GMrY0AGEd_2GAQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=i1QJUpTBFOL0yQH60YGIDg&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=schelling%20ski%20lift&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=DenWKRgqzWMC&pg=PA67&lpg=PA...
      • typon 13y ago
        Wow...this is one of those rare intuitive insights that make you think "I'm not as smart as I thought"
      • CamperBob2 13y ago
        Question: if speeding up the ski lift cars makes the lines longer, why wouldn't slowing them down make the lines shorter? These arguments always seem to presuppose that the status quo is optimal, and ignore the limiting cases.
• bttf 13y ago
  One of the few times I've read the word 'pylon' without being concerned with some video game.
• rthomas6 13y ago
  I am skeptical of the proposed cost were someone to actually build this. Sure, the cost of materials, labor, engineering, etc. is probably accurate, but something like this has never been built before. What about the cost of research and testing? Not to mention there doesn't currently exist an industry of contractors to build most of the parts of this system, which is not true in the case of traditional high speed rails. Citing the cost to build something like the Hyperloop as the entire cost of developing it seems a bit disingenuous. Not that it still wouldn't be comparable to the cost of a high speed rail system.
  • deleted 13y ago
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  • marze 13y ago
    $6B buys a lot. If your day job is getting people to Mars, a system like this is a relaxing side project.
  • munificent 13y ago
    > something like this has never been built before That was true of everything, once.
    • jarek 13y ago
      Doesn't mean building the first one should be expected to be easy.
      • waterlesscloud 13y ago
        What about the 2nd through the 5000th? All the cost skeptics want to roll all the R&D costs into one line. That wouldn't be the case.
        • jarek 13y ago
          The 5000th doesn't help the person who paid for the first one. That would be the State of California in this case. Unless Mr. Musk would be willing to sign a contract for expected-10th-implementation-cost and not a dollar more?
• ajiang 13y ago
  So who wants to start a company? I'll uh...come up with the business plan. Seriously though, this would be an incredible project to work on. I wonder, outside of Elon Musk, who would take on the challenge?
  • prawn 13y ago
    Might Tony Hsieh champion a group pushing for LA to Vegas? I imagine SF-Vegas might have a roundabout route.
    • ajiang 13y ago
      That could definitely make sense. Vegas might even put up some capital to make it easier for people to visit and put their hard earned dollars to good use. I can also imagine that from an infrastructure standpoint building across desert you'd run into fewer obstacles, although that might be wishful / oversimplified thinking.
      • prawn 13y ago
        And 30 minutes would mean that you could go to Vegas on a Friday or Saturday night and return to crash in your own place.
      • jblock 13y ago
        Probably, though the thermal shock might be a lot more exaggerated (hot-ass days, cold-ass nights). But the solar power mechanism would definitely be more viable in the desert.
• dkulchenko 13y ago
  That capsule (http://images.bwbx.io/cms/2013-08-12/0812_Hyperloop_605.jpg http://images.bwbx.io/cms/2013-08-12/0812_Hyperloop_605.jpg) looks like a claustrophobic's nightmare. Otherwise very, very cool.
  • popopje 13y ago
    what happens when you develop unexpected gastric issues mid-30 minute journey?
    • venomsnake 13y ago
      Well the pod has compressor - so it literally can hit the fan :) The only thing I really dislike so far is the battery pack in the pod. I would have wanted to see something more elegant instead. And this way we halve the weight of the pod.
      • dclowd9901 13y ago
        For the lack of space between the tube and the carrier, is wireless electrical transfer out of the question? Or is that not feasible with the amount of electricity being dealt with here?
        • adventureartist 13y ago
          My understanding is that putting the air power in the capsule is in part to make the tube simpler and cheaper to make and maintain.
        • mpyne 13y ago
          Wireless power transfer would likely significantly complicate the design and construction of the tube itself, which as it stands can be just a dumb hollow cylinder on a stick for the vast majority of its length. Perhaps the redundant vacuum pumps are spaced frequently enough that the power transfer problem would be easy, but I doubt it.
    • r00fus 13y ago
• mesozoic 13y ago
  I like how the head of the project called him to make sure he knows it's not the absolute slowest or most expensive per mile only nearly so.
• delsarto 13y ago
  No toilet, and no way to get off, or even really stand up? I know some personal jets lack such facilities, but they're not exactly open to the public. At least on BART you can move away from the crazy...
  • mandeepj 13y ago
    it's a 35 min commute so those things are not necessarily required. Amenities can be built outside the boarding station
  • SuperChihuahua 13y ago
    LA -> SF in 30 minutes. Why would you need a toilet?
    • thenomad 13y ago
      Unless it breaks down. In which case the "toilet" question might become quite pressing, quite quickly.
      • laxatives 13y ago
        That issue holds for lots of modes of transportation (BART, buses, gridlocked traffic...)
  • clarkmoody 13y ago
    The paper mentions two tube diameters, supporting "more versatile" Hyperloop capsules in the larger version. Also, with a 35-minute trip time, these concerns are well within the realm of "hold it" till the next stop.
  • dvmmh 13y ago
    No toilets on commuter buses either and people ride them 45minutes to 1+ hours everyday with no issues. You're stuck in the "long trip" "it's like a train" framework. It is neither.
    • 13y ago
• wavesounds 13y ago
  Jerry Brown: Build this tube!
• Matti 13y ago
  "Hyperloop Passenger Capsule The maximum width is 4.43 ft (1.35 m) and maximum height is 6.11 ft (1.10 m). With rounded corners, this is equivalent to a 15 ft2 (1.4 m2) frontal area, not including any propulsion or suspension components." At a first look I didn't get that the proposed passenger capsule would be so small. That's pretty cramped. Edit: Isn't the the ft to m conversion for the height wrong?
  • toyg 13y ago
    Or pretty exclusive.
  • mladenkovacevic 13y ago
    Yeah that should definitely be 2.10 meters
    • Gravityloss 13y ago
      Or then the m to ft conversion is wrong.
    • dragonwriter 13y ago
      From the pictures, 1.10m heigth with 1.35m width looks more right; in any case, there's no simple typo: If the feet are correct, (6.11 ft), then it should be 1.86m, not 1.10m (or 2.10m as you suggest.) If the meters are correct (1.10m), it should be 3.61 ft (not 6.11 ft).
      • codfrantic 13y ago
        Wouldn't they write 6 foot 11 inches as 6.11 (eventhough it's confusing and wrong). Because that would make it 2.10 meters.
        • dragonwriter 13y ago
          I suppose that's the most plausible explanation. (Doesn't seem to match the height-width relationship in the sketches, but its the only thing that makes the particular numbers used understandable as a fairly simple-to-explain error.)
• deleted 13y ago
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• bostonvaulter2 13y ago
  How long would it take to get from San Fran to LA? Edit: nevermind, it is about 30 minutes
• amitdugar 13y ago
  This is such a cool concept. I was so hoping he would build this.
• featherless 13y ago
  Thought this was amazing: $20 for a one-way, 35 minute trip from SF to LA.
  • nazgulnarsil 13y ago
    Well it has to beat a standard commuter car (~$45 one way@34mpg) by a significant margin to be useful for consumers. What about freight?
    • greedo 13y ago
      Time is money too. The drive from SF to LA is about 5.5 hours (per Google Maps). 5.5 hours of stress and frustration, compared to 30-40 minutes of hyperloop...
      • bobsil1 13y ago
        Up to 8 hours when there's construction on I-5, jams into your destination city, or when you're taking kids who need bathroom breaks.
      • mikeyouse 13y ago
        Just as an anecdote.. We had some friends from Orange County come visit us in SF this past weekend. * OC -> SF -- Left at 3pm, took 9.5hrs to drive * SF -> OC -- Left at 9pm, took 7 hours to drive There is random night construction as well as detours and traffic to worry about on I-5. Half an hour would be a no-brainer, even if it only went so far as downtown LA.
      • nazgulnarsil 13y ago
        good point. Also my estimate is the marginal cost for a car vs the ammortized total cost for the hyperloop.
      • Florin_Andrei 13y ago
        > The drive from SF to LA is about 5.5 hours (per Google Maps). If I tried to do it in 5.5 hours in the real world, with traffic, I'm pretty sure I'd get arrested at some point.
• MaysonL 13y ago
  Ah – a turboprop tubular-ground-effect vehicle.
• clebio 13y ago
  > 4.5.6. Human Related Incidents Hyperloop would feature the same high level of security used at airports. However, the regular departure of Hyperloop capsules would result in a steadier and faster flow of passengers through security screening compared to airports. Ugh. That only seems feasible if back-scatter scanners are the only option (but would you still have to take your belt off and put all metal in a little bowl?).
  • untog 13y ago
    Wow, yeah, that basically ruins a significant part of the appeal to me.
  • macinjosh 13y ago
    I can't wait to get frisked by one of Musk's minions!
  • ngoldbaum 13y ago
    The TSA phased out all the X-ray backscatter machines due to radiation concerns. All the scanners at airports use millimeter wave radar now. Still the same privacy concerns, but no ionizing radiation and thus no possible health concerns.
