15 ms·
Hyperloop Alpha [pdf]
- zeckalpha 13y agoNice font. But looks good so far. EDIT: There's a bit of minimally technical details, but this is neither highly polished (public-perception-focused) nor highly technical (engineer-focused). Is it a good balance or would one of the extremes have been better?
- keiferski 13y agoIt says right at the beginning that the first section is an overview while the second section is more technical...
- zeckalpha 13y agoSo? It needed a section with more polish than the first section for not HN, and a more detailed technical section.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- qrohlf 13y agoBoth would have been ideal - Ideally the webpage would have been a public-perception-focused with simple explanations (syringes with compressors!) and the concept sketches front-and-center, with a link for a more technically oriented whitepaper. That would have taken a lot more time though - the linked pdf is still impressive.
- tfgg 13y agoI think the occasional mention of safety on high-speed rail is a bit unfair, considering that good systems like the Japanese Shinkansen have never had a fatal accident: "Risk of derailment is also not to be taken lightly, as demonstrated by several recent fatal train accidents."
- newbie12 13y agoThere were two fatal high speed accidents just this summer in Europe-- the Spanish one killed 80 people.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- jessaustin 13y agoClaustrophobes will not be eager to travel in this fashion.
- nakedrobot2 13y agoTravelling in any kind of tunnel is no more claustrophobic than this is it?
- thenomad 13y ago"The maximum width is 4.43 ft (1.35 m) and maximum height is 6.11 ft (1.10 m)." Yeah, that's a little bit more claustrophobic than your average underground train.
- jessaustin 13y agoThe passenger compartment mockups indicate there won't be enough room to sit upright. I'm sure the seats will make this comfortable for people of average stature who aren't afflicted with claustrophobia, but there will be much less room than tunnels that accommodate e.g. upright humans or subway trains.
- peddamat 13y agoStrap on an Oculus, and simulate a train car. Or, project windows onto the interiors. (Since we're talking future technology)
- 13y ago
- nakedrobot2 13y agoThis could be considered a "next generation train". Elon Musk as we know likes to consider things from "first principles". It looks like here, he has taken the first principles of high-speed "rail" travel on land, and come up with this. I think our children might enjoy using it ;-)
- Mindless2112 13y agoStrange PDF title -- "Falcon 9v1.1 - Reentry Nozzle Study" -- is there some design reuse or just document reuse?
- nickff 13y agoI bet they titled it like that to hide it from prying eyes. That way even if you found the account where it was being stored, you would have no idea it related to hyperloop; and there were probably people looking for this sort of document.
- waskosky 13y agoA funny mistake most likely, probably document reuse for basic layout. Download it again. It was just updated from "Nicholas Liggett" and "Falcon 9v1.1 - Reentry Nozzle Study" to "Elon Musk" and "Hyperloop Alpha"
- darkmighty 13y agoWhen I was a kid I had a similar idea, a low pressure elevated concrete tube transport system. In my idea cars would get rails underneath them and freely enter/exit the tube at some key points. The cars would get a compressor to help keep the not-so-large pressure differential at bay; all inspired by evacuated tube documentaries. In other words, this has been proposed several times before. However, there are some key innovations here - namely the compressor/nozzle pair and the air suspension system - which may indeed change the game and make this viable.
- alex-g 13y agoIt's interesting that the biggest line item in the costing is not the tube, nor the capsules, nor the vacuum pumps, nor the solar panels, nor the land, but the concrete pylons that support the tube - about two-fifths of the total. The pylons are planned to be 30m apart, making for about 25000 of them.
- toomuchtodo 13y agoBut that's the beauty of it! You can make those pylons anywhere, truck them in, and install them in whatever order you want. It's construction....that scales up almost effortlessly.
- alex-g 13y agoI suppose that's true, though I don't know if that's a real difference compared to building other very long things that are the same all the way along, like roads and railways and the Great Wall of China. It's just fascinating to me that the most expensive thing (in aggregate) is also the "dumbest" part.
- dlss 13y agoThe most expensive thing in aggregate is the part which surely received the most attention when cost cutting. I think it makes perfect sense it's the dumbest part.
