Elon Musk's - Hyperloop

[arkmundi]

I vote for the open source manufacturing approach...

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to unveil 720 mph ‘Hyperloop’ travel designs today

He plans to unveil designs for the Hyperloop today and to make them open source so others can improve them and use them. “I did commit to publishing a design — provide quite a detailed design I think — on Monday, and then invite critical feedback and see if people could find ways to improve it,” Musk said on the call.

Now the question is whether an open-source manufacturing group emerges to implement the design. Haahaa!

 

[grindz145]

I know at one point he was talking about possibly patenting it, and then giving it to the company most likely to make it successful. That's an interesting idea as well, since two competing hyper loop companies maybe not be terribly productive.

Very excited to hear the details

 

[Dauntless]

Oh no, he won't GIVE. He'll have his little unit working on it, then someone will come along and say "We got MONEY!" Leading to the big merger.

I picture the 30 year plan. A young engineer fresh from college may well get to go to work there and spend his career there developing this thing, doubling the launch event as his retirement party.

Or might we learn he's using the Hyperloop as a front for----Oh, wait, he might have me bumped off if I mention that.

 

[grindz145]

Here we go: http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/blog_images/hyperloop-alpha.pdf

 

[TylerDurden]

From the PDF:

6. Conclusions
A high speed transportation system known as Hyperloop has been developed in
this document. The work has detailed two version of the Hyperloop: a
passenger only version and a passenger plus vehicle version. Hyperloop could
transport people, vehicles, and freight between Los Angeles and San Francisco
in 35 minutes. Transporting 7.4 million people each way and amortizing the
cost of $6 billion over 20 years gives a ticket price of $20 for a one-way trip for
the passenger version of Hyperloop. The passenger plus vehicle version of the
Hyperloop is less than 9% of the cost of the proposed passenger only high speed
rail system between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
An additional passenger plus transport version of the Hyperloop has been
created that is only 25% higher in cost than the passenger only version. This
version would be capable of transport passengers, vehicles, freight, etc. The
passenger plus vehicle version of the Hyperloop is less than 11% of the cost of
the proposed passenger only high speed rail system between Los Angeles and
San Francisco. Additional technological developments and further optimization
could likely reduce this price.

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.

7. Future Work
Hyperloop is considered an open source transportation concept. The authors
encourage all members of the community to contribute to the Hyperloop design
process. Iteration of the design by various individuals and groups can help bring
Hyperloop from an idea to a reality.
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.
Feedback is welcomed on these or any useful aspects of the Hyperloop design.
E-mail feedback to hyperloop@spacex.com or hyperloop@teslamotors.com.


Double the cost to cover the political bribes and you're golden...

 

[Kingfish]

Issues & concerns:

• The big miss for me was excluding the cities on the current HS rail route; I was a bit disappointed by that. However if one were to add a second route up the length of Hwy-99, that would do nicely and still be cheaper (according to the proposal) than the HS rail.
• The 10 billion dollar question is: Will anyone listen and take it seriously? It is novel.
• I would like to see a scaled demonstration... one or five mile loop at 10th scale.
• Going down the median of I-5 or any freeway though is not always guaranteed to be free and clear, and does not address over/underpasses.
  I'm going to presume that at that speed (and for safety) there will not be windows. Though I guess one could "see" the world going by on a virtual monitor.

Provocative; he doesn't disappoint there. KF

 

[TylerDurden]

...I'm going to presume that at that speed (and for safety) there will not be windows. Though I guess one could "see" the world going by on a virtual monitor.

Gotta have something, people freak out even in elevators.

 

[fizzit]

This is an amazing concept. I'll move to whatever country is the first to build one of these things

I'm surprised that the vehicle version is only 25% more costly than passengers-only. If each capsule can carry 3 cars/SUVs, and we assume that a capsule is carrying 3 Tesla Model S's, that's 14,100 extra pounds of mass in addition to the passengers. Also there's the safety concerns with having motor vehicles in an airtight space.