    • newman314 13y ago
      WRONG. Such machines are still in use and besides, neither machine machine has provably been better than plain old metal detectors. http://tsastatus.net/ http://tsastatus.net/
      • ngoldbaum 13y ago
        Was this CNN article wrong then? I don't travel very much, but haven't seen an X-Ray backscatter machine since last year. http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/29/travel/tsa-backscatter http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/29/travel/tsa-backscatter
  • Turing_Machine 13y ago
    You'd really only have to scan for explosives. Knives or even guns would only pose a problem to the few passengers in the capsule with you (yeah, you might be able to shoot a hole through the tube, but it would take a LONG TIME for a bullet hole to let in enough air to affect the pressure in a LA-SF-sized tube). It's not like you can hijack the thing. :-)
• ehsanu1 13y ago
  Some interesting tidbits: The total trip time is approximately half an hour, with capsules departing as often as every 30 seconds from each terminal and carrying 28 people each. This gives a total of 7.4 million people each way that can be transported each year on Hyperloop. The total cost of Hyperloop in this analysis is under $6 billion USD. Amortizing this capital cost over 20 years and adding daily operational costs gives a total of about $20 USD (in current year dollars) plus operating costs per one-way ticket on the passenger Hyperloop. For aerodynamic efficiency, the velocity of a capsule in the Hyperloop is - typically: 300 mph (480 kph) where local geography necessitates a tube bend radii < 1.0 mile (1.6 km) - 760 mph (1,220 kph) where local geography allows a tube bend > 3.0 miles (4.8 km) or where local geography permits a straight tube.
• danvoell 13y ago
  I think he should start a ticket pre-sale on kickstarter and see if he can be the first person to reach $6 billion for a project.
  • javajosh 13y ago
    30 million people donating 200 each...totally doable.
    • epicureanideal 13y ago
      Or 3 million people donating $2000 each for huge discounts on long term access. I would donate $10,000 if the discount was steep enough on long term use and included use of future expansions of the system.
      • epicureanideal 13y ago
        Or better yet, sell tickets at a discount that can then be re-sold when the system is complete. Someone could buy $1M of reduced price tickets and then resell them for $2M when the system is ready. This way wealthy individuals wouldn't hit a maximum investable amount based on their personal expected use of the system.
      • vidarh 13y ago
        They'd better make sure not to fall in American Airlines "Lifetime pass" trap, then: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/05/business/la-fi-0506-golden-ticket-20120506 http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/05/business/la-fi-0506-...
    • Simple1234 13y ago
      That's more than the population of the cities it would connect. Maybe if it was NY to LA.
• dictum 13y ago
  I'm impressed, but I'm afraid Hyperloop's operation is modeled after airplanes, while the actual use of the system would be closer to a city bus. >All capsules would have direct radio contact with station operators in case of emergencies, allowing passengers to report any incident, to request help and to receive assistance. In addition, all capsules would be fitted with first aid equipment >Typical times between an emergency and access to a physician should be shorter than if an incident happened during airplane takeoff. In the case of the airplane, the route would need to be adjusted, other planes rerouted, runways cleared, airplane landed, taxi to a gate, and doors opened. An emergency in a Hyperloop capsule simply requires the system to complete the planned journey and meet emergency personnel at the destination. What happens if a brawl erupts inside a capsule? What happens if a suicide bomber boards the Hyperloop?
  • deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
    • Afforess 13y ago
      Or you could read the design document: >In the event of a large scale leak, pressure sensors located along the tube would automatically communicate with all capsules to deploy their emergency mechanical braking systems.
      • pond_lilly 13y ago
        yeah, imagine claustrophobic passengers got stuck in a capsule, midway, blocked by other capsules from each side, running out of air. Are they gonna cut them out of the tube or what?
    • dman 13y ago
      Forks for runaway pods at regular intervals ? Like the ramps they build for runaway trucks with brake failure.
  • rthomas6 13y ago
    Probably the same thing that would happen if these things happened inside a high speed rail.
• niels_olson 13y ago
  My dad has worked on at least one proposal for linear rail in California in the past. Emailed him the whitepaper for comments. Delivery not guaranteed :)
• yid 13y ago
  > Risk of derailment is also not to be taken lightly, as demonstrated by several recent fatal train accidents. Interesting. No comment on the potential outcome of a passenger-filled capsule being ejected from a burst tube on high pylons at 350mph.
  • tfgg 13y ago
    Also, I wonder what HSR incidents he's referring to. The Spanish relatively low-speed human error crash? Systems like Japan's Shinkansen have never had a fatal accident, despite operating at the edge of technology for 50 years. I don't think a derailing accident is at all likely on a modern system like California's plan or the UK's HS2.
    • hussong 13y ago
      Check out Eschede.
  • marshray 13y ago
    If the tube bursts so wide that the capsule could be ejected from it, the inrush of air would likely be so great that capsules probably wouldn't even make it out. The bigger concern would be that they could decelerate too quickly.
    • smithian 13y ago
      And if the tube breaks behind you, you'd just arrive sooner.
      • marshray 13y ago
        Oh crap. They'll need a way to do an "emergency suck" on the whole tube, won't they?
• mrbill 13y ago
  Made me think of a scifi book I read recently where terrorists attacked the hyper-speed rail system by leaving a bowling ball on the "tracks"...
• gnu_fan2 13y ago
  i would say that it is marketing if the guy did not own SpaceX. Still I am skeptical. Every child can draw neat pictures and speak about vacuum.
  • matthewcford 13y ago
    I would read the pdf before commenting, this is a little more than some pictures.
    • HoratioWarlock 13y ago
      Yes, it's a whole PDF!
  • joyeuse6701 13y ago
    and it isn't a vacuum
• wehadfun 13y ago
  Appreciate Elon Musk for this idea. But do you really want a bus sized hunk of w(ever)tf this is made out of zipping by you at 700mph?
  • pjscott 13y ago
    It's in a big, steel tube. You won't see bus-sized things going at nearly the speed of sound; you'll see a big, steel tube.
  • Turing_Machine 13y ago
    Bus-sized chunks of metal are flying over your head every day. They're called "airliners".
    • wehadfun 13y ago
      That's true.
  • jlgreco 13y ago
    Lets be honest, the difference between 700mph and 80mph head across the median on is negligible. Either way you are almost certainly dead or crippled. Past a certain speed the only real difference is how large of an area your body is spread out over; dead is dead.
    • ithkuil 13y ago
      of course, once it hits you it doesn't make much difference. However, the faster and/or more massive an object is, the bigger is the radius of damage that it can do, hence the more likely is for you to be affected by it. For example, a sufficiently fast and massive object can derail and hit a large building killing many, while a 80Mph SUV hitting a building wall will still, most likely, not be able to bring down the whole building.
• platz 13y ago
  "Btw, this is not the very latest version. Will post an updated version with several late arriving corrections in a few hours." https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/367028946426019840 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/367028946426019840
• richcollins 13y ago
  Feedback is welcomed on these or any useful aspects of the Hyperloop design. E-mail feedback to hyperloop@spacex.com or hyperloop@teslamotors.com Better: https://github.com/hyperloop/hyperloop https://github.com/hyperloop/hyperloop
  • pixelmonkey 13y ago
    "Open source" plans in PDF format. "But we published it on github, that makes it open source, right?" RMS is rolling over in his -- oh wait, he's still alive. How about a ReST or LaTeX document that generates this PDF?
    • lutorm 13y ago
      It's not the paper that's open source, it's the information...
• evan_ 13y ago
  I thought Musk said it wasn't an evacuated tube. Does it not count because it's very low air pressure and not a completely hard vacuum?
  • lnanek2 13y ago
    I think it's fair that he said that. A vacuum tube has as little air as possible to help things move. His paper explicitly says it is more cost effective to have some air and his capsule design depends on air as a levitation cushion. If he had said it was a vacuum tube, no one could have guessed the levitation method.
• varworld 13y ago
  "Btw, this is not the very latest version. Will post an updated version with several late arriving corrections in a few hours." https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/367028946426019840 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/367028946426019840
• SriniK 13y ago
  My travel nirvana: Supersonic air + Hyperloop + Self Driving Car.
• macinjosh 13y ago
  For all of you whose panties get wet at the sound of Elon Musk's name Hyperloop is essentially just Aérotrain in a tube: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%C3%A9rotrain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%C3%A9rotrain This guy isn't really a genius, he's just rich.
  • outworlder 13y ago
    Not really. There are similarities in the car's design, just as there are similarities among airplanes. Aérotrain is a magnetic levitation train, Hyperloop does not use magnetic levitation. Read the PDF.
    • clarus 13y ago
      Aérotrain is not magnetic, it uses air resistance too. Read the link, ahem.
    • weeber 13y ago
      Aérotrain uses air, like the hyperloop.
  • krasin 13y ago
    430 km/h (Aerotrain) vs 1200 km/h (Hyperloop) is a big deal. That is possible with the tube design. Aerotrain operated on the "free air" and that was the reason to lose the competition with TGV.