- TomGullen 13y agoAlso much easier to maintain and replace
- RyJones 13y agoperhaps you can pour sections and truck those in, but there's no way in hell you're moving a precast that size on anything that doesn't float. For scale, you know those 4' by 4' by 8' blocks of cement you see all over the place, used for erosion control and the like? They're called ecology blocks, they're about $20 each FOB the cement plant. You want them shipped? A lowboy can carry two or four at a time without exceeding load limits. When I looked into buying a couple hundred, having them shipped about sixteen miles, it was going to cost hundreds per block to truck it out plus renting a crane to unload/place them. Those are tiny blocks with almost no rebar, no engineering, no preload, nothing.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- hop 13y agoI wonder what they have in mind for how stations will offload/onload capsules onto the loop. That will be heck of an engineering problem to solve - ultra high safety, pressurized environment, fast turnaround times... My initial thought was they would have switches on the track like a normal train and capsules would veer off. But I bet they would come to a stop on there own and then get lifted vertically off the train and into a decompression area where they'd cue up.
- jessaustin 13y agoThis is addressed in the document. Essentially, each station is a terminus, so airlocks are transited at low speed. A turntable reorients trains for their next trip. The only switching required takes place entirely within the evacuated zone. (This is for when spurs are built to serve e.g. San Diego or Las Vegas.)
- orofino 13y agoThe focus from people on bathrooms is puzzling to me. I've been on buses, without facilities, that go for hours without stopping. This is a 35 minute ride with restricted movement, if you greatly fear being able to hold it for that long, there are other, less efficient methods of transport to accommodate you.
- kailuowang 13y agoOn a bus you have the chance to get off every 5-10 minutes, that's a big difference. There will be thousands of passengers on that day. Just imagine if you have to do this trip 10 times a day every day for 100 days, will you still take risk? Update (since I've been downvoted): All these buses analogy isn't exactly the same case because they still have the option to stop somewhere, which give the passengers the assurance that if they really can't hold it's not the end of the world. Taking that into consideration, I think it could solve most people's bathroom concern by adding bathroom stops to the loop, in the case of semi-emergency, ideally a pod should be able to make a stop upon request within 5-10 minutes without disrupting other pods. Some financial incentive might be needed for encouraging people to hold longer but I do see legal risks in that approach.
- christoph 13y agoThat depends where in the world you are. I've been on many long distance buses in Asia that might not stop for 4 or 5 hours.
- axelf 13y agoI have taken a 40min commuter bus everyday for nearly 2 years and I never had to get off early to use the bathroom.
- orofino 13y agoYou're thinking city buses. I'm thinking long-haul busses (like greyhound in the US). Greyhound buses likely have facilities, what I'm actually talking about are the buses used a core parts of the transportation infrastructure all over South America. Many of these also have facilities but I've been on many where the bathroom isn't functioning or just plain isn't there. You can easily travel for 30 minutes to an hour without stopping. We're largely (70%) talking about commuters here, they're taking this twice a day, most days out of the year. Again, I'm not sure why for 90%+ of people that this would be an issue.
- bbrooks 13y agoWhat's the ideal format for an open source whitepaper? Certainly not PDF. Straight up HTML on Github?
- asveikau 13y agolatex.
- jessaustin 13y agoWhat disadvantages do you perceive for PDF?
- mpyne 13y agoThe same ones that we perceive for "open source development" on compiled binaries. With that said, it's not hard in this case to C&P to something more suitable for GitHub and really get things kicked off, but LaTeX would be more suitable.
- jessaustin 13y agoAlthough it was effectively the case before, since 2008 PDF is an open format. It's quite misleading to compare it to a binary for which source is unavailable. Since the format specifies compression, not every part of a PDF file may be easily observed in a text editor, but there's a bunch of open software that can read (and edit, and produce) PDF.
- mpyne 13y agoProducing and reading PDF isn't the issue. Again, we have open source tools that will generate, mangle, introspect, disassemble, etc. to both ELF and PE binaries. What PDF is not is the "preferred format for development", no matter how good the open-source tooling is.
- jessaustin 13y agoSometimes practical considerations preclude using the most "preferred format". Will editing this white paper really be a significant obstacle to deploying a system like the one it describes? Conversely, does anyone ever release a white paper in LaTeX only?
