Elon Musk's - Hyperloop

[Hillhater]

...... I'm sure they would have to design it where a train passing through a certain magnitude earthquake would survive.

And im sure the Japanese thought that about their Nuclear plants too !

 

[amberwolf]

And they did survive.

Until the water drowned the poorly-placed generators providing power for control, etc, and they couldn't control / monitor the systems properly. (more complicated than that, but...if they'd had power, I doubt they'd've had any serious problems. Guess we'll never know).

 

[Hillhater]

And they did survive.
(more complicated than that, but...if they'd had power, I doubt they'd've had any serious problems. Guess we'll never know).

you cannot suggest Fukushima "survived"
And it did happen,..dispite all the meticulous careful planning to protect against just such an event.
Sure it didnt fall apart when the earthquake struck, ...but a direct result of that quake was the Tsunami that took out the power.
so they ( the notoriously pedantic Japanese),.. overlooked a potential risk in their design process.
just goes to show that humans are not infallible.

 

[Dauntless]

The point is they DID survive the earthquake. They didn't build the water wall tall enough. Chaos theory. I don't find the plans to be safe, but it'll probably handle what they PLAN for them to handle.

Meanwhile, too bad a certain fool can't bother to learn what those quotes were REALLY about, but he wouldn't be a fool then, would he?

 

[billvon]

And they did survive. Until the water drowned the poorly-placed generators providing power for control, etc, and they couldn't control / monitor the systems properly.

Well, right, but that's like saying that Chernobyl and Three Mile Island survived until someone did something stupid. There's no limit to how stupid people can be, even when they are handling something as dangerous as a nuclear reactor.

PS. I will never understand why it wasn't possible to repower the monitoring equipment at Fukushima from external power supplies. They had truck-mounted generators there within six hours.

 

[parabellum]

Chernobyl

At least this 1 was a human error, more inclined to sabotage.
They did programmed runaway stress test with all security protocols shut down, but moved the test schedule and it fell on other shift, where unfortunately was no trained to deal with personal.
The security system was designed to handle this induced situation, even considering a bunch of monkeys doing things opposite to right, but humans where just smart enough to bypass and incapacitate a security system long enough to make this disaster happen.

I hope, Hyperloop will have no human operators with enough access level to screw thing up.

 

[billvon]

They did programmed runaway stress test with all security protocols shut down, but moved the test schedule and it fell on other shift, where unfortunately was no trained to deal with personal.
The security system was designed to handle this induced situation, even considering a bunch of monkeys doing things opposite to right, but humans where just smart enough to bypass and incapacitate a security system long enough to make this disaster happen.

Yep. And you could use a very similar description for what happened at TMI.

 

[Hillhater]

Hyperloop 1 is shut down at last.
I am always surprised how long it takes wealthy people and institutions to eventuall realise the impracticality of the wonderous ideas that they are mesmerised by.
I am beginning to think that Musk throws out a few brain farts just to see who takes the bait and provides a few months of entertaining news.
With Hyperloop it took practically 10 years of flushing someones money down a hole (litterally) before someone called out the Emperor on his clothes !
Now it is down to being a toy for some rich oil barron to play with . !

The hyperloop is dead for real this time

Turns out the real hyperloop was the friends we made along the way.

www.theverge.com

 

[jonescg]

Hyperloop was always about preventing California High Speed Rail from happening. An actual technology that actually exists and works.
Musk even told his biographer the point of Hyperloop was to hold up actual fast rail.
Google 'bionic duckweed' syn. Gadgetbahn.

 

[DaLanMan]

What I think is hilarious is the assumption it would not worrk.

When the whole fiasco started, it sounded like there was some hinkey doo bullshit of monolithic proportions afoot. One youtuber was going on about the impossibility of it.

Modern technology can't put a train in a low pressure environment and make it go...

Really? so the fact that the first human transport in a low pressure environment with a pressure only motile force is beyond us? How did the New Yorkers in the 1800's do it? well, I mean besides the near constant need for repairs on leather gaskets?

Oh we need to ignore that, what about the need for expansion joints? acroos 600 miles?
Uhm, Last I looked there was a 4" joint ever 36 feet on the new bay bridge, It is not 600 miles but it too has joints, and nasa has a design for an extendable bridging tube going back to SkyLab.

I will say you are aboslutely correct, there was more to that story, but the concept is a sound one. No reason to not blast people at 600 miles an hour down a low pressure tube... But we absolutely could use one at half that speed, and it is honestly not that complicated.

The sheer fudgery of California politics has amazed me since I got here. Look at the failed Auburn Dam project, it has been funded something like 6 times, and every time the money vanishes. Yet no one seems to mind...

 

[Hillhater]

What I think is hilarious is the assumption it would not worrk.

That depends on your definition of “would it work”..
Imsure the technology exists in the most part, but if it cannot be made to function economically or reliably,…. then its not worth pursuing.