    • VladRussian2 13y ago
      man, the air cushion behavior at 1200 km/h (speed of sound at normal pressure, and 1.2 Mach at the proposed decreased pressure in the tube) would be a subject of a lot of PhD works. Or in other words - it will be hell of an engineering (stability of the cushion and parasitic oscillations come to mind - that is with respect to compressor created cushion, and in addition to the compressor created air cushion the cushion's airfoil will be riding its own shock wave between tube surface and the airfoil in front of the cushion's high pressure volume) to make supersonic ground effect from concept into product.
• 27182818284 13y ago
  I honestly expected better work. I feel like this is something everyday users on Reddit or HN could have put together in a report. I only gave it a look because Elon Musk's name is on it. That says something sad about me when it comes to the Big Imagination projects :-/
  • mason55 13y ago
    Part of what has made Musk so special is that he gets things done. As they say, ideas are a dime a dozen - what matters is execution and Musk has proven time and again that he can nail execution. It's the same reason that pg & YC say that they really care about the founding team and frequently encourage the founders to pivot far away from their original ideas.
    • dragonwriter 13y ago
      > Part of what has made Musk so special is that he gets things done. Not applicable to Hyperloop, which he has pretty clearly said he is not going to get done.
      • lutusp 13y ago
        > Not applicable to Hyperloop, which he has pretty clearly said he is not going to get done. But he conceived the idea. Ideas have value and can be said to be "done". To argue that pure ideas have no substance is to argue against science. I think it's admirable that he published the idea without attachment or limitation, in such a way that others can turn it into hardware.
  • nmeofthestate 13y ago
    I feel like this is something everyday users on Reddit or HN could have put together in a report. I'm not so sure. When Hyperloop was unknown, HN spent far too much time enthusing about obviously nonsense guesses about what Hyperloop might turn out to be. Let's not get too conceited about HN's abilities.
• mercurial 13y ago
  I was thinking that a well-timed explosive charge on a support pylon would make for a nice mess, but I suppose it's not any easier to secure a conventional railway.
  • jcromartie 13y ago
    The distance between the pylons is small enough that adjacent pylons may be redundant. It's also a massive steel tube which would be pretty strong in itself compared to rails (or roads).
    • zevyoura 13y ago
      The tube itself also isn't bearing nearly the same load as a train track.
• clarkmoody 13y ago
  I love this concept! My main concern is the air-bearing suspension system. Barring very high flow rates, the fly-height of an air-bearing system is very small. Some systems[1] fly at 5 microns, for instance. That being the case, any sort of particulate or imperfections in the tube will cause the air-bearing to 'land' with a large amount of friction. Perhaps this is alright if you're already going 700mph, but it would reduce the overall coasting efficiency of the system. The engineer in me sees this as the most important design consideration of the project. As an aside, I would like to see trade studies done on filling the tube with other gasses whose speed of sound is much higher than air's, allowing the capsules to travel even faster before shocks begin to form. [1] http://www.newwayairbearings.com/products/flat-rectangular-air-bearings/air-bearings-flat-rectangular-150mm-x-300mm http://www.newwayairbearings.com/products/flat-rectangular-a...
  • ansible 13y ago
    As an aside, I would like to see trade studies done on filling the tube with other gasses whose speed of sound is much higher than air's, allowing the capsules to travel even faster before shocks begin to form. I don't think this is a good idea for production use, because then you have to worry about air leaks to/from the passenger compartment. As it is, you still have to guard against explosive decompression for the passengers.
    • clarkmoody 13y ago
      Well that's the point of a trade study: look at the cost/benefit of different gasses. Obviously one of the costs would be the increased engineering um...pressure put on the capsule design. Your gut feeling is probably right, though, at least for this length of trip. The increased cost of a different tube gas probably won't outweigh the benefits of arriving 5-10 minutes earlier. Now if there were a cross-continent Hyperloop system, then for segments of the trip it might be much better to have a different gas. But again, it might simply be better to invest in better vacuum pumps for certain legs of the journey to get lower drags and higher speeds.
      • Turing_Machine 13y ago
• malbs 13y ago
  As someone who gets claustrophobic on planes - I have to fight the panic every time I fly, the dread that fills me at the thought of a service/system malfunction, while halfway between LA and SF, what happens then? I'm reminded of this water slide at the Gold Coast's Wet and Wild - you end up going upside down - but in order to attain the velocity required to make the loop, you need to be dropped from a particular height, only some people don't make it - so they have a single access point into the tube where people who haven't made it, can get out, but I'm sure it wouldn't be a fun experience, so I opted for not going on that slide, even though my kids were pleading with me to do it. No thanks. The hyperloop looks amazing, but my heart rate went up reading that document, and it wasn't out of excitement
  • redthrowaway 13y ago
    If you can't stand being in an enclosed space like that, there's still the interstate. Is not meant to be everyone's ideal solution, it's meant to be a good solution for most people.
    • jarek 13y ago
      Given ADA, would it be even legal for the California government to build this instead of a classic HSR? It's not even about claustrophobics, people in wheelchairs couldn't be serviced at all and obese people would be trouble too.
      • Turing_Machine 13y ago
        I don't see why they couldn't. You could just leave out one or two rows of seats and have plenty of room for a wheelchair, also extra luggage and package (if no wheelchair was onboard). You could have that in maybe one car out of five or ten, given that a new car arrives every thirty seconds.
        • jarek 13y ago
          From the pictures it looks like able-bodied passengers don't sit upright, so a person in a wheelchair wouldn't fit. Perhaps they could be helped into a seat and then helped out, though. Serious question BTW, I'm not sure what exactly ADA mandates.
• SuperChihuahua 13y ago
  From the conference call: "I'm tempted to at least make a demonstration prototype, but I think I would have to punt it for a little bit of time, it wouldn't be immediate." Source: http://live.theverge.com/live-hyperloop-announcement-elon-musk/ http://live.theverge.com/live-hyperloop-announcement-elon-mu...
  • wavesounds 13y ago
    Heres another live blogging source http://gizmodo.com/our-hyperloop-liveblog-starts-right-here-at-5-pm-et-2pm-1110567755 http://gizmodo.com/our-hyperloop-liveblog-starts-right-here-...
• oakaz 13y ago
  Does the government give it a fuck?
• Symmetry 13y ago
  After reading about the benefits of putting the track on pylons I was strongly reminded of monorails.
• dllthomas 13y ago
  ... could CHSRA just build this? I understand they're in the planning stages, and I don't think it'd be absurd to say "this is a train, just better and cheaper". Edited to add: My question was primarily legal - if someone were to step up and demonstrate this was feasible could it possibly make a difference?
  • jarek 13y ago
    Could anyone just build this? We don't know because it's never been done before
  • dragonwriter 13y ago
    > could CHSRA just build this? No. > I understand they're in the planning stages, and I don't think it'd be absurd to say "this is a train, just better and cheaper". This is a hypothetical concept, while HSR is a widely demonstrated, well-established technology, with real vendors with proven situations. There's a lot of civil engineering to go into building the infrastructure, but the technology is there (and isn't still looking forward to "[s]ub-scale testing based on a further optimized design to demonstrate the physics", as is the case with hyperloop.) Hyperloop as an alternative to HSR is about in the same situation as nuclear fusion as an alternative to wind (or nuclear fission) power. .
  • djcapelis 13y ago
    New laws would have to be enacted to amend some of the requirements of the funding sources. Both federal and state. Potentially another ballot measure as well. But frankly if the project polled well enough, you might be able to make it a reality.
• presty 13y ago
  first thing that popped in my mind when I heard about the hyperloop was hank rearden
• scott_karana 13y ago
  Interesting that Charles Alexander's writeup was said by Musk to be the most similar, when the ideas were fairly dissimilar by the end.[1] http://charlesalexander2013.wordpress.com/2013/07/18/hyperloop-riding-sounds-density-peak-to-exploit-the-drag-equation/ http://charlesalexander2013.wordpress.com/2013/07/18/hyperlo...
• dllthomas 13y ago
  If Musk really wants to give this a push, how about a patent grant on Tesla battery patents used for this purpose?
• goodcanadian 13y ago
  I am intrigued, but not overwhelmed. Many of his reasons why his hyperloop is superior to high speed rail are not specific to the hyperloop. For example, you can put railway tracks up on pylons, too, with very little impact on the ground. It is common to do this in urban areas, but it is rarely done in rural areas because it is flat out cheaper to put it on the ground. I don't believe that an experimental tube is going to be somehow magically cheaper and easier to route and build than train tracks. Now, I am not trying to defend California's HSR, specifically. I agree with Musk that it appears to be very poorly done. However, the answer, to my mind, is to do it properly rather than propose a wild experiment with hand-wavy arguments as to why it would be politically easier to do. Do you really think the special interests that are making HSR so difficult and expensive would say, "Oh, do whatever you like with your tube."? Now, in an attempt to end on a positive note, I do like his proposal as a possible next step beyond HSR. Rail can go up to 350km/h currently (perhaps more in the future--why wouldn't California design with this goal in mind?), but Musk's hyperloop is proposed up to ~1000km/hr. It is definitely an idea worth exploring, but I think it falls far short as a serious alternative to the current high speed rail plans.