- resu 13y agoIf the U.S. doesn't take this on, I hope another country with a big appetite for enormous public transit projects takes this on. Japan, Korea, and China, I'm looking at you...
- ianb 13y agoChina seems set on a different path, but I guess you never know. Korea seems too small to benefit. And Japan perhaps too mountainous? Looking at California: http://bit.ly/1eFevxA http://bit.ly/1eFevxA And Japan: http://bit.ly/19ZXwbJ http://bit.ly/19ZXwbJ I don't see any roads in Japan that are nearly as straight as I-5. The places where this would make sense have destinations fairly far apart, but not too far apart, with somewhat amenable landscape between them. The Midwest would work, Australia, Russia. Probably Brazil, Argentina? Probably a bunch of connections in Africa or maybe the Mideast... but that wouldn't work for other reasons. East coast seems a bit cramped.
- thret 13y agoIn Australia this could potentially be viable between Melbourne and Sydney, but probably only if it doubles as a cargo train. I doubt there is enough daily people traffic to warrant it otherwise? It is around 900km though, almost a straight line along the Hume highway and the busiest city-pair in Australia by a long way.
- ddeck 13y ago>I doubt there is enough daily people traffic to warrant it otherwise? Sydney<->Melbourne is the third busiest air route in the world with 8 million passengers in 2012[1]. I'm sure there's more than enough "potential" passengers. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_busiest_passenger_air_routes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_busiest_passenger_air_r...
- resu 13y agoThe public in East Asian countries see public transit in a different light than most North Americans, partly due to a lack of cars and the population density. They are probably the some of the few governments that can afford to foot the bill for such an unproven project with potential for dramatic benefits (and cost savings over building HSR), but also with the risk that the 10 billion or so could go down the toilet. Europe would be another ideal target, but I doubt any governments there have the appetite for big capex infrastructure projects right now.
- rwmj 13y agoIt's interesting that the Shinkansen has raised sections built on pylons, especially the new bits they built in the last few years in the built-up areas in the north of Japan.
- nickpinkston 13y agoAs does the Chinese system and for the same reasons Musk addresses.
- nsxwolf 13y agoIt's too bad the tubes and trains can't be made transparent. Imagine the view!
- stcredzero 13y agoUse the technology from Google Streetview to composite the views from cheap cameras mounted at 1/24 second intervals at the top to the tube. You use a cluster of these for a 360 view.
- bloaf 13y agoWhat will probably happen is that you get a transparent car and advertisements on the inside of the tube.
- prawn 13y agoThat fly past a metre from your face at 1,000 km/h!
- bloaf 13y agohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUia8HnNZrM&t=10s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUia8HnNZrM&t=10s
- prawn 13y agoFair solution! Might be cheaper to just cover the interior with advertising though?
- dangrossman 13y ago"Have you seen the 200 foot long billboards in the country beyond town? Did you know that once billboards were only twenty feet long? But cars started rushing by so quickly they had to stretch the advertising out to make it last." -- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- andyl 13y agoSo where is the 'loop'. Seems like this should be called 'hypertube'.
- braum 13y agothe "loop" is likely at the end of each line so the pods can turn around.
- escoz 13y agodid you read the paper?
- braum 13y agoNot every word, I have a day job. If you have something specific to contribute please share.
- jessaustin 13y agoThe proposal is to use turntables. Since emphasis is made in the paper on maximizing turning radii, it could be that the train is not intended to be able to turn sharply enough to negotiate a feasible "loop".
- nickff 13y agoloop /lo͞op/ Noun A shape produced by a curve that bends around and crosses itself.
- tlb 13y agoI worry that the necessary straightness of the tube will be difficult to achieve. The pads float 0.5 to 1.3 mm from the inside of the tube, so deviations from straightness on that scale will cause the pads to crash. Any contact at 760 mph would probably damage the pad, plugging the air holes.
- bloaf 13y agoIf someone shot the tube with a medium sized gun, would the impact cause an internal defect on the order of 0.5mm?
