201 MPH Pod Run Wins SpaceX's Second Hyperloop Competition (geekwire.com) 212
An anonymous reader quotes GeekWire:
The speediest team from SpaceX founder Elon Musk's first Hyperloop pod competition has done it again: WARR Hyperloop from Germany's Technical University of Munich won today's second contest by sending its magnetic-levitation pod through a nearly mile-long test tunnel at a peak speed of 201 mph [video]. Musk announced WARR's victory to a crowd in the stands at SpaceX's headquarters in Hawthorne, California, and in a tweet... This weekend's competition brought about two dozen teams to Hawthorne, including a student group from the University of Washington. Each of the teams developed a pod that was designed to test engineering approaches for Musk's Hyperloop rapid-transit concept, which calls for sending people and cargo through low-pressure tubes at near-supersonic speeds.
Musk also tweeted that it "might be possible to go supersonic" in the 0.8-mile test Hyperloop tube, though he conceded it would require an extremely high acceleration (and deceleration) because of the short distance.
"For passenger transport, this can be spread over 20+ miles, so no spilt drinks."
Musk also tweeted that it "might be possible to go supersonic" in the 0.8-mile test Hyperloop tube, though he conceded it would require an extremely high acceleration (and deceleration) because of the short distance.
"For passenger transport, this can be spread over 20+ miles, so no spilt drinks."
A website aimed at nerds should use metric units (Score:5, Insightful)
It really puzzles me that a website geared towards engineers, scientists and other nerds from across the world would use imperial units in such a news article.
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And they leave a lot of U's out of words. Sad.
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It really puzzles me that a website geared towards engineers, scientists and other nerds from across the world would use imperial units in such a news article.
Most English-speaking people use antiquated units for measurement of distance, and many of them still use them for measurement of volumes as well. You're just going to have to build yourself a bridge.
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That is incorrect.
The USA are not the 'most english speakers'.
From the head of my mind we have Canada, UK, Australia, Newsealand and .... India. Then there are plenty of states like Belize or Grenada that mostly speak english, or half or Kamaroun ... now I could be nitpicking and point oit that basically every European below age of 50 and above 10 speaks english as a second language :)
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Oh? Since when does USA = "most English-speaking people?"
Since when was it just the USA that did this?
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The entire rest of the world uses metric.
You should talk to the UK about that, because they still have problems with it here and there. Meanwhile, more and more stuff in the US is metric, like everything in our cars finally.
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The UK by far has me the most baffled though. Why list distances to other cities in KM and speed limits in MPH? Surely if you use KM for distance you'd want KPH for speed so it's easy to estimate how long it'll take to get somewhere given a specific speed?
No idea where that notion comes from, I've never seen a UK road sign showing a distance in KM, they all show them in miles.
The odd one is the tendency to switch between celcius and farenheit, Celcius for cold temperatures (it's -2 today) and farenheit when it's hot (it's in the 90s)
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Slashdot isn't going to change
Given what we have witnessed on this site in the past 10 years, how can you honestly say that with a straight face?
Re:A website aimed at nerds should use metric unit (Score:4, Interesting)
Slashdot isn't going to change
Given what we have witnessed on this site in the past 10 years, how can you honestly say that with a straight face?
Perhaps he should say "this aspect of Slashdot isn't going to change". It's an American site, and a primarily American readership. Always has been, and there is no indication that's likely to change. And for better or for worse (mostly worse), Americans use the Imperial system, except when we don't even follow that, e.g. US vs Imperial gallon.
[The history of the gallon difference is kind of interesting. The UK had several definitions of "gallon" including the wine gallon (231 in^3, standardized in 1706), the ale gallon (282 in^3, standardized in 1700), the Winchester gallon (272 in^3, standardized in 1697) and the Irish gallon (217 in^3, standardized in 1495). The US standardized on the wine gallon, and that remains the US gallon today. In 1824 the British established a new Imperial gallon which didn't match any of their previous gallons. It was defined as the volume of 10 pounds of water at 62F.
