Elon Musk Admits He Is Too Busy To Build Hyperloop 253
DavidGilbert99 writes "It sounded like the future — a 600mph train taking people from San Francisco to Los Angeles in just 30mins. In fact it sounded like a future too good to be true. And so it seems to have proven. As Alistair Charlton at IBTimes reports, Elon Musk, the man behind PayPal, Tesla and Space X has admitted that Hyperloop is a step too far and he should never have mentioned it in the first place — 'I think I shot myself in the foot by ever mentioning the Hyperloop. I'm too strung out.' Oh well, let's hope SpaceX works out a bit better ... " Considering that SpaceX has already sent materials to the ISS and retrieved the capsule, it seems to have worked out pretty well so far.
This page works (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/497781/20130808/elon-musk-admit-busy-make-hyperloop-shot.htm [ibtimes.co.uk]
Correct Link (Score:5, Informative)
Elon Musk Admits he is Too Busy to Build Hyperloop [ibtimes.co.uk]
The editors should be paying me to do their homework.
Re:Too busy for a pipe dream! (Score:4, Informative)
Why would there not be simply some mechanical/electrical switch that triggers the train to slow down automatically approaching sharp corners?
I don't know about Spanish railroads, but the NYC subway system has had what you're talking about for many decades. For a dramatization, watch the original Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (1974) [imdb.com]. The part where the train is automatically slowed down going around the loop at South Ferry is entirely accurate.
Elevation changes make hyperloop almost impossible (Score:4, Informative)
Among the many problems with hyperloop is elevation changes. If you're going even 1000 miles per hour, the minimum turning radius to stay less than half a g is 25 miles. There are 4000 ft mountains between LA and SF, and either you have to build a 80 mile long tunnel through them (pretty expensive) or build a viaduct that is 2000 ft high and 100 miles long. Going around the mountains might make more sense, but you're going to end up way out to sea.
Re:There are no NIMBYs in space... (Score:4, Informative)
No air is evacuated, that defeats the purpose of a pneumatic system like the hyperloop.
The biggest force trying to slow down a high-speed vehicle is drag. There are two ways to eliminate the drag: either travel through a vacuum, or make the air travel at the same velocity as the vehicle. The hyperloop does the latter: it's basically a pneumatic tube, so the air is moving at the same speed as the vehicle. Such a system does not need to be completely airtight. It's also why Musk claims the Hyperloop can't crash, since the air in front of you would compress if you got closer to the car in front.