- conroy 13y agoThe tubes for the passenger-only version would be 20 to 23 mm in thickness. I'm not sure what damage a medium-sized gun would do to steel that thick.
- notaddicted 13y agoAccording to some quick youtube searching, armor-piercing rounds versus regular steel would create problems: http://youtu.be/q_zZd0NsYG4 http://youtu.be/q_zZd0NsYG4 .
- bloaf 13y agoSure, so would high explosives directly on the tube. I am considering a situation that could conceivably be accidental because it is incredibly difficult to engineer something that can stand up to malice.
- jlgreco 13y agoThe bar to malice is important to consider. If the bar is "high explosives or shaped charges", then you are probably okay. If the bar is "a redneck who is bored with shooting stop-signs", then that might be a problem.
- tlb 13y agoHe doesn't properly address thermal expansion of the entire system. A long straight steel tube from SF to LA will expand a total of 300 meters over a 40C temperature change. Where does it go?
- mpyne 13y agoIf I read it right, the movement is absorbed by shock absorbers that need to be installed for earthquake protection anyways. You just need to make sure that the segment between the lateral movement/shock absorbers are sized such that the differential thermal expansion doesn't violate the deflection requirements.
- nickff 13y agoThe paper describes having a telescoping section on each end to accommodate thermal expansion, but the previous commenter is stating that it is likely this telescoping method will not be sufficient, as the variation in length of the structure will cause significant bending of the pylons themselves. Between the ends, there is no mechanism to allow for thermal expansion, which will either cause massive axial stress on the steel tube, bending of the pylons, or both. The shock absobers will not have sufficient travel to address this, (100s of meters); axial bearings on the tube may be required.
- tlb 13y agoEach 30M long tube expands 15mm over 40C of temperature change. You could imagine a 15mm expansion joint at each connection, which is roughly what oil/gas pipelines do, but the paper explicitly says tubes will be welded together for straightness.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- erikpukinskis 13y agoI don't know how to do the math, but couldn't it be absorbed by the horizontal play at each plyon? Imagine the tube "zig-zagging" a tiny bit at each column.
- blackjack48 13y agoLocation is a primary reason why Musk can claim Hyperloop will be cheaper than high speed rail. As the paper correctly points out, right-of-way acquisition is very expensive. Bypassing major population centers is an easy way out of using eminent domain or expensive tunneling to build the system. The HSR project is required by Proposition 1A to pass through several population centers in the state and have a couple dozen stops. Notably, Hyperloop proposes to bypass all of the SF peninsula, San Jose, and Central Valley cities like Fresno and Bakersfield. HSR was politically viable because these regions were included in the project. Furthermore, the route and station map appears to hint that Hyperloop's stations are positioned away from city centers. For example, the "San Francisco" station appears to be located in the East Bay and the "Los Angeles" station is closer to Burbank. This is quite significant from an urban planning perspective as it means that short haul transit or car trips have to be accommodated for a majority of those people who want to use the system. It also adds to the total travel time needed to get from door to door for a greater number of people than does HSR. I'm not saying that Hyperloop is an inherently flawed project or that HSR is the perfect solution to the state's long-haul transportation needs. I just think that Musk is oversimplifying the situation.
- enraged_camel 13y ago>>I just think that Musk is oversimplifying the situation. Yes. After all, the project whitepaper has the word "alpha" in the title, and the authors specifically say they are open to constructive feedback. Have you thought about emailing them about your concerns? I think they are valid.
- blackjack48 13y agoI'm fairly certain they've realized this. My guess is that "Proposed SF-LA tube costs billions less than HSR" makes for a better headline.
- joe_the_user 13y agoFor example, the "San Francisco" station appears to be located in the East Bay and the "Los Angeles" station is closer to Burbank. This is quite significant from an urban planning perspective as it means that short haul transit or car trips have to be accommodated for a majority of those people who want to use the system. It also adds to the total travel time needed to get from door to door for a greater number of people than does HSR. I'm not an urban planner but it seems to me that accommodating one station in each city's boondocks might actually be easier than accommodating transit to several stations in the most central areas. San Leandro has a lot more room to build than SF and a lot of people will be coming to the SF HSR station if it's built there (even with a San Jose station).