  • enraged_camel 13y ago
    >>However, the answer, to my mind, is to do it properly rather than propose a wild experiment with hand-wavy arguments as to why it would be politically easier to do. Do you really think the special interests that are making HSR so difficult and expensive would say, "Oh, do whatever you like with your tube."? Even when done properly, HSR has most of the limitations stated by Musk. And while it is possible that special interest groups would make the construction of Hyperloop more difficult than it is, I don't think that's an argument against giving it a try.
  • Anechoic 13y ago
    I don't believe that an experimental tube is going to be somehow magically cheaper and easier to route and build than train tracks. Do you really think the special interests that are making HSR so difficult and expensive would say, "Oh, do whatever you like with your tube."? These are extremely important issues that advocates seem to be glossing over. Putting the guideway on pylons doesn't magically eliminate land issues, you will still have to deal with visual impacts, along with any number of anticipated and unanticipated problems. Musk should do what the Germans did with the TR0x series of maglev vehicles, build a 10-20 mile test section someplace and demonstrate that is analysis is sound. (perhaps more in the future--why wouldn't California design with this goal [350 km/h] in mind?) There are a variety of reasons, but one important reason I have to deal with is that the speed of shear waves through soil is only on the order of a couple of hundred miles per hour. When a train exceeds the shear wave speed, ground-borne vibration waves "build up" in a manner similar to the shock wave created in air when a plane exceeds the speed of sound, causing a ground-borne vibration equivalent of a "sonic boom" that can cause problems for wayside structures. I believe the French have started to experience this with some of their higher-speed TGV experiments and we don't have a good way to handle this yet.
• StandardFuture 13y ago
  God damn it, Elon! It looks amazing but the logistics are just not adding up! 2-minute departure time scales? Good luck getting the future Hyperloop TSA to do that. But, the numbers don't quite crunch for this to be a legitimate business (unless we are talking no returns for 25 years charging customers an average of 1500-3000 dollars per ride .. but the demand is not there for those prices). Idea is awesome .. yes! Viable ... yes, yes!! A business ... idk. :(
  • joseph_cooney 13y ago
    From memory the departure time scales on the shinkansen are smaller than this...about 90 seconds IIRR.
  • crusso 13y ago
    Planes take off from runways every minute or two. Vehicle loading and unloading terminals can fan out from the automated system that loads them and unloads them from the actual Tube.
• Osmium 13y ago
  Reading the entire PDF is highly recommended; it contains a surprising amount of answers already (including many to comments below). I think, if anything, safety aspects haven't been sufficiently explored in the pdf. I'm quite happy to believe it's safer than other modes of transport, but I wouldn't be too quick to overstate it. Also, if anyone can explain what "Tubes located on pylons would limit access to the critical elements of the system." is meant to mean in §4.5.6 I'd be grateful...
  • skaevola 13y ago
    I believe it means that the electrical components are not accessible from the ground where they might be vulnerable to vandals or animals.
  • MBCook 13y ago
    I'm really impressed to see the entire thing out in the public. They showed the designs, proposed routes, stress analysis, cost analysis... It's quire clear that this isn't just some "Hey I thought of an idea", they really put a lot of work into this. I was worried this was going to be some pie-in-the-sky idea that was nebulous on a lot of basic details with quite a bit of "we can figure that out later".
    • dragonwriter 13y ago
      > I was worried this was going to be some pie-in-the-sky idea Sure, they put a lot of theoretical analysis into it, but its still pretty pie-in-the-sky. From the last page, note that The authors recognize the need for additional work, including but not limited to: 1. More expansion on the control mechanism for Hyperloop capsules, including attitude thruster or control moment gyros. 2. Detailed station designs with loading and unloading of both passenger and passenger plus vehicle versions of the Hyperloop capsules. 3. Trades comparing the costs and benefits of Hyperloop with more conventional magnetic levitation systems. 4. Sub-scale testing based on a further optimized design to demonstrate the physics of Hyperloop. It's not a current competitor to high-speed rail, its more in the position that high-speed rail was in in the 1930s.
• uptown 13y ago
  Really interesting proposal. How do you maintain the tube when something needs repair? You need to shut the whole system down, don't you?
  • krasin 13y ago
    Fair question. I would build 3 tubes instead of 2. That would help with repairs as well as with handling asymmetry in demand (for example, if more people want SFO->LA in mornings and LA->SFO in evenings)
    • uptown 13y ago
      I was thinking the same thing. Eat the up-front build costs, but assure yourself a persistently-functional loop. Probably the type of thing best determined as part of the review-process, and not listed a requirement in the technical draft.
• dkrich 13y ago
  The main reason why air travel continues to be the most practical, cost-effective means of high-speed transport is that the politics involved in connecting two points with a transit system are enough to make you lose faith in humanity. Take for instance, the DC metro system. There is an expansion underway to extend the system west to Dulles Airport, about 30 miles or so from downtown DC. A huge project, no doubt, but it is about ten years behind schedule. What was a seemingly great idea (mass transit to a major airport and outlying regions of DC) was almost ruined by all the fighting. This is for a project spanning 30 miles. Imagine the politics and fighting that occurs between politicians, contractors, lobbyists, and residents on a public works project that spans hundreds of miles between two of the most populous cities in the world. A project this ambitious is only well-suited for a small, independent group of like-minded people, which unfortunately will never be possible with all the interests involved.
  • nickik 13y ago
    Plus Airtravle could be made 10x better without all that usless security shit. I fligh often from Switzerland to Germany and most of my time is spend standing in one line or another on the airport. I see no reason that boarding a plane cant be as efficent or almost as efficent as getting on a train.
    • simias 13y ago
      Because you can't crash a train into a skyscraper. I don't know if that's a good reason, but that's the reason.
      • lotu 13y ago
        The problem (as I'm sure many others have stated before) is that airport security doesn't really solve the problem of being able to crash a plane into a skyscraper. However, reinforced cockpit doors, armed pilots, and a belief that a hijacker will use a plane to commit suicide instead of as hostage do effectively solve this problem.
        • 13y ago
• matthewcford 13y ago
  I love the fact that Musk is publishing this publicly preemptively blocking future patent claims on the basis of prior art.
• jessriedel 13y ago
  OK, so he says it's much cheaper than high-speed rail mostly because pylons require taking much less land through eminent domain. Can anyone explain to me then why high speed rail can't be built on pylons?
  • flyt 13y ago
    Weight of the rolling stock.
    • jessriedel 13y ago
      "For those who don't know the lingo, "rolling stock" just means "all the vehicles on the train." Does he say this explicitly? (Sorry if I missed it.) Why can't you make a train car just as light as these cars, and also skip the weight of the tube?
      • Gravityloss 13y ago
        Probably regulations. They have to maintain integrity in collisions. I don't know if they have to take into account having very heavy freight trains on the same tracks as well.
        • teek 13y ago
          Train regulations are retarded in the US and haven't been reformed for over 50 years. Basically if you plan on having a crossing or sharing track with a freight train you automatically are stuck with the FRA regulations which apply to freight trains and are also pointless. Those regulations require absurd rigidity of rolling stock to the point that train-sets built for those specifications actually are more expensive to maintain, fail more often simply (rolling stock becomes too heavy), and are much more unsafe. For example FRA requires train rolling stock to withstand 800,000lbs of force on impact without permanent damage. The European requirement on the other hand is less than half of that. The European requirements instead aim for adding "crumple zones" to the cars to absorb energy and protect occupants similar to how automobiles use crumple zones. This is why there's an obsession in the USA regarding light-rail. Light-rail sidesteps the FRA regulations by creating a separate track and rolling stock that doesn't have crossing with heavy rail. I believe if we simply reformed FRA regulations we could probably cut all rail development by a sizable chunk as we would be able to buy rolling stock as-is from European and Asian suppliers. But anyway, back to the point being discussed. A sizable chunk of China's HSR network was built elevated so it is certainly feasible to put today's HSR tech on pylons. But just because you elevate something doesn't magically get you away from Environmental Reviews which I think is another area where a majority of the cost in public works project lies. Environmental reviews will still be required for Hyperloop. Since it is actually a new system, I would expect it to get even more scrutiny in the public eye because it will sound even more magical and also offend even more people since there won't be any intermediate stops. Remember that much of the California HSR political issues are because central valley cities and towns want an HSR station in their town (of course they don't want to fund the station). So many of these towns basically come to the table and say "we'll give you the land if you give us a station, otherwise we won't help you." The Hyperloop concept basically ignores this argument. Keep in mind that despite environmental reviews having the word "environment" in them, they are actually also public hearings where the public can voice their opinions which can include things like additional noise and traffic. For example if your project blocks out the beach view of a home-owner's house overlooking the ocean, you can sure bet that they'll be at the environmental review and give you an earful about how you can't build your tube/track/freeway/skyscraper/windmill there. Yes that's a bit of hyperbole but that's basically how the environmental review phase is abused. Because of that, I've come to the conclusion that we won't have any significant improvement in infrastructure in this country until CEQA/NEPA are reformed to allow not just public entities to build infrastructure, but also private entities as well.
• jcromartie 13y ago
  Does anybody else wonder how easily the rotor will slot into the stator at 700 MPH? It looks like pretty small tolerances. Maybe guide rails leading up to it?