 

[arkmundi]

The Hyperloop in one easy grok

• The approach that I believe would overcome the Kantrowitz limit is to mount an electric compressor fan on the nose of the pod that actively transfers high pressure air from the front to the rear of the vessel. This is like having a pump in the head of the syringe actively relieving pressure.
• Air bearings, which use the same basic principle as an air hockey table, have been demonstrated to work at speeds of Mach 1.1 with very low friction. In this case, however, it is the pod that is producing the air cushion, rather than the tube,
• This is where the external linear electric motor comes in, which is simply a round induction motor (like the one in the Tesla Model S) rolled flat. This would accelerate the pod to high subsonic velocity and provide a periodic reboost roughly every 70 miles. The linear electric motor is needed for as little as ~1% of the tube length, so is not particularly costly.
• 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. By building it on pylons, you can almost entirely avoid the need to buy land by following alongside the mostly very straight California Interstate 5 highway, with only minor deviations when the highway makes a sharp turn.
• A ground based high speed rail system is susceptible to Earthquakes and needs frequent expansion joints to deal with thermal expansion/contraction and subtle, large scale land movement.
• For the full explanation, please see the technical section, but the short answer is that by placing solar panels on top of the tube, the Hyperloop can generate far in excess of the energy needed to operate.
• Building the energy storage element out of the same lithium ion cells available in the Tesla Model S is economical.

 

[bigmoose]

Think capital costs. Think what it would cost to build that 10 meter tube. Miles and miles of tubes. Oh, I forgot, all the land is already taken. Think of the cost to buy new right of ways. The only "free" right of way is underground and in the air. Now add tunneling costs to the tube costs.

I would like to see a realistic business case overlaid upon the technology. This is look good on paper stuff IMH and curmudgeon Opinion.

 

[swbluto]

Think capital costs. Think what it would cost to build that 10 meter tube. Miles and miles of tubes. Oh, I forgot, all the land is already taken. Think of the cost to buy new right of ways. The only "free" right of way is underground and in the air. Now add tunneling costs to the tube costs.

I would like to see a realistic business case overlaid upon the technology. This is look good on paper stuff IMH and curmudgeon Opinion.

Elon could always take the Chinese approach: Bribe the politicians, nationalize the requisite land and 'right of ways' and lease it to briber for a generous price.

Might take another couple of decades of growing wealth inequality (And corresponding political inequality) in the USA to pull this off with ease.

 

[arkmundi]

Yea, I'm sure this is a better idea...

 

[fizzit]

Think capital costs. Think what it would cost to build that 10 meter tube. Miles and miles of tubes. Oh, I forgot, all the land is already taken. Think of the cost to buy new right of ways. The only "free" right of way is underground and in the air. Now add tunneling costs to the tube costs.

I would like to see a realistic business case overlaid upon the technology. This is look good on paper stuff IMH and curmudgeon Opinion.

It seems that you didn't spend any time reading the actual white paper...

 

[swbluto]

Think capital costs. Think what it would cost to build that 10 meter tube. Miles and miles of tubes. Oh, I forgot, all the land is already taken. Think of the cost to buy new right of ways. The only "free" right of way is underground and in the air. Now add tunneling costs to the tube costs.

I would like to see a realistic business case overlaid upon the technology. This is look good on paper stuff IMH and curmudgeon Opinion.

It seems that you didn't spend any time reading the actual white paper...

Here's the relevant section:

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. By building it on pylons, you can almost entirely avoid the need to buy land by following alongside the mostly very straight California Interstate 5 highway, with only minor deviations when the highway makes a sharp turn.

 

[mrzed]

I'm nowhere near smart enough to grok the economics or the engineering, but I'd bet Musk is based on his track record. Good on him for putting all that effort in then open sourcing the result.

Re: land cost, that's why he's proposing existing freeway routing. And many countries have either abundant public land or easy expropriation or both. Plus the land is largely still usable as the system is on pillars.

One of the revolutionary things about it is that it is not one revolutionary idea. No vaccuum, just less air in the way. No maglev, just a cushion of that same air in the tube. Great ideas are often refinements and combinations of a bunch of good ones. I think Musk gets that more than most engineers and enterpreneurs.

 

[Dauntless]

I would like to see a realistic business case overlaid upon the technology. This is look good on paper stuff IMH and curmudgeon Opinion.

It seems that you didn't spend any time reading the actual white paper...

http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/hyperloop_alpha-20130812.pdf

It doesn't seem that way at all. It seems he wants an explanation that doesn't include "76 trombones make a big parade. . . ."