- tomrod 13y agoHow does one maintain oxygen ratios?
- cocoflunchy 13y agoInteresting quote: The intent of this document has been to create a new open source form of transportation that could revolutionize travel. The authors welcome feedback and will incorporate it into future revisions of the Hyperloop project, following other open source models such as Linux.
- landhar 13y agoI would really like to see people starting to build small scale models from this design. It could become the new version of building a rocket in your backyard.
- sylvinus 13y agoIMHO Musk (or anyone who follows up) should drop the "passenger" version and go with the "passenger plus vehicle" version only. Because right now what people and the press are going to focus on is how small the cabins are, why there are no toilets, etc. On the other hand if you can imagine putting a car in there the claustrophobia argument disappears and you can think straight again...
- ianb 13y agoIt would seem to make the stations a lot more complicated – they'd need to handle the car loading, the accompanying traffic, and the security would be really challenging.
- LockeWatts 13y agoCan we not be thinking about adding the inefficiency of the TSA to such a nice system? The security theatre needs to end.
- enraged_camel 13y agoI disagree. The "passenger plus vehicle" option is definitely more complicated, and in the first version of any project you need to keep things as simple as possible. I mean, the system in question is as complex as it is. I think the "passenger plus vehicle" version is included only to make the case for the additional possible uses of the system.
- prawn 13y agoDisagree completely. I'd ditch the vehicle option. If the earliest forecast is for this to be built in seven years, how much will the driving landscape change in that time? Robo-cars even? This is primarily for commuters who can walk/taxi/rent at the destination. Even travellers will do the same. If you want to take your car, drive it IMO. When you fly, there is no expectation of taking your car along with you and this should be similar - focus on what we will need rather than on what a minority could fancy.
- sylvinus 13y ago
- sukaka 13y agoCould someone buy land in the potential path of this hyperloop then block access or sell the rights or land to make a profit?
- sczkid 13y agoNo, because of the principle of eminent domain, meaning the government of California can forcefully purchase the land for public use: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain Legally, whoever tried this would be forced to give over the land for "fair market value", and if they were difficult about it they'd probably receive much less.
- JulianMorrison 13y agoEeeh, that looks awfully cramped. Especially for anyone a little overweight.
- drgath 13y agoNo more so than flying coach. It actually looks more like flying business class on BA.
- adwf 13y agoLooks like a good idea, but the major glaring technical point that seems to be missing is the issue of horizontal stability within the tube. When you get very low friction, high speed and no tracks, you're going to start having attitude problems without the right control surfaces available. Don't want to be spinning passengers around the roof of that tunnel!
- jessaustin 13y agoThe train could be just very bottom-heavy.
- adwf 13y agoPerhaps on a straight, but in the bends or slopes you'd still need some sort of control. I'm visualising the kind of oscillations that luge or bobsled riders get in the winter olympics when they come out of the corners. High speed and low friction could mean a lot of potential lateral movement that needs to be controlled somehow. Maybe releasing some of the stored compressed gas in controlled bursts like used in various space endeavours. That would have the added benefit of off-loading some of the potentially dangerous steam.
- jessaustin 13y agoI've never operated a bobsled, but if they're like other machines I've operated with physical controls that have mass or that move in response to things that have mass, then the oscillations are caused by the driver. Which makes sense because the better bobsled drivers are observed not to suffer from these oscillations as often as their competitors. (In fact we might say they are "dampers" rather than "drivers".) In the absence of any controls, we would expect the train to climb the side of the tube on a corner, without ever reaching a "horizontal" orientation. When exiting a corner, perhaps there would be a pendulum situation, but I'm thinking that a train that wasn't round in cross-section would damp that pretty quickly. If not, the system generates compressed air. That can be released through nozzles that are oriented and controlled to dampen the rolling. But you're right, of course. A bottom-heavy train is just a more effective pendulum.
- magoon 13y agoThis is supposed to be for commuters? I worry not many would commute daily from LA to SF. Also, travel time to the station has to be taken into account, even more so if we compare it to driving.