While I'm being pedantic, it's also worth noting that the US gallon wasn't originally well-defined, because the inch wasn't well-defined. The inch was vaguely-defined per the old British definition as the length of three barleycorns, though as of 1814 the canonical inch was a measure stored in the Exchequer chamber in the UK. In 1866, the US inch was defined as 1/39.37th of a meter, which gave it, and therefore the US gallon, a precise measure. In 1959 it was redefined as 1/36th of a yard, which was in turn defined as 0.9144 meters, making the inch exactly 2.54 cm long, and decreasing its length by two millionths, thereby shrinking the gallon by ~6 millionths.
Actually, you can argue that the length of the inch, and hence the gallon, was changed -- or at least clarified -- three more times, when the definition of the meter changed. In 1889 the International Bureau of Weights and Measures replaced the prototype bar in France and created calibrated copies which were distributed around the world. The US received #27, which was calibrated at 0.9999984m ± 0.2 m. That was used to establish the size of the US inch. In 1960 the meter was redefined as 1,650,763.73 wavelengths of the orange line of krypton-86. Then in 1983 the length of the meter was redefined as the distance traveled by light in vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.
This, of course, means that lengths are now defined in terms of time measurements, which raises the question of the definition of a second. The second was defined in 1967 as the duration of 9,192,631,770 cycles of a cesium-133 atomic clock. In 1980 this was further clarified to be a clock at mean sea level, and in 1997 clarified again to specify that the cesium atom should be at rest at 0K (which none are, but corrections to measurements of real atoms can be applied). Future refinements in the definition of a second are all but inevitable, especially since the definition of mean sea level is problematic in various ways.
The US survey inch, by the way, is still defined as 1/39.37th of a meter. So a survey mile is about 1/8th of an inch longer than a regular mile. Over long distances, the difference matters.
And, yes, this post is the result of an hour-long tumble into a wiki-hole which started with a desire to find the history of the difference between US and UK gallons.]
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Perhaps he should say "this aspect of Slashdot isn't going to change".
Then he'd still be wrong. There are countless stories where the TFA is in imperial yet TFS has converted to metric. Hell we frequently pick on the fact that the conversions were done wrong.
Also I take issue with you saying this is an "American" readership. There is far more "universal nerd" in the readership than there is "general American" and many fields even in America use metric as a standard.
And, yes, this post is the result of an hour-long tumble into a wiki-hole which started with a desire to find the history of the difference between US and UK gallons.]
We once argued about how long a foot was here in the Netherlands only to find that each city had historically it
Real technical challenge (Score:5, Interesting)
The real technical challenge is not how to build a pod that can accelerate to supersonic speed inside the near-vacuum, the real challenge is how to build a very long vacuum tube that would be safe and cost-efficient to operate. So all those hyperloop competitions do nothing to advance the hyperloop idea -- it is just a show for a gullible public.
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Why Do I Have To Tell Him This? (Score:2)
Put the seats, the drink trays, or maybe even the whole passenger compartment (or sections thereof) on a pivot so "down" turns to match acceleration. Presto: no spilt drinks.
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When 267mph maglev [wikipedia.org] is already in service in other countries?
Shanghai's maglev does the 430 km/h just for show, 2h30 per day and it loses money continuously. It was made as a political statement. Even if Hyperloop only did 320 km/h, but did so at a low cost (and profitably), you'd have something the the Shanghai maglev doesn't have. I'm not saying it does, but you're comparing apples to oranges.
Re:So "Hyperloop" is a 200mph maglev? (Score:5, Insightful)
And how fast did the very first maglev prototype go? I bet it wasn't 430km/h.
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One reason I like this whole process of seeing the Hyperloop developed is that as far as I can see, it is not the benefit of any government funding.
When these people are putting their own money on the line, I expect a higher chance of a workable solution.
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Not really - maglev embeds a large amount of fairly sophisticated technology in the tracks themselves, which makes for considerable per-mile construction and maintenance costs. Hyperloop is just an airtight tube with some passive backup rail to help stabilize the car when it begins to drift. You need occasional vacuum pumping stations to counteract the inevitable leakage, and the big linear motors anywhere you need to accelerate or decelerate the cars, but by and large the tubes are passive, low-tech infr
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Not to mention that they can be manufactured in a factory instead of onsite.
