Hyperloop Getting Closer To Reality, Groundbreaking Set For 2016 107
An anonymous reader writes: On Thursday, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) said it would break ground on the futuristic railway in May 2016. The company says it has signed agreements with Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum and engineering design firm Aecom to work on the project. "It's a validation of the fact that our model works," says Dirk Ahlborn, CEO of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies. "It's the next step."
Phase two: HTT --> TTS (Score:2)
http://theinfosphere.org/Tube_... [theinfosphere.org]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
So what happens when the capsule springs a leak and you cannot bre . .a..
Ever ridden on an airplane?
Re: (Score:1)
The question was what happens when there is a leak and you cannot breathe, not what happens if there is a complete loss of cabin pressure/air. Planes don't fly in a vacuum, but they do fly in substantially less air pressure, which is why we pressurize planes. If the capsule lost all air pressure then yeah, they're going to have a really bad time and air masks are not going to save them, but as another answered they would seal off the segment and provide local atmosphere.
Re:Vacuum? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Vacuum? (Score:4, Informative)
Re: Vacuum? (Score:2)
So you're saying there's a chance.
Horseshit (Score:3)
"If the cabin air leaks out of a plane at 13,000m, you'll be dead in 6 minutes."
Err , no. Some people will be dead in 6 minutes. Others won't as plenty of stowaways who survived in the non pressurised wheel compartments of passenger jets have shown.
"and the air leaked out of your spaceship, you'd be dead in six minutes"
Depends how fast. If it was more or less instantanious you'd be dead in seconds from your lungs imploding and other massive internal organ damage and internal bleeding.
Re:Horseshit (Score:4, Informative)
Depends how fast. If it was more or less instantanious you'd be dead in seconds from your lungs imploding and other massive internal organ damage and internal bleeding.
Only if you tried to hold your breath, apparently.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com/... [geoffreylandis.com]
Humans hae survived vacuum exposure and lived to tell the tale.
Re: (Score:2)
you'd be dead in seconds from your lungs imploding
I think you have that backwards. Imploding would be if the vacuum was in the lungs. Exploding happens when there is air in the lung and it is exposed to vacuum. As the other poster mentioned though, it depends. If you exhale the whole time, you might actually be undamaged.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, and the air comes out of your lungs whether you like it or not leaving a vacuum pretty quickly and the pressure of the surrounding tissue then collapses them.
Re: (Score:3)
Mars air is about 1% Earth (Score:2)
Enough that you have to some sort of heat-sheilding on probe entry.
Not enough to breath. Almost all carbon dioxide anyways.
Not enough to block solar radiation. Astronauts would fry in a large solar storm.
Re:Vacuum? (Score:5, Informative)
1. Let's say it all together: "Hyperloop Is Not A Vactrain". It's like a super-high-altitude aircraft, at ground level, operating in ground effect. It actually needs the (super thin) air it moves through for lift. The air gets built up in front of the capsule and shunted via a compressor to underneath it (for lift) and behind it, to prevent the buildup of air resistance.
2. The difficulties of providing oxygen through masks are no greater in a hyperloop capsule than in an airplane.
3. A hyperloop capsule is a giant air ram which has to work to move its air to behind the vehicle. If you get a leak in the front, you're ramming air into the capsule. If you get a leak on the back, that's where the compressor is shoving the air into. Significant air is also getting compressed into the tiny areas on the sides.
4. In the event of major emergencies, the tube is designed to repressurize, with the cars settling onto their low speed wheels and cruising to the nearest emergency exit. Repressurization can surely be done far faster than an airplane can descend in altitude.
Re: (Score:2)
It's like a super-high-altitude aircraft, at ground level
In other words, moving in air so super-thin and close to a vacuum as makes no difference.
2. The difficulties of providing oxygen through masks are no greater in a hyperloop capsule than in an airplane.
The oxygen mask aboard an airplane is good for ten minutes. The airplane flies in open air not inside a sealed pipeline mounted on pylons and elevated rather high above the ground.
This isn't anything like the Channel Tunnel which has a parallel and built-in escape route.
3. A hyperloop capsule is a giant air ram which has to work to move its air to behind the vehicle
No movement, no compression.
Repressurization can surely be done far faster than an airplane can descend in altitude.
As the bird flies, the distance between San Diego and San Francisco is 450 miles.