Dammit Elon, I can't even get your *.PDF open.

Just think, they had this before any of our fathers were born. If Boss Tweed wasn't such a crook, who knows? It might have been common before the First World War.

http://www.shohola.com/AlfredBeach/

[youtube]AEZjzsnPhnw[/youtube]

 

[sk8norcal]

http://www.skytran.us/

[youtube]YXL4EXfRMWQ[/youtube]

 

[grindz145]

As far as right-of-way is concerned, it really doesn't take much investment. This thing could pretty easily built where nothing currently exists. (IE the median, side of the road, edge of farmland.

Having to battery-power each pod seems like an inherent disadvantage. Of course, it's not any worse than driving cars around, that's for sure. In order to get to those types of speeds all of the conventional wisdom has to be re-evaluated though. It would certainly be cheaper than flying jets around.

I also can't help but wonder whether there is an engineering solution to get to a higher evacuation pressure.

 

[arkmundi]

Look, I'm not going to be an apologist for a new industrialism in America, so we can move more goods and more people, faster, cheaper. In that respect, I'm a luddite. I'm into less, not more, simpler, not more complicated, local, not global. I appreciate Musk wanting to put forward a sensible solution to a high-speed connection between LA and SF, reacting to typical neanderthal government progress on the issue. In the Detroit thread I made the basic argument articulated by Kunstler, that the automobile --> highway system --> suburban out-pouring was "the greatest misallocation of resources" in human history.

http://www.kunstler.com/mags_cities_of_the_future.html

The future direction of urban experience depends a great deal on an understanding of history, and of recent history in particular, because the hyper development of the past two hundred years has followed the arc of increasing energy resources and, above all, we are now facing the world-wide depletion of energy resources.... Now my own view is that we face severe energy problems in the decades ahead and they will not be ameliorated by any combination of alternative fuels or schemes for running them.... One certain impact will be the contraction of industrial activity per se and of the financial sector whose instruments and certificates represent the expectation of growth in accumulated wealth. This alone will comprise a basic challenge to industrial capitalism – apart from the sociopolitical strife that such financial catastrophe is apt to generate....

In other words, Kunstler predicted the outcome in Detroit, as well as every major City that doesn't get off its arse and pave a low energy future for itself. I admire Musk because he's doing that. Moreover, that he has the balls to challenge the conventional wisdom in the California transportation politico-bureaucracy. And that he wants to replace a highway with something immanently more energy conservative, powered by the sun.

It doesn't matter whether its Musk's vision or the PRT (Personal Rapid Transit) vision or some other emergent transportation solution, just as long as its the least energy per person mile travelled and capable of utilizing a growing renewable energy infrastructure, solar and/or wind.

 

[Dauntless]

So I look around da web and all these Elon supporters are saying "Look at the miracles he's accomplished so far," though nothing else, really. Those who doubt give plausible reasons, which outrage those who wish to fly on faith.

I'll just remind those who are counting this as already done and on budget, the Tesla was neither. Also, he's not saying he's going to build this HIMSELF, he's saying he's going to doodle on napkins in fancy restaurants and hope the busboys are in fact good college students of physics, engineering, etc., so they can get together and compare his notes they've collected to use them for class projects that will move this right along.

The Hyperloop itself is facetious. This whole approach he's taking to betting it'll be built is beyond ridiculous. Alfred Beach was a far greater genius at this than Elon has proven to be so far.

Oh well. Time for another song.

[youtube]wvUQcnfwUUM[/youtube]

 

[swbluto]

So I look around da web and all these Elon supporters are saying "Look at the miracles he's accomplished so far," though nothing else, really. Those who doubt give plausible reasons, which outrage those who wish to fly on faith.

I'll just remind those who are counting this as already done and on budget, the Tesla was neither. Also, he's not saying he's going to build this HIMSELF, he's saying he's going to doodle on napkins in fancy restaurants and hope the busboys are in fact good college students of physics, engineering, etc., so they can get together and compare his notes they've collected to use them for class projects that will move this right along.

The Hyperloop itself is facetious. This whole approach he's taking to betting it'll be built is beyond ridiculous. Alfred Beach was a far greater genius at this than Elon has proven to be so far.