 

[DaLanMan]

It is complex, but not hard. the people saying it is impossible generally say everything new is impossible. Thunderfoot (youtuber) has also said that Spacex could never autonomously land a unit on a barge.

Often times the naysayers are a bit lost in the weeds, many people said it is not economically feasible and they were flat out wrong, there is literally an order of magnitude difference between what people think an acceptable ROI is vs what a corporation/ The golden gate bridge was impossible, no span that big blah blah blah. Lots of hard tech issues to solve, oh, and it was gonna be mighty pricey.

It was done with penny bids. There were more shares in that bridge than in any single event in history, That impossible bridge has not fallen down, has never had a major failure, and has outlasted something like 99% of the bridges that came after it (this is partially taken from a plaque in the lobby of the Bridge Authority building)

If you think "If I buy this house, I am gonna be way in debt, but I will own it in 20 years" and you think that equates I have some bad news.

The giant viaduct project in I think France, has an expected ROI of like 80 years, and that is without being positive on the maintenance cycle.

Big projects are just that... Big.

 

[Hillhater]

many people said it is not economically feasible and they were flat out wrong, there is literally an order of magnitude difference between what people think an acceptable ROI is vs what a corporation/

Projects can be big with a poor ROI, or even no ROI as in the case of community infrastructure like roads or Hospitals , where social benefits are the result and there is no alternative.
But if a project is. Just a folly with no prospect of ROI due to more viable alternatives, or other benefit that the investors want, …( Ford Edsel,..New Coke, etc)….that is when smart folk cut their losses !
Infact there is a direct parallel to the Hyperloop situation , predating it by 50 years…..the UK “Hovertrain”
..a Maglev monorail train, that had proven itself ( much like Hyperloop at 104 mph !), but was shown to be a financial non starter, and cancelled.
but as with so many other technical projects, it has since been revised and built in China ,
…....but of course we all know how “Chinanomics” works !

 

[DaLanMan]

Well, as a person who spent far too much time commuting, I was always glad I wasn't one of the loons who worked or lived in LA and flew back and forth. There is a Jet Blue flight like every 30 minutes last I looked and that was reduced flights since covid. It is insane how much people are spending to make that trip less painful, and keep in mind, the "less painful" is 2x/day through airport security.

There is and has been value in Rail that detroit fought long and hard to kill off. I used to hear about the awesome train systems in Cali, and one by one they were taken out by busses, which makes absolutely no sense to anyone who can math.

It was a political critter that is for sure, but I am not convinced the idea was in any way faulty, we have not really improved rail travel since hybrid diesel....

 

[Hillhater]

we have not really improved rail travel since hybrid diesel....

. The Japanese have !
and several European countries have very good Hign Speed electric train networks capable of . 300+ km/h

 

[DaLanMan]

yes, off set power feed to a rail system.

Yep, banked lane handlers etc.

These are patchwork modifications that are known tech. Nothing really different has happened. I know a lass that is an MIT grad and of all things, her specialty as a Mechanical Engineer is trains.. I have heard the laments...

 

[Hillhater]

These are patchwork modifications that are known tech. Nothing really different has happened.

Really ?
thats like saying nothing different has happened in aeronautics since the Wright Brothers !
Continuous improvement is the way tecnology progresses.
Those Diesel trains were not “hybrids” , they were just Diesel powered with electrical drive transmissions, with no ability to move without the diesel running, and no ability to store regen braking energy.

 

[Chalo]

Last summer I went to Europe for the first time, and experienced French high speed rail. It was somewhat embittering to find that even the budget Ouigo network using old second choice trains was running frequent 300 km/h service between lots of minor city pairs, the kinds that don't get train or major airline service in the USA.

I decided the main thing the USA is Number One at is squandering its potential.

 

[MarkJohnston]

Musk is way ahead of his time. We need more billionaires like him who have vision to help humanity and actually USE their wealth rather than hoard it.

Musk needs to run for senate and get rid of Barbara Boxer in CA or perhaps governor. Then he can actually make some changes for the better.

Musk is the son of emerald miner from apartheid south Africa. The same people who enslave children to get those jewels, and use the money from their exploitation to then use children to mine lithium. Nothing special about him. He is just another billionaire who could care less about humanity. He has a really good propaganda division though, so perhaps I am not surprised you fell for the lies. Don't feel too bad about yourself...

 

[Chalo]

Musk is the son of emerald miner from apartheid south Africa. The same people who enslave children to get those jewels, and use the money from their exploitation to then use children to mine lithium. Nothing special about him. He is just another billionaire who could care less about humanity. He has a really good propaganda division though, so perhaps I am not surprised you fell for the lies. Don't feel too bad about yourself...

Naw man, he's the richest because he's the smartest. Just ask him!