- noisy_boy 13y agoYes they don't because its not feasible _yet_. If your residence/office is within 30 mins from the stations at points of origin/exit, then with this, it'll be about 1.5 hours end-to-end (I'm sure auxiliary services would spring up to support this like shuttle buses etc). I know people who change buses, trains and do some walking, chalking a total of that much right now everyday while working and staying in the same city.
- Egregore 13y agoIf this system will evolve, how switches will work between different routes? Will it be only from station to station?
- fludlight 13y agoCool concept, but a 500 mile bridge? Elevated transportation routes are expensive [1,2,3]. The utopian dreams tend to give way to an ugly reality [4,5]. The $1 billion budget for land and rights of way also seems wildly optimistic for razing a path through multiple heavily populated metropolitan areas with astronomical real estate prices. And let's not underestimate the tenacity and ingenuity of a determined opposition [6,7]. [1] The 3.2 mile, mostly elevated [1a] BART/OAK connector with dinky little cable cars will cost $361mm for the capital construction alone[1b]. [1a] http://bart.gov/docs/oac/OAC%20Project%20Alignment%20Map%20Satellite.jpg http://bart.gov/docs/oac/OAC%20Project%20Alignment%20Map%20S... [1b] (slide 36) http://bart.gov/docs/oac/Microsoft%20PowerPoint%20-%20OAC%20December%2010%20Award%20-%20Final.pdf http://bart.gov/docs/oac/Microsoft%20PowerPoint%20-%20OAC%20... [2] http://www.nationalaffairs.com/doclib/20080528_197905505costsbenefitsandthewestsidehighwayreginaherzlinger.pdf http://www.nationalaffairs.com/doclib/20080528_197905505cost... [3] http://www-pam.usc.edu/volume2/v2i1a3s2.html http://www-pam.usc.edu/volume2/v2i1a3s2.html [4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=DkZSQS7lpHE&t=163 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=DkZ... [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embarcadero_Freeway http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embarcadero_Freeway [6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_revolts#California http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_revolts#California [7] http://dc.streetsblog.org/2012/06/25/indianas-big-dig-raises-bar-on-absurdly-wasteful-highway-boondoggles/ http://dc.streetsblog.org/2012/06/25/indianas-big-dig-raises... (this one is hilarious)
- eru 13y agoIn Singapore all short haul trains (called MRT) are either underground or on Pylons. Seems to work out well enough there.
- simonebrunozzi 13y agoYes (I lived in Singapore for 2.5 years) but they go quite slow. Top speed of the most recent, unmanned MRT (yellow line) is about 65 Km/h.
- eru 13y ago
- rossjudson 13y agoI was trying to figure out where I'd seen this before. http://www.thecomicking.net/2012/06/25/the-core/ http://www.thecomicking.net/2012/06/25/the-core/ The (terrible) movie "The Core" has a vehicle -- the Virgil.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- xoail 13y agoHonestly, this paper should be made as a mandatory reading in schools. Honoring modern science and economics.
- 205guy 13y agoSo what happened to section 5? Is that redacted by the NSA?
- kingkawn 13y agoHow would you rescue when pod breaks down mid tube?
- drhodes 13y agoThe pods have something similar to landing gear for use at speeds less than 100 mph. Still, what happens to pods that are sandwiched between two malfunctioning/mangled pods? I think they should have contingencies where sections of tubes may be excised safely.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- realrocker 13y agoAnyone has the resources from this pdf and willing to commit to github? Lets start forking!
- triplepoint217 13y agoI sent a request to their feedback email seeing if they would be open to something of that sort. Copy pasting formatting to Markdown/ReST wouldn't be too bad, but it seems to me polite to ask permission.
- sschueller 13y agoIsn't the pod going to be extremely loud?
- oskarth 13y agoWhy is everyone so negative? Musk just posted a innovative, open-source, thorough, alpha design study which addresses a real problem. Personally I think it's great, and I hope it gets taken seriously by the right people.
- vpuzzella 13y agoCool stuff here, but I'd rather see them focus their efforts on moving cargo rather than people. Find a way to remove the cargo (trucks) from the commuter transportation system (roads & highways) and you'll improve the lives of many more people. Moving cargo is a lot easier than moving people because it doesn't complain or need to go to the bathroom. It also won't be missed by most people if it's destroyed.