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A couple of nits.
1: Once you start going fast, the majority of air resistance on a train is skin resistance along the sides. You could have a squared off nose and it'd make very little difference. Noses are primarily sculpted to stop them lifting and you're expending tens of megawatts just pushing air aside.
2: Rail is only profitable for freight and only just got past "barely profitable" with the advent of containerisation. All that wagon-load handling along with freight yards, etc was a massive drain on r
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Some excellent points, though your phrasing is confusing on (1) - only the nose pushes air aside to a significant amount, and my understanding is that it is a significant amount as speed increases. The sides of the train instead create drag due to the air velocity shear. I wonder if anyone has explored the possibility of mimicking dolphin skin texture, adapated for the dynamics of air of course, to reduce the skin drag on high speed trains? Via creating a boundary layer of micro-vortices I believe.
I would
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"I'm also not sure how realistic frequent depots are, since you've got to consider that unlike rail, roads, etc, where you can essentially just pull off on a relatively cheap siding, a hyperloop depot will require several miles of (or very powerful) linear motor for acceleration and deceleration"
That's something I'm unsure of too. These issues need exploring for long-term viability, including questions like "Do you need the evacuated tube for low speed local running?"
WRT merging/routing traffic, in the long
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Okay, a fine point that cargo can help to stabilize demand - though if you're waiting to ship during off-peak passenger hours, then you lose a lot of the speed benefit, and the question as to whether it can be shipped more cheaply than truck becomes even more pressing. So long as actual operating costs are low enough, shipping even with razor-thin profit margins helps pay down the initial investment. If those margins have to dip negative to attract any business though, then you're better off letting the tu
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WRT hyperloop being suspended overhead - yes, but that was proposed for smaller diameter tubes with light loading. In any case you can effectively do that with high speed rail too - the chinese run much of their nationwide 300-350km/h(*) high speed rail network on elevated sections as it's easier than grading the ground.
The issue is that whilst it may be elevated, you're still going to need a cleared space under the tubes, if only to install them in the first place.
(*) Speed limits were reduced to 300km/h a
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Certainly you *could* do it with high speed rail, but it needs *much* sturdier suspension to handle the far more concentrated loads. Plus, you lose the Hyperloop efficiency benefits.
There's nothing magical about hyperloop for suspended transport - suspension is a wonderful option for a lot of things. Hyperloop just reduces the instantaneous loads (and thus construction costs) dramatically compared to a train, while still potentially having a comparable throughput.
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An excellent point. I should have said that *Musk's* Hyperloop design is just [...]. Once he threw the preliminary designs (and the name?) into the public domain, it became anyone's game.
It does seem like the vacuum tubes are the only common thread between things calling themselves "Hyperloop" now, and the biggest immediate advantage of the evacuated tubes would seem to be that they allow for individual cars to travel roughly as efficiently as a long, thin train, while avoiding all the problems of heavily
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You might be right about the costs, though there are plenty of potential solutions. How well they'd actually work... well that remains to be seen. If it's *just* a passive tube as in Musk's original "hovercraft-car" plan, rather than using maglev rails, I could certainly see it comparing quite favorably to high-speed rail, possibly even traditional rail - it's hard to overstate how expensive the "foundation" for a high-speed railway is to construct, and that's before you even consider acquiring the necess
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I'm not sure why you think creating a vacuum will be that expensive. It requires about 100kJ to create 1m^3 of near-vacuum at sealevel (the latent energy in 1m^3 of air at STP). Say the tube is 3m across and 100km long - that's pi*1.5^2*100,000 =~ 700,000m^3. So 70,000,000kJ, or about 20,000kWh to evacuate it. At $0.10/kWh that's only $2000. Of course that's idealized, and pump inefficiencies will increase that substantially so it's not something you really want to do any more frequently than absolutel
Re:So "Hyperloop" is a 200mph maglev? (Score:5, Interesting)
Maglev in evacuated tubes can, in theory, be one of the most energy efficient ways of transportation. There is no loss to friction–so not much to fear from Thermodynamic's second law, making the process reversable in theory. And if you can then use the Maglev technology to recover most of the kinetic energy, you're there.
