Hyperloop 'test tubes'
 

Elon Musk's Hyperloop Technologies got sections of their depressurized transport tubes ready in a Nevada desert. Passenger pods fit and 'levitate' inside the tubes, without air resistance can travel at speeds over 700 mph. Travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 35 minutes. His system test is a parallel proof-of-technology proposal to compete with multi-billion California bullet train project. Elon Musk has completely open-sourced the project and encourages even individuals, companies and investors to make the Hyperloop system a reality. He hopes his system up and moving passengers by 2020.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14Hs0r5RUww

First subway didn't have enough backing...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HHllC4TbeY

musk certainly did NOT come up with the idea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vactrain#History

E3T, evacuated tube transportation technology.

Coast to coast (US) in an hour.

Why ET3? | Evacuated Tube Transport Technologies

First posted about it a couple of years ago. The financial power and prestige of Musk and his endeavors might get it there a lot faster.

regards
mech

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...d-14834-2.html

2010, longer than I thought.

regards
mech

the airhead reporter says @ 1:09 that "elon musk came up with the idea"...

Musk invented everything, don't you guys know that?

Read about a similar project but trans pacific under water, in Popular Mechanics, back in the early '90s. Either way it sounds ridiculous to me. How much energy (and time) does it take to suck the air out of a tube that big?

I imagine once you get the air out it's very easy to maintain the vacuum

The first vacuum tubes were proposed almost 200 years ago, when self propelled machines were impractical. Sometimes ancient solutions, combined with modern advancements can provide significant reductions in energy requirements.

Eliminating aero drag completely, combined with friction free maglev tech means you can now apply linear motors for propulsion with the ultimate pulse and glide. Power requirements are basically close to 0 when you consider the energy required for acceleration is recovered decelerating the projectile at the end of it's journey. Both acceleration and deceleration must be controlled to prevent the g forces from destroying the human cargo.

regards
mech

More like an O2 cylinder, I suppose there has to be some leakage over time, but it's so low it can be though of as zero. Some pressure will presumably be lost getting the pods in and out of the system, getting people in and out and the like. Still, it's a small price to pay for essentially zero aero drag. Imagine hypermiling your car in a vacuum :thumbup:

I've worked with high vacuum systems and once you get the vacuum established, it takes very little energy to maintain it unless the system develops a leak.

This transportation system is good in that it isolates the high speed capsule from the surrounding environment so it would avoid the problem with bird strikes and of animals, falling trees, etc. getting on the track that you have with high speed trains.

On the other hand how would it handle an earthquake if one occurred while a capsule was under way at full speed. If it caused an vacuum leak, the resulting air drag/ compression would slow the capsule down, but how much vibratory motion of the tube could the system handle before the capsule struck the walls of the tube and started bouncing along the sides of the tube.

Seems like it'd be essentially the same as a long-distance gas pipeline, no? Though those tend to run about 2-3 ft diameter.

Or to think another way, it'd be like having an airplane fuselage stretched from start to destination :-)

http://33.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbbv323jyB1qa568d.jpg
http://the-air-pump.tumblr.com/post/32812347896/pipeline-pigging

Will there be in-flight movies?

Almost everything. Al Gore; inventor of the environment.

I often thought that an interstate tube network with 3 PSI of (at least mostly) pure oxygen would make driving more efficient, but always seemed incredibly complicated.

If a tube car was moving when the line ruptured behind it, would the rush of air propel the car more than friction would cause it to slow?

My worries would be massive deceleration caused by blockage or tunnel displacement. Earthquakes can do some funny things. I have visions of that experiment years ago with the guy sitting on the front of the modified rail car testing the effects of, what was it acceleration of deceleration, on the human body.

That and in the event of a power failure wouldn't the mag-lev system fail causing all pods to "coast" to a stop? A pod with a light passenger would stop sooner than one with a heavier passenger, right? Would friction from the heavier weight be enough to overcome the momentum the heavier weight would create being propelled at such a high speed? That would be the heck of a rear end collision.

Both acceleration and deceleration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stapp

Futurama is becoming a reality, thats pretty cool.

It's happening pretty fast too.

Elon Musk: "I don't have time for this, too much on my plate"

Everyone else: "Boom!"

On the topic of collisions, that reminds me of the book "Rust: The Longest War" by Jonathan Waldman. There's a chapter in there about the Alaska Pipeline, particularly talking about the "pigs" they send through the pipeline on a regular basis to inspect the condition of the pipe.

Sometimes the pigs come out in pieces. Occasionally, very occasionally, they somehow switch places so the pig that was sent through first comes out last. Very odd.

And if I recall correctly, there was one pig that went missing and hasn't been found. It's been gone for years. Nobody knows where it wound up. It is supposedly still in the pipe. How that could be possible when the pipeline is still passing oil is anybody's guess.

Now: who wants to volunteer to ride in a 700 mph pig?

Perhaps the pig went to another dimension.

I'll volunteer