  • theoh 13y ago
    I'll believe anything now I've seen the videos documenting the Talgo variable-gauge system. Also, the tolerances in terms of distance from track of the Transrapid maglev are pretty good. I wouldn't be surprised if you can fly an air-cushioned vehicle with similar precision.
  • DonPedro 13y ago
    This, I thought. "Maybe guide rails leading up to it"
• Ricapar 13y ago
  So one question that hasn't really been mentioned yet... What happens in the event of a fire? Do you just keep going? Stop the Fire suppression systems? Given any worst-case scenario.. how do you escape from the tunnel?
  • rwhitman 13y ago
    Or what if it breaks down and you're stuck in the middle of nowhere. How do emergency vehicles reach the pod if it is disabled in a sealed tube?
• GigabyteCoin 13y ago
  I thought it was just a few days ago that elon musk said that he "wished he had never mentioned the hyperloop as he doesn't have enough time to work on it" [sic]. When I heard the news about this announcement on the radio today, I thought that my local news station was just a week behind the times as usual. Apparently they were not?
  • delsarto 13y ago
    Just FYI, [sic] is used when you're quoting something with a mistake and you wish to indicate that mistake is in the source document, and not added unintentionally.
• jacquesm 13y ago
  I'll just leave this here: http://jacquesmattheij.com/elon-musk-and-the-hyperloop http://jacquesmattheij.com/elon-musk-and-the-hyperloop Looks like I nailed most of it. So, who is going to build a proof-of-concept scale model of this thing a few kilometers long?
  • dojomouse 13y ago
    Really? I guess you got the tube part right.
  • nmeofthestate 13y ago
    Sorry - I'm afraid you were wrong on almost all, if not all, counts. Tunnel is pressurised - wrong. Use of the word "loop" means that something is 'recycled' - wrong. Parallel tracks used for acceleration - wrong. Carriages help push each other - wrong. Internet analogy - wrong. Summary: scaled up pneumatic tube - wrong.
• greedo 13y ago
  Although Musk has said this idea stems from his frustrations in traveling through California, I wonder if he's contemplating something similar for transportation on Mars?
  • smithian 13y ago
    Well, you would no longer need to evacuate the tube...
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• huntleydavis 13y ago
  To put the the 7 billion cost in perspective...that's approximately the cost to build the new segment of the Bay Bridge.
• karmicthreat 13y ago
  I would dedicate 6-10 years getting something like this off the ground. Unfortunately I don't think anyone without the political and financial connections could pull this off. Musk could probably do it because of Musk Mania. But few others.
• tomrod 13y ago
  I hate to be a party pooper, but I see some economic issues. My takeaway is that while the 7 billion fixed costs will be low, the operating costs are going to be huge. Battery packs and solar cells will need replacement. Large maintenance teams will be needed with immediate response times to fix issues such as complete seal blowouts, etc. I think the first few years will be great! But in my opinion maintaining this system over the long term will be very, very expensive compared to slower rail. I'm still optimistic that most of these and other issues will be worked out in the long term. EDIT: Did he post what this tube will be made out of? How will he prevent solar degradation?
  • randomknowledge 13y ago
    The tube is steel, shouldn't be a problem. The electronics are only a small fraction of the cost. It is mostly just the cost of the tube, pylons, and land.
• asmithmd1 13y ago
  I see just a little bit of hand-waving with how to deal with the 300 psi and 1000 degree F air. He says they will cool it with on-board water and storing the steam (I don't see a pressure here)in the vehicle. Given the tight space, will any kind of thermal insulation breakthrough be needed?
  • yk 13y ago
    Probably not, the pressure and thus the density of the air is really low and therefore it simply does not have the energy density needed to cause problems.
    • asmithmd1 13y ago
      The almost vacuum at the front of the pod is compressed and piped out the back and to the air bearings. After it is compressed it is 1000 deg. F and 300 psi. That sounds pretty energetic to me
• anigbrowl 13y ago
  The total cost of the Hyperloop passenger transportation system as outlined is less than $6 billion USD (Table 8). The passenger plus vehicle version of Hyperloop is including both passenger and cargo capsules and the total cost is outlined as $7.5 billion USD (Table 9). Love the idea but the cost projections here seem extremely optimistic.
• verbin217 13y ago
  Seems like this would be particularly vulnerable to terrorist attacks. There is a huge surface area that needs to be protected (tubes/pylons). If there are pods leaving every thirty seconds and traveling at supersonic speeds then taking out one pylon could kill several hundred people and leave the entire train inoperable. In a future where this design was used extensively to connect cities on the coasts it would quickly become a critical piece of transportation infrastructure. Attacking several arcs of the city graph simultaneously would be utterly debilitating. Especially if the system's relative efficiency leads to the displacement of other forms of transportation.
  • mightybyte 13y ago
    Nope. Read the document. Subsonic speeds with capsules 2 minutes apart. In the event of a catastrophic depressurization (i.e. bomb on a capsule or a pylon), all capsules stop. Worst case, 28 people in one capsule die. The rest are stuck for awhile until they can be evacuated. Not very spectacular.
    • verbin217 13y ago
      Wow excellent. I didn't read the whole document thanks for being thorough.
• lowkey 13y ago
  Adding a compressor fan to actively transfer air from the front to the rear of the pod while simultaneously serving as an air cushion to support the vehicle is simple, elegant and absolutely brilliant! An ingenious solution appears so obvious in hindsight that it leads you to ask "why didn't I think of that?" While being subtle enough to confound all those who came before. I have been following the developments of the ET3 Consortium for the past year. I have read virtually all the technical literature available online on the topic of alternative high-speed transportation systems going back as far as the RAND paper and even reading related patents from much earlier. Looking at the genius of Elon Musk's insight is both inspiring ang greatly humbling - but mostly inspiring. Holy awesome! I would love to see this innovation take root. It could be the perfect elixer to our stagnant economic malaise. Well done Mr. Musk!
  • ricardobeat 13y ago
    I'm pretty sure that idea has been thrown around, maybe even here on previous HN discussions, can't remember. The hard part is having really deep knowledge of the tech involved, manufacturing and costs, and producing a 50-page technical document with input from dozens of top minds in their fields :)
• huntleydavis 13y ago
  So who's starting the Kickstarter campaign?
• capkutay 13y ago
  I wonder if that $70 billion price tag is partly tied to the "I created x many jobs in my time as a politician" rhetoric. I'm just assuming high cost means a higher number of people being paid.
• dudus 13y ago
  In Brazil the building of a new high speed train between São Paulo and Rio was just delayed for the third for for lack of interested companies to build the system. The estimated cost is at US$ 17B. There are not earthquakes in Brazil and the length should be around 500km. It seems like a better candidate than SF-LA. just saying,
  • dragonwriter 13y ago
    California is more able to attract interested private operators because the availability of potential passengers with money to spend on fares is substantially greater.
    • spikels 13y ago
      Not sure why you think there would be more passengers on LA-SF versus SaoPaolo-Rio: Greater populations, shorter distances and lower costs ($17 vs 68 billion). Brazilians may be poorer today but they are catching up fast. Sure there will be private contractors but is there really any private interest in building and/or operating high speed rail in CA? Perhaps Hyperloop will change things but so far it has been government led and financed.
      • dragonwriter 13y ago
        > Not sure why you think there would be more passengers on LA-SF versus SaoPaolo-Rio More potential passengers in the latter, more potential passenger revenue in the former. > Brazilians may be poorer today but they are catching up fast. Per capita GDP in Brazil is less than 1/3 of that in California, and is increasing at about 1.7%/annum (2.7% GDP growth, 0.9% population growth); assuming no growth in California GDP per capita, it would take Brazil more than 65 years to catch up.
        • spikels 13y ago
          People in Sao Paolo and Rio are about 40% richer than average Brazilians which reduces the gap somewhat. And GDP growth in Brazil has averaged 3.1% since 1991 with Sao Paolo growing faster. Costs are expected to be much lower for construction ($17 vs $68B) and probably operation. Also they expect it to take 5 years to build versus 15. Not sure how it would all shake out but does not seem to be a clearly worse project. It's probably moot comparison anyway as best I can tell the Brazil HSR is not going to happen. There have even been giant protests over transportation and government spending. I'm also pretty skeptical that CA HSR will actually get built - numbers don't add up and popularity is declining. If they can build and operate the Bakersfield to Fresno segment on schedule and budget it might have a chance - but I have doubts they can even do this.
• Gravityloss 13y ago
  The pressure difference is higher than in a passenger jet. The pressure vessel must be a tubular structure with small well sealed doors. None of this prism with whole fuselage gull wing door stuff.
• ars 13y ago
  "by placing solar panels on top of the tube, the Hyperloop can generate far in excess of the energy needed to operate." He seems to be planning to build this over farmland? Because farmers aren't going to be happy about someone blocking their light. Light is the limiting factor in plant growth. If he's going to block the light to farms he'll have to pay them for the lost crops, and then he might as well just buy the land.