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so not much to fear from Thermodynamic's second law, making the process reversable in theory
Care to enlarge on that?
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They're saying that energy spent accelerating a craft can be recovered in decelerating it.
In practice, while maglev is low friction, it's not frictionless, so your craft will suffer some deceleration.
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The goal is to convert the electric energy mostly into kinetic energy, and not into heat. The second law of thermodynamics implies that you cannot recover heat energy completely.
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Would you care to explain what the second law of thermodynamics has to do with friction?
Re:Much hidden energy cost. (Score:5, Informative)
Which is why the Hyperloop Alpha proposal was A) for a mild vacuum, not a hard vacuum, and B) did not use maglev. Specifically to address both of those issues.
This student competition is something entirely different. And each of the different companies which have taken on the "hyperloop" name are choosing their own technologies. But as for Hyperloop Alpha (the original proposal), it was very much about majorly reducing the cost of high-speed ground transport.
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Which is why the Hyperloop Alpha proposal was A) for a mild vacuum, not a hard vacuum
The design pressure value is 1 millibar. Keeping the entire* tube at that pressure level and being able to pump sections up and down for general usage**, maintenance and emergency egress is not a trivial issue.
* The total tube will be a metric crap-ton of volume no matter how you slice it.
** Every capsule you send down the tube potentially introduces air to the tube.
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Compared to a hard vacuum, it really is. The difficulty of maintaining a vacuum is inversely proportional to its pressure. You talk about 1mb like that's low. The LHC's beamline is 1,3e-10mb. A 1mb mild vacuum is trivial.
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The total volume of air is irrelevant - all that matters for normal operation is that the vacuum pumps pump air out faster than it leaks in. And while some air is no doubt introduced with each car, stations are presumably isolated from the network by car-sized airlocks. The airlocks will no doubt leak, but if they're collectively a significant portion of the total leakage then you're doing something *incredibly* right with the tubes themselves.
Also, it's going to be *very* rare that you ever bring a tube
Not thousands (Score:2)
Musk actually mentioned that it is not aimed at super long distances (to compete with aircraft), but rather for shorter ones, when the whole "get to airport, through security, onto plane, lift off, landing" is too much of an overhead.
It was several hundred of kms, not much more.
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I believe that was his primary/sort-term goal. I also recall discussions of trans-continental lines, New York to LA at truly ridiculous speeds. But like going to Mars, that's not the sort of thing you attempt until the technology is mature.
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"I also recall discussions of trans-continental lines, New York to LA at truly ridiculous speeds."
With high speed rail, it makes more sense for me to take a train from London to Paris than it does to fly. It's faster doorstep-to-doorstep.
Hyperloop could easily supplant that and at the same time take the "faster than flying" equation out to 1500 miles or so. With pressure mounting to cut carbon emissions, aviation is going to be facing stuff competition from ground-based transportation that's "almost" as qui
Re: So "Hyperloop" is a 200mph maglev? (Score:5, Informative)
1) Requirements for straightness on HSR and Hyperloop are the same, for a given speed. And there are standard solutions which very much work well for thermal expansion and are widely used in industry - either floating the object that would expand and allowing its expansion in a controlled manner, expansion joints, or resisting the expansion. Hyperloop Alpha proposed to use the first one, although any of the three could work. High speed rail generally uses the latter - pretensioned rail and heavy sleepers.
2) Building vacuum lines is no more complicated than building pressure lines, contrary what biochemists-pretending-to-be-engineers on Youtube would have you believe. There are standard guidelines and formulae for them, and no, a properly designed vacuum line does not suffer cascading failures.
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1) Requirements for straightness on HSR and Hyperloop are the same, for a given speed.
What a tricky way to put it. Yes, the requirements for straightness are the same for a given speed. However, Hyperloop is being sold to us as being much faster than a regular train. As such, the requirements for its straightness are much stricter. It is, after all, meant to go much faster.
I think that goes hand in hand with Musk's boring company.
It's probably going to be easier to build in straight lines underground where there are fewer things to get in the way than above ground where existing buildings and infrastructure (and hills and mountains) get in the way.