No one is certain, but it's thought that a China Airlines 747 might have gone supersonic during an emergency descent in 1985. According to the Wikipedia article, "Altitude decreased 10,000 ft (3,000 m) within only twenty seconds." and "They had descended 30,000 ft (9,100 m) in under two and a half minutes".
How rapidly can a commercial aircraft d [straightdope.com]
Re: (Score:2)
speaking of the channel tunnel wouldn't something like that be the logical first use for this thing?
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. Hyperloop is more the sort of thing you'd use to cross large bays, seas, or oceans, not little channels. But, that adds an additional layer of complexity, so of course early incarnations will be on land.
Re: (Score:1)
Why would you need to get to the destination? Surely you'd be able to close sections of the tube and repressurise it. Or pressurise the whole thing. There's a ready supply of air at standard pressure just outside the loop.
Re: (Score:2)
The air immediately around the capsule is not as sparse as the bulk air in the tube, due to the compression of the moving capsule.
Versus the matter of seconds it would take to repressurize a tube at maximum rate.
With regularly spaced emergency exits
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Even if the most conservative costs of freighting for the hyperloop were to double ....... it'd still be faster and cheaper than all the current means of transportation of goods.
So a railway plus a 4m diameter vacuum tube on pylons will be cheaper than a railway without a 4m diameter vacuum tube on pylons?
Re: (Score:2)
Hyperloop is not a railway. You might as well just compare it to a port on pylons or a mall on pylons if you want bad analogies.
The closest thing in terms of construction to Hyperloop is an oil pipeline. It has much more difficult approval aspects due to environmental issues and near universal public dislike, and of course corrosion challenges and such; but its geometry tolerances are much lower. So it's still not a perfect match, but it's at least closer than comparing Hyperloop to rail. And the costs per
Re: (Score:2)
Hyperloop Is Not A Vatican
Hyperloop Is Not A Vacation
Hyperloop Is Not A Vitamin
Re: Vacuum? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Under the same rules. FedEx is a leach of the national highway system.
Just because someone provides a service to government they are now no longer private? I didn't think the government was that big.
Re: (Score:2)
Some airplanes are made to appear as if they had gone into space, and filmed the interior of the "ISS" in a narrow tube that fits inside the vomit comet as well.
Airplanes don't go into space, but satellites go into pools.
Re: (Score:1)
> Ever ridden on an airplane?
That is Republican-style logic. Planes are not in a vacuum. I know you Republicans don't understand that, but planes are in the air. They do not fly in space. I repeat, and I'll try to type slower for you, they do not go into space. There isn't a vacuum around a plane when flying. After all, if it was a vacuum the wings wouldn't make life, but I wouldn't expect you Republicans to understand that. Please just stop posting. Your kind is ruining this site with your anti-science xian garbage.
The question was what happens when there is a leak and you cannot breathe, not what happens if there is a complete loss of cabin pressure/air. I answered the question that was posed. So take your uppity attitude and go for a walk.
Re: Vacuum? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Not on your life, my Hindu friend!
Re: (Score:2)
What about us brain-dead slobs?
Re: (Score:2)
You'll be given cushy jobs! [wordpress.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Were you sent here by the devil [amazonaws.com]?
Re: (Score:2)
No, good sir, I'm on the level! [stopelonmusk.org]
How about answering the question? (Score:1)
So what happens when the capsule springs a leak and you cannot bre . .a..
I think it is long past time someone addressed the problem of evacuation seriously.
The passenger mask aboard an aircraft has a ten minute supply of oxygen. The Time of Useful Consciousness (TUC) in a near-vacuum is measured in seconds. Oxygen Use in Aviation [aopa.org]
Death comes quickly.
As originally conceived, a Hyperloop capsule would pack in 28 people in a space about four feet wide and four feet tall. Beyond the hype of Hyperloop: An analysis of Elon Musk's proposed transit system [gizmag.com]
It would be difficult to ima
Simple solution(s) (Score:2)
Being at near ground level gives some options an aircraft doesn't have.
Plenty of air is centimeters away. The only trick is to get to it. Assuming the capsule is intact, and can come to a rest in the 10 minutes emergency air lasts, you just need a way to open a hole to the outside. Just pump all the air you need until rescue arrives.
If cabin pressure is normal, the easiest would be to have a hollow lance pierce the tube. It would take some work to jab though ~1cm of steel. Might as well use a pair of ca
It's a prototype (Score:5, Informative)
The company that's building it worked on tricky projects before, like the LHC. They seem confident in their ability to build it, they said that the hard part is reducing costs and energy usage to acceptable levels.
Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)
Replying to undo mod
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Replying to undo mod
To be fair, it was kind of a funny comment. All someone has to do to get +5 is read the article, summarize the relevant points, and suddenly you are the most knowledgeable guy in the room because no one reads the articles.
Re: (Score:2)
To be fair, it was kind of a funny comment. All someone has to do to get +5 is read the article, summarize the relevant points, and suddenly you are the most knowledgeable guy in the room because no one reads the articles.
With good reason. Half the time the article is wrong, either in whole or in part, and you have to read six other things too before you really have any understanding of the topic.
For years, the summary was usually insanely wrong. Diametrically opposed to the linked article. It was bizarre. I'm convinced it was Slashdot editor policy to pick the worst possible article summary submission for the front page in order to drive comments correcting it. So yeah, you had to read the comments to find out what was
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like engineering to me.
Kind of serious? (Score:4, Insightful)
Then which one will be able to navigate the years of cease and desist lawsuits first?
Re:Kind of serious? (Score:4, Interesting)
"which one will have the Environmental Impact Study finished first?
Then which one will be able to navigate the years of cease and desist lawsuits first?"
My prediction: the Beijing-Shanghai corridor.
Re: (Score:2)
If the Boston-Washington one follows the same path I take to get to Mass from Maryland, it would go down the 95 corridor, to the Jersey Turnpike, through New York, and up 95 again. This travels through several states:
DC
Maryland
Pennsylvania (very short, but there)
Delaware
New Jersey
New York
Connecticut
Massachusetts
I know that DC, MD, NY, and MA are all D states, not sure about the rest, but that many D states will be just as bad as CA.
I want to ride on one some day (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess I feel like people felt when the train, car and airplane first came out. The hyperloop (like those earlier inventions) sounds like a wonderful idea, but it's a little dangerous. I want to ride on one eventually, but not on the first few runs. Let them work out any early problems with other, more daring riders.
Re: (Score:2)
Only if they used this new technology for transferring good for first year at least.
Do you mean Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) transporting mail, packages, etc. instead of people for at least the first year? That's a good idea! If an HTT train has a problem, I'd rather have packages be in it than people.
If it's cheap enough, then the USPS, FedEx and UPS might want to use HTT transportation. Not moving companies. I'd hate to have a heavy sofa come loose and punch a hole in a moving HTT train.
Re: (Score:1)
Gives me geek hardon (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Hyperloop could potentially go at hypersonic plane speeds, if filled with very diffuse hydrogen, or very diffuse hot gas (no, hydrogen is not dangerous nor corrosive at such very low pressures), rather than room temperature air. The speed of sound (the limiting factor) depends on the gas mixture and its temperature. In fact, one kind of expects the gas to be pretty hot on its own from the capsules moving through it - such low pressure gases are poor thermal conductors.
Of course, the faster you want to go, t
Atmospheric railway (Score:1)
Re:Atmospheric railway (Score:5, Informative)
Methinks you need to actually read about how Hyperloop works - it's not even remotely like an atmospheric railway. Air pressure no more drives Hyperloop than it drives a train going through a tunnel. A key part of the Hyperloop design is about how to avoid pressure buildup. Hyperloop spends most of its time in free coast. Acceleration (and deceleration) is handled by magnetic accelerator segments, like a big coilgun.
And to head you off: no, it's not a vactrain either. It doesn't roll on rails or float on maglev or anything of that nature - it floats as a ground-effect aircraft, and hence needs some air.
Re: (Score:2)
Stupid comment (Score:2)
It remains to be seen how this will pan out, but having these two companies sign on makes it more likely than ever that the future of transportation may not be autonomous vehicles or supersonic jets, but capsules flying through vacuum tubes.
Hyper loops, autonomous vehicles or supersonic jets and supersonic jets have different uses. If I am commuting to work or going camping I am probably not going to use a hyper loop or a supersonic jet. If I am travelling to an island a fair distance away I am probably not going to use a hyper loop or an autonomous vehicle. All three modes of transport will probably be useful in the future.
hyperloop could beat normal commute (Score:1)
> f I am commuting to work or going camping I am probably not going to use a hyper loop
I don't know, an hour commute from LA to SF via hyper loop is less than the time a lot of people spend commuting today, and you don't have to pay attention to the road.
you don't even need the LA-SF to make it a win.