  • pedalpete 13y ago
    I've driven from LA to SF and back along I-5 a few times, I recall lots of cattle farms, I don't recall ass much agriculture (though their definitely was some). At the same time, the aquaduct runs along I-5 for a considerable length. I think building along the aquaduct would make a lot of sense. I'm assuming that land is already owned by the gov't, and is already somewhat protected along it's length.
    • ars 13y ago
      I couldn't find the aquaduct on google maps, but I do see lots of "brown" land, so I guess it's not as heavily farmed as I thought. Not enough water presumably?
  • NegativeK 13y ago
    If he's going to build it over farmland, whether he uses solar panels or not is irrelevant to the farm. The land would be rented/bought/imminent domained just like normal rail would.
    • ars 13y ago
      He makes a point that by building on pylons he specifically doesn't need to do any of that.
      • escoz 13y ago
        He makes the point that he doesn't need to block 100 feet from each side of the track, as well as put barriers in place to prevent animal crossing and blocking farmers from getting to the other side of the farm, in the same way power lines today use space. That means he would need some non-farmable area around the track, yes, but that it wouldn't disrupt the farm like a normal HSR track would.
• Thiz 13y ago
  Pretty but absurd. With all that money I rather give a Cessna to 1M people so they can fly anywhere without restriction. Or make special small airports for direct flight between cities. Much less infrastructure. Kudos to Elon, I love they guy and his incredibly visionary mind.
  • Florin_Andrei 13y ago
    > I rather give a Cessna to 1M people so they can fly anywhere without restriction. "What could possibly go wrong..."
  • Turing_Machine 13y ago
    "I rather give a Cessna to 1M people" The average driver can't control a vehicle safely in two dimensions, much less three. :-)
• rdl 13y ago
  Wow. I was expecting it to be something like the UW Ram Accelerator (RAMAC), but he put a fan in front. I was thinking it would have natural gas/detonation for propulsion, using the ram jet principle, and continuous acceleration, but I guess that rapidly gets you to totally absurd speeds (10km/sec+) and wouldn't really be viable, plus humans aren't so into 10G+ acceleration even when mounted laterally. I would totally ride this. I hope there's a way for California to build it, and more importantly, I hope we can fix our government somehow to allow projects like this to actually happen in multiple fields.
• Osmium 13y ago
  Note that the UK's new high speed rail (HS2) is budgeted at £33bn ($51bn) and likely to exceed that[0]. Being mostly straight, and across land already approved for rail use, it seems like an ideal candidate for a hyperloop alternative. At 120 miles long[1] compared to the SF<->LA ~350 miles, a UK hyperloop would be even cheaper, especially since the major cost is the tube itself. A back of the envelope calculation[2] gives a cost of about £1.9bn ($2.9bn) which is suspiciously, almost absurdly, cheap. If anyone can find any flaws in this argument (specifically related to e.g. UK-specific issues/laws that I may be unaware of) I'd be very interested to hear them! [0] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/revealed-hs2s-33bn-budget-already-derailed-before-a-track-is-laid-8527920.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/revealed-hs2s... [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HS2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HS2 [2] using average cost values from the pdf, not accounting for differences in pylon height/amount of tunnel required etc.
  • gsnedders 13y ago
    The two biggest budgeted costs in the latest report I can find (£16B) are stations (£1.7B) and tunnels (£1.4B). (Also noteworthy is that almost £10B of the overall £16B figure is for risk provision.) More directly comparable is the £1B figure for land acquisition: that isn't going to fall by much.
• 205guy 13y ago
  Wow, 300 comments in 2 hours--this is reaching the limits of readability. My first thought is that this release of Hyperloop details is like the geek's version of the Breaking Bad season premiere that is being so talked about in the US (didn't see it myself). First of all, I think it's genius how nobody saw this solution coming, despite all the speculation. Put the air compressor on the pod, and use Tesla's battery technology to power it. Seems evident in hindsight. My biggest gripe is the non-inherent safety and thus the security issues. The evacuated tube is a real issue in my mind, and saying it will be re-pressurized in case of an accident seems dubious. Yes, like a modern jet, but planes can descend to 15,000 and people live. Also, planes don't fly at 150,000 feet (the pressure equivalent in the tube) and there may be other biological hazards other than breathing. But mainly, the vehicles are subject to the same exterior threats as airplanes, so security will need to be similar. In addition the tubes are also a target of threats, which is less of an issue with trains and not an issue with planes.
• hristov 13y ago
  Sorry, but I do not believe this will be cheaper than conventional rail. This is essentially a vacuum tunnel. Ok it is not a perfect vacuum but it is still supposed to keep 1/1000th of the earth's pressure.* Keeping such a vacuum over several hundred miles of metal tubing would be very very expensive. This may work but it will be several times more expensive than the HSR system. * Oh and by the way, it is completely misleading and annoying for musk to refer to this as merely 1/6th of Mars's pressure. That would be a really relevant statistic if he was building his thing on mars.
  • jkn 13y ago
    Would it really be expensive? 1 mbar is a low grade vacuum. You can achieve that with mere rotary vane pumps: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_vane_pump http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_vane_pump
• Geee 13y ago
  I'm pretty sure the first Hyperloop will be built in China.
• lnanek2 13y ago
  It's nice that it doesn't have drivers. As someone who visits the SF area a lot, the BART drivers strike way too much and have to be replaced by automated trains. So this is a nice step forward.
  • wpietri 13y ago
    They go on strike circa every 20 years [1]. I guess you could call that "way too much", but that seems hyperbolic to me. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Bay_Area_Rapid_Transit#Operation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Bay_Area_Rapid_T...
• lsllc 13y ago
  So ... it's a series of tubes?
  • DonPedro 13y ago
    ROFLMAO
• guelo 13y ago
  Let the tech workers test it out on their SF-Silicon Valley commutes first. Maybe Elon's musk will help convince all the millionaire tech NIMBYs that own the peninsula.
• QuantumGood 13y ago
  Most fascinating likely medium-term event: The hyperloop will be built outside the US, most likely in China, after changes and development that help China claim it as primarily Chinese in design.
  • vermontdevil 13y ago
    I agree. This is great but it won't be built in the US. We have become risk averse. No grand sweeping visions of building interesting infrastructure like TVA, the Interstate (though that was poorly implemented in many areas), etc.
  • chourobin 13y ago
    at least they can build proof of concept for us
• krschultz 13y ago
  This is very serious first proposal. As a professional mechanical engineer I have worked on high quality steel tubes (nuclear submarines) before. The immediate thing that sticks out to me in this proposal are the tight mechanical tolerances that have to be maintained. Talking about tens of thousandths of an inch tolerances on a 10' diameter tube is not to be dismissed lightly. That is going to be tough to maintain - especially with welding heat distortion. I would image the tubes will be joined with automated friction stir welding or something similiar, but that will still require a fair amount of post weld machining which has its own pitfalls. Not to mention simple thermal expansion and contraction as the temperature changes could change the circularity and inner diameter. I would be more interested to see a tolerance stack up of those considerations than an FEA model of the concrete pylons. I can gaurentee that we can build concrete pylons capable of holding up a steel tube, that is done all over the country dozens of different uses cases. But can we build a multi-hundred mile long steel tube to the required tolerances? I would be inclined to trade off efficiency for manufacturability. I.e. maybe a higher internal pressure or larger diameter to make it less sensitive. There should be plenty of power from the solar panels so it doesn't have to be perfectly efficient. I'm also surprised that the I-5 plan is cheaper than buying private land. I may be naive here, but the pylons really do take away most of the objections from farmers and installing tubes over farmland has to be a lot cheaper than doing construction above a highway. I just look at boondoggle that was the SkyTrain in NYC (tram running over a highway out to JFK airport) and wonder if that is a great option.
  • ricardobeat 13y ago
    > I would image the tubes will be joined with automated friction stir welding or something similiar, but that will still require a fair amount of post weld machining which has its own pitfalls The document mentions standard orbital seam wlelding, plus specialized machining equipment that travels along the tube to smooth out the gliding surface. The capsules are only 60% the diameter of the tube, or 36% it's area (68/47% for the vehicle-carrying version), it doesn't seem to require tight tolerances for operation. I got the idea that tube distortion and movement is taken into account into the system.
    • 13y ago
• bitteralmond 13y ago
  Aside from the whole "will they actually build it" debate, I'm worried that if they do, the capsule ceiling won't be high enough for someone fairly tall (let's say 6'5'' or taller) to sit in comfortably. I'd assume the height of the capsule will have some effect on the drag involved, as well as the necessary size of the tube, so it makes sense to make it as short as possible. Musk himself stands just below 6', so he may not naturally think of us taller folk. I'd hate to have to slouch for the trip, even if it is only projected to be 35 minutes. edit: dear tall people who have ridden in one of Tesla's cars: how's the headroom in a Model S?
  • DonPedro 13y ago
    Re. headroom in Model S: http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/10879-Any-tall-Model-S-owners-yet http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/10879-Any-tall...