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Just what sort of small compromise are you imagining will lead to horrible results? Any break in the tube and the air rushes in, rapidly and passively decelerating all the cars approaching it.
A fault in a car's air supply or containment is certainly an issue, but not significantly more so than in an airplane. And in a real catastrophe you've always got the option of blowing the safety valves on the tube to let fresh air in, rather than hoping you can fly low enough before the pilot passes out. Rapid deco
Re:So "Hyperloop" is a 200mph maglev? (Score:5, Insightful)
This was a bunch of students doing this for a project, and it reached that speed on a 1.7 km test track. With a longer track and more budget, they expect to go supersonic eventually. This is nowhere near a finished product, so don't compare it to one.
Why is everyone so pessimistic about everything Musk does? Even here on a supposed nerd site? Jeez, I know the guy uses a lot of hyperbole and has impossible ideas like, say, landing rockets on barges (o, wait, that actually worked) or making usable electric family cars that outperform two seat supercar monsters (o wait, he did that too). Maybe just see where this idea goes? We need more people like him, billionaires that are not afraid to push boundaries and try new things that may well fail but might just make a huge difference in the world, instead of just buying big yachts. I know he's crazy. That's what makes all the difference in this world of paralysing risk averseness.
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+1
Re:So "Hyperloop" is a 200mph maglev? (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly right, the negative attitude has always surprised me in respect to Musk, who at least is pushing the boudaries of technology.
On a tech nerd site, its rather ironic. If we had listened to all the negative Nellys in the past, we would still be arguing over what colour the wheel should be. To the B ark with them.
Re:So "Hyperloop" is a 200mph maglev? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is everyone so pessimistic about everything Musk does? Even here on a supposed nerd site? Jeez,
It's not just Musk, it's anything outside the comfort zone or cutting edge technology. Slashdot is very different than it was when it was new. I think the average age of user on here is much older than it used to be.
We have old jaded engineers, IT staff, etc, as the majority of visitors now. Anything that wasn't possible to do with tech when they were in school must therefore always be impossible. Because one or two technologies didn't take off as quickly as expected... no technology will.
This is a much more pessimistic place than it was 10+ years ago.
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It's not just Musk, it's anything outside the comfort zone or cutting edge technology. Slashdot is very different than it was when it was new. I think the average age of user on here is much older than it used to be.
I've been visiting slashdot since the late 90s and it's been like that as far back as I can remember. It's kind of the asshole attitude of "if I didn't invent it, it's a stupid idea and it won't work." The question is just what percentage of the slashdot community did it represent.
Honestly it's just long been considered "cool" to trash new things or different ideas. Slashdot and a certain portion of the *nix world (especially the older part) was very insular, cliquish and incrowd-y. And I say that a
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I've been visiting slashdot since the late 90s and it's been like that as far back as I can remember. It's kind of the asshole attitude of "if I didn't invent it, it's a stupid idea and it won't work." The question is just what percentage of the slashdot community did it represent.
That's about when I first started visiting Slashdot. I thought it was better back then, but maybe I'm remembering Slashdot of old with rose-coloured glasses on.
Your point of "I didn't invent it, it's a stupid idea" is a very valid one. I've noticed that with a lot of people in the IT field actually, even in the workplace. Something in the psyche of an IT worker seems to distrust other people's achievements. Probably because there a lot of people in the industry who are intelligent, and used to being tol
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I think it's gotten worse.
It's always been here to some extent. I mean, come on:
That said, it is surprising just how cynical this place has gotten. If there are legitimate technical objections to something, it's fun to have a conversation about it, but a lot of the commenters lately are just reactionary naysayers.
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I think the average age of user on here is much older than it used to be.
We have old jaded engineers, IT staff, etc, as the majority of visitors now.
It's more diverse than ever. There are plenty of other places awash in binary groupthink: all crapping on everything, or all cheer leading.
This is a much more pessimistic place than it was 10+ years ago.
The majority of the highest modded comments on this story are neutral or generally positive. Negativity is most pronounced when a highly-political story is pushed on the front page... as intended by the editors.