Oh well. Time for another song.

[youtube]wvUQcnfwUUM[/youtube]

You're either an idiot or an agitator with too much idle time on your hands (Bingo! What's the word? Let's spell it! Tango Romeo Oscar Lima Lima). He's obviously proven himself to be a master of technical innovation, far more so than the conventional corporate behemoths and stodgy highly inefficient government bureaucracy, I see no reason to doubt his abilities given an adequate demonstration.

These people relying on the increasingly antiquated and prohibitively expensive fossil fuel regime are going the same way of the dinosaurs as the gasoline they're derived from.

 

[liveforphysics]

So I look around da web and all these Elon supporters are saying "Look at the miracles he's accomplished so far," though nothing else, really. Those who doubt give plausible reasons, which outrage those who wish to fly on faith.

...

The Hyperloop itself is facetious. This whole approach he's taking to betting it'll be built is beyond ridiculous. Alfred Beach was a far greater genius at this than Elon has proven to be so far.

It's gotta be a neat view from your eyes. I personally feel I have no place to critique Elon or the amazing things that are now a part of the world because of his vision and ability to make visions come into reality.

 

[Dauntless]

You're either an idiot or an agitator with too much idle time on your hands

Did you cut and paste this from so many responses to YOU?

Let's compare statements:

It's gotta be a neat view from your eyes. I personally feel I have no place to critique Elon or the amazing things that are now a part of the world because of his vision and ability to make visions come into reality.

Speaks for itself. (Although Mr. Physics feels the place to critique people seriously around here. I feel pretty good that this is how he responded to me.)

Now, what's this again? WHO is the one behaving as a. . ?

(Bingo! What's the word? Let's spell it! Tango Romeo Oscar Lima Lima).

Again, it all speaks for itself, as does the reputation.

The main thing Elon himself says he's NOT GOING TO innovate, here. He just wants someone else to come along and pick up the dropped ball. Nothing will happen. In television, every show has a 'Show Runner.' Pretty much everything in life works that way. He talks about this as though it's his baby then says he's not actually going to do it. Don't tell me he ever got anything done that way. Goofball there is a perfect example of all these sizzling ranters you find posting all over that are going on nothing and yet insisting on marching into the Rhineland with this. But then Goofball looks for those opportunities, doesn't he?

Basically this is not much of a vision. I would expect that he would know better than to think anything would come of this. The big question is, could there be a hidden agenda?

 

[swbluto]

The main thing Elon himself says he's NOT GOING TO innovate, here. He just wants someone else to come along and pick up the dropped ball.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/12/4615378/elon-musk-will-probably-build-hyperloop-prototype

Musk said this prototype would be constructed in a "test area" that wouldn't require local clearance, allowing him to move faster in executing on his vision. But again, such a project remains years off, and he's encouraging others to take the lead if they're unwilling to wait. "If somebody else does the demo, that'll be really awesome." But make no mistake: he's thinking about it. Musk revealed that he's already dedicated "some full-time days" to researching a Hyperloop alpha. "If it was my top priority, I could probably get it done in one or two years," he said, suggesting somewhere between three and four years to be a more realistic timeframe.

Obviously, his finite temporal and financial resources are tied up by his ambitious, futuristic and successful companies SpaceX and Tesla (Electric cars and spaceships are capital intensive enterprises...), so he's not going to be doing it tomorrow. However, if he had all the time and the money in the world, obviously he would. That's where others' time and money comes in if they want to accelerate the time-frame. His intent is not one of "I'm just dreaming", but more like, "I don't have all the time and money in the world, this idea needs others' help.".

So, Sierra Uniform Charlie Kilo Oscar November Tango Hotel Alpha Tango.

(Btw, you're the one whose reputation precedes you, silly.)

 

[TylerDurden]

...And I remain thrilled, despite all the Debbie Downer arguments that there are no plans to build the Hyperloop anytime soon, that no company currently exists to build such a thing, and that the usual toxic combination of politics, money, and monopoly will probably prevent such a thing from being built anytime in the next several decades, if ever. I am not even interested in hearing that from you right now, Internet...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31322_3-57598213-256/hyperloop-why-cant-we-believe-in-the-big-ideas/