• abdullahkhalids 13y ago
  Just remember people, the real future of travel is SpaceX, not Hyperloop. The final frontier is space, not San Fransisco. (I am wide eyed and crazy about the Hyperloop)
  • VladRussian2 13y ago
    the real future of space is Hyperloop v2.0 - 20 miles long or something like it, pointed at the end toward the sky with final exit speed of let's say 10 Mach (and this also will help to reach Hong Kong from SF in 1-2 hours)
• stevep98 13y ago
  A couple of points I would like to make: * Structural requirements The hyperloop has much less structural requirements than a traditional train. The reason is that its cars are separated, so it is 'less dense'. If a train goes over an overpass, the overpass has to be engineered to carry the weight of the rail and the train, whereas the hyperloop only has to handle the weight of the tube (30m between pylons at about 8 tons/m is 240 tons plus the negligible weight of the capsule). The upshot of this is that the pylons can be much less invasive on the real-estate requirements. This is important because now you have more choices with regards to routes, which leads to less curvature and higher speeds. Looking at it from the reverse angle, High Speed Rail design suffered because the massive real-estate requirements imposed such a burden that route choices were compromised, and thus the projected travel time was lengthened. * Tube manufacture. It occurs to me that there already exists expertise in manufacturing elevated, highly reliable large diameter steel tubes hundreds of miles long. Oil pipelines. Moreover, these companies perhaps would be interested in diversifying their business away from oil. * Development High Speed Rail has issues, but they are political and financial, not technological. We're really just buying the technology from other countries. Much of the cost and the incredibly lengthy construction time for HSR is coming from building overpasses and the foundations for the rail, so far as I can tell. But hyperloop is something that requires some development. This is a good thing because investors can sell that technology and get some return. It's difficult to attract private funding for HSR, but I can definitely see someone stepping forward to fund the development of the technology. Pretty much once someone builds the hyperloop demonstration system, you'll know if you have a winner on your hands, but with HSR, you don't know if you'll be successful until the whole thing is built (and with a 2:30 travel time LA->SF, it's not going to be a slam dunk against air). There are plenty opposed to HSR, but I see very few alternative solutions being proposed. This might be something those opposed to HSR jump onto, and it might get a lot of support quickly.
• jimmcslim 13y ago
  Someone needs to convince Musk to build this on the east coast of Australia; linking Brisbane-Sydney-Canberra-Melbourne. The Sydney-Melbourne air corridor is one of the busiest in the world (6,795,000 passengers in 2007, vs 6,306,638 for LA-SF in 2009 [1]). We recently had a feasibility study into HSR along the east coast (a condition of Greens support of the current Labor minority government) but it suggested that such a project would be ridiculously expensive and take upwards of 30 years to complete (some say the study was doomed to fail and the numbers are wrong). The geography is probably less favourable for Hyperloop in the eastern Australia context (e.g. Sydney is in a basin bordered by low mountains north, south and west), whereas the route it would follow in California is mostly flat? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_busiest_passenger_air_routes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_busiest_passenger_air_r...
• DonGateley 13y ago
  Great KickStarter project! I'm only half kidding. Public source, why not crowd funding?
• yk 13y ago
  I have somewhere read, that large cities are usually the size one can travel in under an hour. So this could have quite interesting effects in effectively joining LA and SF.
  • LAMike 13y ago
    San Angeles?
• robomartin 13y ago
  None of this is to say that Hyperloop is a bad idea. The idea sounds very interesting and I'd rather spend sixty billion building a Hyperloop --even if it fails-- than the ridiculous California high speed rail project. Cost is probably off by an order of magnitude, if not more. Why? Unions and other groups. Building anything in this country costs massively more (and takes significantly longer) than one could imagine because of our unions are not business symbiotic. The goal of union leadership is to extract as much as they can out of the businesses they infect, even if this means their demise. A lot of the unions that would be part of such a project have some of the laziest and most problematic people working for them. If you come from the Silicon Valley tech world my words make no sense to you. In fact, you might think I am nuts. All I have to say is: Do a good size trade show exhibit at a few of the unionized convention centers in the US and then see what you think about US unions. Then repeat that experience at various locations in Europe and Japan and see the difference. I have done just that. US labor unions are destroying our country from the inside out. How many significant new civil engineering projects in the US can you name over the last, say, fifty years. Right. Hyperloop cost would be way more than this paper seems to predict. The political factor is grossly underestimated. Our reality is that we live at a time of political deadlock. Nobody can or wants to make a decision and the decisions we do make tend to be suboptimal, sometimes grotesquely so: example, California high speed rail. Finally, it addresses the wrong market. I am not sure why people insist on applying trains to transporting people in the US. Sorry to resort to reality folks: If you build it they will NOT come. We do not have that culture and you will not inspire it simply by building trains. You'd have to forcefully push people in that direction through legislation that would make it too expensive to not use rail. In other words you'd have to declare war against other methods of transportation through punitive actions. The right place for high speed rail in the US is cargo, not passenger rail. If we could evolve our cargo rail systems to move at 300 km/hr rather than 50 the consequences would provide economic benefits and development beyond a century. The final point is related to politics. We have a decision making system that allows anyone to vote. And, while this is commendable, it does create horrible problems. Imagine allowing a random group of, say, ten people deciding whether or not your child should have surgery. I'd be surprised if anyone thought this to be a good idea. No, most people would rather have a group of experts in the field, more than likely MD's in this case, vote for such a decision. The ridiculous California high speed rail project is a result of hordes of low-information, mathematically challenged, technologically ignorant and financially ignorant voters being led by the nose by unions, media and political forces. How do you move forward when people like that can vote on these issues and their vote has equal value to that of an expert in the relevant fields: a PhD in Physics, an engineer, a financial expert, etc. Regrettably this is not a technological problem. It is far more complex than that.
• smegel 13y ago
  Is that a jet turbine in the nostril?
• dmitrygr 13y ago
  How about some physics about this? Here is some... http://dmitry.gr/index.php?r=06.%20Thoughts&proj=01.%20Hyperloop http://dmitry.gr/index.php?r=06.%20Thoughts&proj=01.%20Hyper...
  • damian2000 13y ago
    I think it mentioned in the PDF that speeds would be reduced significantly while in or near residential areas?
• dmfdmf 13y ago
  Best comment on reddit so far "this is a pipe dream" * I don't think the Hyperloop is viable and I hope they kill the $100B High Speed Rail (HSR) project before it ruins the SF Peninsula and budgets across the state. * Setting aside the $100B HSR cost (yes, I know current estimates are $70B but it was sold at $10B and will easily exceed $100B if/when completed) the operating costs will have to be subsidized for every minute of its existence just like every other govt boondoggle. This is a white elephant and, in case you weren't paying attention, California and most cites are or soon will be bankrupt. We can't afford this, cut our losses now. * If I was made Bay Area/CA public transportation csar (with suitable budget and dictatorial powers) my first step would be to extend BART through San Jose so it actually loops the bay and (finally) complete BART. (I am old enough to recall that that was the original design) * I do think a high speed rail connection SF/LA is economically viable but would need to do research and crunch numbers while finishing BART. I would move the SJC airport south (with a BART extension) to Morgan Hill/South San Jose and build the connection from there to LA. * From SJ to LA I would confiscate I5, leave two lanes for truckers and local traffic but build a high speed (300MPH) car/ferry train system so you could be blasted to LA in a little over an hour and have your car there when you arrive. Home by dinner. * I would build a nuclear plant somewhere halfway between LA and SF on I5 so my trains would not have to use diesel fuel (too smoggy) or solar (too expensive). Nothing here is any less fanciful than Musk's musings and far, far more practical.
• kamjam 13y ago
  Did anybody ever see Discovery Channel's Extreme Engineering episode about a possible high speed train from London, UK to NYC, USA? http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/intelligent-energy/new-york-to-london-in-an-hour-by-train/16456 http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/intelligent-energy/new-york-... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frYWTrEfPRs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frYWTrEfPRs This reminds me a lot of that, but without the vacuum tunnel... there was a proposal in 1960's apparently... so no so new after all. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_tunnel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_tunnel
• shirro 13y ago
  Australia needs to build this between Sydney and Melbourne. Plenty of sunlight to power it. Not much risk of earthquakes. There is enough traffic to support it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_busiest_passenger_air_routes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_busiest_passenger_air_r...
  • vacri 13y ago
    The Victorian government won't even build new rail out to the airport; one wonders what would push them to want new rail all the way to Sydney.
  • damian2000 13y ago
    Perth > Adelaide > Melbourne > Sydney > Brisbane would be better. Not going to happen, but would be awesome if it did.
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• prawn 13y ago
  "... each passenger will have access their own personal entertainment system." Only a small point. Other than to display ghastly advertising, why not a dumb monitor that interfaces with your phone/tablet? It's not like you're going to be able to watch a movie. And if we're seven years into the future on this, I'll be wearing my Oculus Rift 4.0 anyway. Maybe I'm just too disillusioned by the systems used in aircrafts with their awful interfaces, lag, etc.
• praguebakerr 13y ago
  I think you should improve rail network in overall than work on this crazy idea. Anyway good luck.
• tankbot 13y ago
  Just finished reading the pdf and now I understand why this is by far the most popular HN post for a long time (ever?). I now post my feeble comment to be lost in a sea of enamored nerd buzz. Fucking awesome, Elon.