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Because the hyperloop is undermining real science.
I fundamentally disagree with that statement.
Even if Hyperloop doesn't work. Even if it doesn't ever move a single person... that's not bad science. As long as it is improving our technological abilities in any way (or even if it doesn't improve anything, but teaches us something doesn't work) that's not bad science.
Back in High School science they should have taught you that getting a result different than your hypothesis is not a failure. You learn things even if the results are not what you expected.
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Wile that *might* be true, it's still science. But this reasoning has no argumental value; wherever you put the budget in whatever scientific domain, other domains will claim it could be better used on theirs.
And especially with all the 'experts' on Slashdot, they always know what's best and where money should be spend. ;-)
IMHO, what's really being a waste are government expenditure in researching things that aren't science at all but pseudo-science, like the EM-drive. In contrast, this still is science/eng
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Why is everyone so pessimistic about everything Musk does?
The left hates him because he is a billionaire and loves capitalism.
The right hates him because Tesla took money from the government in the form of environmentalism loans, many of which they predicted would never be paid back (and as they predicted, many didn't, although Tesla paid back theirs, early.)
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Why is everyone so pessimistic about everything Musk does?
Because on reddit he's God. We must bring balance to The Force. Seriously though, as others have pointed out I think it might have something to do with demographics. Slashdot==old farts, reddit==millenials. Not that a "hive mind" is really a fair representation of any particular person on a site; but I also don't think you can deny that collective opinion is a thing. You definitely feel the pessimism here on Slashdot sometimes, and you also f
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One would hope there would be a middle ground, for persons who are rational.
I'm not understanding Elon Musk-bashers as much as I don't understand the blind idolizing of rabid Musk-fans.
I mean, surely it's possible to see and note that he's no superhuman, and has made mistakes, and isn't a genius in the sense Einstein was - yet at the same time give him some praise for the things he did accomplish? Give to the man what he deserves, nothing more, nothing less. and he HAS done some worthwhile things.
And yes, I
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In a near vacuum it's about the same as at higher pressure at the same temperature. Obviously it makes no sense in a total vacuum, but then just take the speed of sound outside the tube.
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When 267mph maglev [wikipedia.org] is already in service in other countries?
It was a test run. When you are developing something you don't go full throttle right away, you step it up progessively in a series of trials; standard engineering practice.
But Musk is primarily a showman who wants every possible opportunity to listen to his own voice and seeks the adulation of others listening too. As a result, we are going to subjected to a Musk-managed shitstorm of media hype time a test vehicle has gone faster than in the previous test. In any normal project this would be dome withou
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You forget one thing: The test track is not even a mile long, and the pod has to accelerate AND decelerate in that short span. Your comparison Maglev can't eaven rech 50mph in the same distance (and forget about stopping :) ... this is just a small scale test, in a very sub-length tube to test power and propulsion systems - if the pod had a length of say 10 miles, I'm sure they could reach the proposed 700mph. But that is far out, and the test track for that still has to be built.
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Well, then why not build a test course that's, say, 50 miles long?
Probably because it would take about a year to evacuate between tests...
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Probably because it's still in the brainstorming-test phase, and would cost at least 50x as much to build a 50-mile version, while delivering minimal advantages (and good luck acquiring 50 miles of contiguous property to build it on. Meanwhile there's plenty of private estates a mile across),
Assuming for the moment that you did make it 50x as long, just put in 50x as many vacuum pumps and it evacuates just as fast. That's going to be pocket change compared to everything else.
Re:So "Hyperloop" is a 200mph maglev? (Score:5, Insightful)
When 267mph maglev [wikipedia.org] is already in service in other countries?
Let's face it, there is no innovation in Hyperloop. It's just vaporware.
Elon didn't invent maglev technology, the electric car, or the solar panel. Apple didn't invent the portable music player either. These companies are known for innovating by taking designs to the next level. When it comes to high-speed transit, the innovative part would be delivering a product before the generation who needs to use it dies, and perhaps deliver a profitable design.
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"Elon didn't invent maglev technology, the electric car, or the solar panel."
He didn't even invent the hyperloop concept. It's been floating around for at least 60 years.