Build a 20-30 mile one that terminates near the Google Campus (a lot of other tech companies are close by) and down south of San Jose and you could cut an hour+ off of a LOT of people's commute
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know, an hour commute from LA to SF via hyper loop is less than the time a lot of people spend commuting today, and you don't have to pay attention to the road.
In fact a big problem with hyperloop as it is planned is that the station would be well outside the city, requiring another form of transportation for the last miles. It may be enough to negate the benefits of going really fast. It is the same problem as with airports.
IMHO, nothing beats rail for commutes.
Re: (Score:2)
IMHO, nothing beats rail for commutes.
It is easy to beat rail for commutes. Get rid of all the stopping at stations you are not going to. We need rail systems with on/off ramps where your pod can separate from the train and stop at the station while the other people continue on. That would speed up a standard slow speed rail more than all this high speed crap will ever do
Re: (Score:2)
California's high speed rail project is also planned to have the same problem of not going into the cities.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, that sucks...
A big selling point for high speed train is usually that it gets you right in the middle of the city. This may be helped by making high speed trains compatible with regular railways (although at a reduced speed).
For example, in France, Marseille-Paris is a bit over 3 hours by high speed train. But because both stations are downtown, it may actually be faster than the plane. Despite a flight time of slightly more than an hour.
And that's for France. In Japan, the railway system is another ord
Re: (Score:2)
And on Groundbreaking Day... (Score:2)
They can Hype the HyperLoop [slashdot.org] with HooperFlies [slashdot.org]!
I should get advertising royalties from SlashDice for this post.
Until an earthquake (Score:1)
That five mile section should work nicely until an earthquake.
Re: (Score:3)
The partially evacuated pipe is what makes the entire system perhaps better suited to earthquake zones compared to trains.
With a train, there is no way of knowing whether both tracks are still intact short of a visual survey over the entire length of the line. Forcing all trains to stop immediately.
With the hyperloop, any breach of the pipe, will let air into the tube, which increases the atmospheric pressure and forces the pod to slow down. It's a nice passive safety system for everything running in the pi
Re: (Score:2)
With the hyperloop, any breach of the pipe, will let air into the tube, which increases the atmospheric pressure and forces the pod to slow down. It's a nice passive safety system
Understatement of the day. The air rushing into the broken pipe will hit any 1000kph train within it like a gigantic sledge hammer. It will still hit the train like a sledgehammer if the train has already been stopped because of an advance warning.
There are plenty of ways of stopping all conventional trains (and Hyperloop trains for that matter, but refer to my first paragraph) if an earthquake is detected anywhere along the line. Japan has such systems. Of course, if the track/pipe is broken at a p
Re: (Score:2)
Have those HooperFlies flying through hoopsnakes, and then you'd really have something
Here's hoping they detect the firmament as well! (Score:2)
Where are they playing? (Score:2)
Hyperloop Getting Closer To Reality, Groundbreaking Set For 2016
Sounds like a Canadian Indie band who are taking things in a new direction next year.
Re: (Score:1)
Do you not remember 9/11? (Score:2)
According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperloop), it is expected to have an average speed of 962 km/h (and a top one of 1220 km/h), like a plane at the ground level! And it would run across (densely) populated areas! What could possibly go wrong?
Compare that to a jet plane, and then STFU, FUD troll.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Hyperloop is better for freight (Score:2)
The benefit of freight is that there's far less danger and far lower insurance liability. Hyperloop could pull trucks off the roads, from Seattle to San Diego and from NYC to Boston. Think of the greenhouse gases we'll save.
Re: (Score:2)
The benefit of freight is that there's far less danger and far lower insurance liability. Hyperloop could pull trucks off the roads .... Think of the greenhouse gases we'll save.
Then they need to build it big enough to take standard freight containers.
Most freight does not need to be moved at high speed. Conventional rail can already do that with far less greehouse gas than road transport.
Beware Of The Hyper Cube!! (Score:1)
Re: Never will be built in the USA (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
That would have worked just as well the other direction, that might be a clue to you that you are a partisan moron.
Not with the Democrats in charge.
You will notice that when Obama had the white house, and the Democrats had both houses of congress, nothing much got done either.
In fact, it took them losing the house before even passing the ACA, which they did after the voters had already spoken on what they wanted.
Re: (Score:2)
In addition, ACA was done during the first 2 years of O time which is when they had control of CONgress and ACA was considered halfway decent solution. Even now, less than 1/3 want ACA gone (and that is pretty much the GOP), 2/3 want it tweaked or to move to single payer system.
However, I would argue that the dems really have not done anything innova