  • ponyous 13y ago
    Can you explain? I'm at job and don't have that many time to read whole PDF.
    • tankbot 13y ago
      Just read the first part, it's only a few pages. It's an exciting approach to high-speed land travel at a proposed cost of far far less than the California coastal rail's $70 billion minimum price point.
• damian2000 13y ago
  Originally I thought it was going to be inside a transparent tube that you could see out of - one of the only downsides to this is that you are inside a steel tube with no view. Technically not important, but may be important for some passengers.
• j2d3 13y ago
  Why not go ahead and build the Hyperloop, and when CA HSR gets around to actually building the links into downtown LA and SF, design them to connect up to the Hyperloop, which will surely be complete and running by the time HSR is projected to be available. The Hyperloop can even share some rights of way with HSR. Why not have both? Hyperloop should be an AND proposition to HSR, not an either/or.
• linuxhansl 13y ago
  I have an anecdote here that is both funny and sad. My friend's mom visited a few years ago from Germany. After she returned home she said that she really had enjoyed the trip, especially the trip on "the old, historical train". She was talking about Amtrak.
• jballanc 13y ago
  A country like America in the '60s, '70s, or maybe even '80s would build this in a heartbeat. A country like America today...who knows? This plan has the perfect mix of reasonably practical yet slightly unsettlingly new and unfamiliar. It is just the sort of thing that meaningfully evolutionary changes are built on, like airliners or cross-country trains or steam-powered ships. If America builds this, great! If not, watch for which country does and move there post-haste!
• deleted 13y ago
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• liuh 13y ago
  James Bond used Hyperloop prototype, a modified pig, in "Living Daylights" back in 1987. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AzJ5_8Cqdc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AzJ5_8Cqdc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigging http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigging
• designpete 13y ago
  One part that's not getting nearly enough press: you can bring your car with you! This is the key that will drive massive adoption. Wrote about this here: "Hyperloop = Warp Speed for Your Car" https://medium.com/hello-hyperloop/82cb2069112f https://medium.com/hello-hyperloop/82cb2069112f
• chmars 13y ago
  Could it be that Musk got some of his inspiration from the (stalled) Swissmetro project in Switzerland? http://www.swissmetro.ch/en/content/technology http://www.swissmetro.ch/en/content/technology Same idea, different technology. Anyway, implementation is important, not the idea itself.
• webbedhands 13y ago
  It might not be built in real life, but somebody should at least build it in a mod for GTA5.
• alan_cx 13y ago
  So, a sealed tube from A to Z, passing B through Y. No benefit to B through Y at all. So why do B through Y allow the tube to pass through? When railways happened, B through Y believed they would see economic benefit, and often did. They got a station. Not so here, correct? There for, wouldn't this need a government to force it through? How would that happen in the USA? To me this is where the idea runs in to the buffers, as it were.
  • shawabawa3 13y ago
    > No benefit to B through Y at all. So why do B through Y allow the tube to pass through? Easy. You pay them.
    • alan_cx 13y ago
      Easy? Think it through..... Who? How much? All the same? When? Then imagine all the people from B to Y who see an opportunity to screw the project for huge amounts of cash. Decades of lawyers arguing in court over every conceivable point, or opportunity. And that before environmental, and god know what else, groups get involved. Sorry, no, not easy at all. Not even slightly.
      • shawabawa3 13y ago
        The high speed rail wasn't going to stop at B through Y anyway, and the hyperloop supposedly takes less space.
        • dragonwriter 13y ago
          > The high speed rail wasn't going to stop at B through Y anyway Untrue [1]. [1] http://www.hsr.ca.gov/docs/newsroom/fact%20sheets/High-Speed%20Rail%20Big%20Picture.pdf http://www.hsr.ca.gov/docs/newsroom/fact%20sheets/High-Speed... - all but the "Northern California Unified Service" and "Amtrak Surfliner" runs are planned HSR lines/stations, and all (including those) are getting upgrades/improvements or new rail/connections as part of the HSR project.
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• JulianMorrison 13y ago
  Something interesting my friend said: this would make an awfully good roller coaster. Could that be a path to getting it prototyped, profitably?
• bsherrill 13y ago
  Why not build a tube around the span of earth? A joint world project.
• hoffcoder 13y ago
  "In addition, safety emergency exits and pressurization will be added in key locations.." How could anyone predict what 'key' locations an emergency is going to happen at? And how would eviction happen, given the tube's low pressure?
• bsherrill 13y ago
  I like the idea of transporting cars with passengers or just cars/SUVs. That would be ideal. Travel from point a to point b like a ferry. Or extension of our current super highway network. Use your personal transport machine after arrival. In most of the USA when traveling outside the dense urban areas driving a automobile is the preferred form of transportation. It would make the world a smaller place much like how cars and paved roads did 100 years ago. If we could hyper transport our vehicles at large chunks of distances say 300+ mile integers. I could only imagine this future. Freight shipping would greatly benefit. Build a freight tube only across the US mainland. Amazon Prime? Same day delivery.
  • newbie12 13y ago
    It's actually really stupid. Car sharing models mean you'll have a car waiting for you at the destination. There's no reason to bring your own steel and rubber.
    • bsherrill 13y ago
      What is Car sharing models ? It's simple and could be the best use of this technology. Make all the US superhighways major and key corridor stretches hyperloop. Enabling you as a driver to get around the country faster saving energy and time.
• nell 13y ago
  What is the feasibility to construct one within a metropolitan area, like Greater Boston, Bay area etc. Example: One between South bay and SF in the Bay area?
• ChuckMcM 13y ago
  I'm really curious about turns and switches. The latter more about loading and unloading. If you have a platform to carry 300 people / hr to or from the other city how do you load them and keep them organized. The failure scenarios are interesting too. Lets say a tube breaks, if the linear motors are spaced out, how do they brake? Turn off the air lift? Does that then destroy the tube they are in? What is the emergency exit like?
• tocomment 13y ago
  A thought I just had, could a hyperloop like technology be used to launch ships into orbit? Why or why not?
  • DonPedro 13y ago
    Not by itself, but maybe in combination with another technology: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-11/nasa-engineers-propose-combining-rail-gun-and-scramjet-fire-spacecraft-orbit http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-11/nasa-engine... Whatever you were launching would have to move through normal air, not the minimal pressure you have in the Hyperloop tube. It is hard to pass an airlock at supersonic velocities...
    • tocomment 13y ago
      Could you gradually re-introduce air pressure at the end of the tube before the payload exits towards orbit?
• adriano_f 13y ago
  I just posted a link to the Hyperloop spec, written as a "tree document"... Makes it easier to quickly absorb the main points. https://news.ycombinator.com/newest https://news.ycombinator.com/newest http://gingkoapp.com/hyperloop http://gingkoapp.com/hyperloop
• laxatives 13y ago
  I'm curious how well this thing can "maintain distance between the capsule and tube walls". It seems like this is a much tougher problem than simply levitating the whole thing off the ground where the forces are relatively stationary. It also doesn't look like any of the artist renderings address this, and only consider the airflow lifting the thing off the ground.
• transfire 13y ago
  I don't know where he got his stats, but the energy per passenger for a train cannot be right. CSX advertises daily they can move a ton of freight 400 miles for a dollar. A person weighs much less than a ton. Granted there are additional expenses to make a human comfortable, but these are relatively low fixed costs --you know like a chair.
• acqq 13y ago
  High Speed Rail is still better: High Speed Rail between downtown LA and downtown SF: 2 hours, 28 minutes Hyperloop trip between downtown LA and downtown SF: 1 hour from LA to Sylmar via Metrolink 20 minute transfer 35 minutes to Dublin 20 minute transfer 1 hour 10 minutes from Dublin to SF via BART Total: 3 hours 25 minutes http://stopandmove.blogspot.fr/2013/08/hyperloop-proposal-bad-joke-or-attempt.html http://stopandmove.blogspot.fr/2013/08/hyperloop-proposal-ba... The project also doesn't even attempt to price the connection into LA or SF. That's where the high costs are. Amusingly enough, the California HSR budget for the Central Valley is under $10 billion. Ie, in the same ball-park as this proposal. The reason the HSR project is going to cost $60 billion is because it has to face an uncomfortable truth; actually getting to LA and SF is expensive. Very expensive. Is Elon Musk's s mega-announcement really just a last-ditch attempt to sabotage the California High Speed Rail (HSR) project, rather than a serious proposal to revolution travel? Something smells very fishy. The motive is clearly there.
• rottyguy 13y ago
  A few thoughts: 1) We don't have to hit the ball out of the park on our first time out. I'd be happy to see a hyperloop prototype from, say, Manhattan to JFK built. 2) Which countries might "race" to get something like this sorted out (which may compel a more world-wide movement)? China? Spain? Japan?
• paulus99 13y ago
  A wonderful proposal and inspiring: I think the air bearing, partially evacuated tube and axial flow compressor powered by onboard battery are an innovative combination worth exploring, and I am sure with the correct leadership and political will could produce a really useful enhancement of transport infrastruture. However on reading many of the comments bemoaning current state of construction in the US, as well as unions and vested interests; had to provide this quote of Machiavelli's: It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them.