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This is a technology demonstrator. You're comparing it to a mature product. That's where your confusion lies.
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Isn't it just *amazing* how exactly the same set of troll comments come out every single time there's a Hyperloop story!
yeah yeah yeah I know I must be new here -- but I'm not. Just disappointed.
Re:So "Hyperloop" is a 200mph maglev? (Score:5, Funny)
Can that maglev do 0-267-0 in 0.8 miles?
No. It was design to carry human passengers without killing them.
Re:So "Hyperloop" is a 200mph maglev? (Score:5, Interesting)
Can that maglev do 0-267-0 in 0.8 miles?
No. It was design to carry human passengers without killing them.
Hmm, is there an error in my maths then?
ignoring trivial rounding that is...
267 mph = 430 kph = 120 m/s
0.8 miles = 1.3 km
Assuming a constant acceleration, from rest, to peak speed, followed by constant deceleration, to standstill, pod will use half the track to reach peak speed.
i.e. distance to reach peak speed = 0.65 km = 650 m.
Using: v^2 = u^2 +2as gives:
'v' and 'u' are interchangeable, depending on whether we're accelerating or decelerating. 'a' will have the same magnitude in both cases...
120*120 = 0 + 2*a*650
=> a = 120*120/(2*650)
=> a = 11 m/s^2
Are you really trying to tell us that a human body can't accelerate at 11 m/s^2?
For reference acceleration due to gravity is roughly 9.8 m/s^2
Unless there's an error in my maths of course - it has been 30+ years since I studied these equations in school...
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The math is correct, but gravity doesn't go away, so total acceleration with horizontal track is sqrt(11^2+9.8^2) m/s^2=14.7 m/s^2 = 1.5g. Not deadly. Still, killing jokes is no laughing matter.
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At that acceleration, you can walk on the rear wall of the pod. Anyone standing on the floor will fall over. All luggage in overhead racks ends up in a heap at the rear of the pod.
Braking at 11 m/s^2 is unpleasant if you're strapped into a 4-point seat belt, because the belt straps carry your full weight. Without a belt, you'll be squashed into the seat in front of you. I tried braking at about that deceleration once (emergency stop in a high-performance sportscar). All the loose shit in the cabin went flyi
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You don't even have to be in a high performance car to hit the brakes hard enough to send everything flying to the dash - anything with anywhere close to modern disc brakes and good tires will do.
Deceleration is no joke.
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I'm going to guess my maths was right then, as no-one has since posted a correction.
My point was that death was not the likely result of such acceleration.
Having said that I still feel that you're exaggerating a little bit too:
Without a belt, you'll be squashed into the seat in front of you
Well, if done with no warning, absolutely. But, since most people can quite easily manage one push-up, you could simply put your arms out to hold yourself in your seat. Certainly not 'squashed', per se.
I tried braking at about that deceleration once (emergency stop in a high-performance sportscar).
For (slightly topical) comparison a Tesla model X P100D does 0-100 kph in 3 seconds
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The point is not whether there are any circumstances under which the human body can withstand slightly more than one G but whether it is plausible that frequent commercial transport could subject the general public to such acceleration. For comparison, a commercial airplane with belted passengers barely hits 0.2G and a train with unbelted passengers is maybe 0.05G.
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That would be safer but less practical. You can't cram as many people in like sardines if the seats rotate- and in a pod space is at a premium.
Airline industry is probably the best industry to compare how passengers are likely to be treated.
Also, if the seats rotate, wouldn't that be more dangerous in an accident? During an accident if it cause the seats to rotate (impact breaks position locking) that could be dangerous.
Best just to have the seats always facing backwards.
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Exactly what sort of accident are you expecting? There's no oncoming or cross traffic and you're restrained in a tube only slightly larger than your vehicle, so you can't really go off the rails. Worst case scenario something broke off the car in front of you and gets jammed under yours, acting as a drag-brake as it jams your car against the wall/ceiling.
Well, I suppose *worst* case is that something suddenly breaks the tunnel right in front of you, too close for the inrushing air to slow you down consid
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Exactly what sort of accident are you expecting?
Tunnel breaks. Collision with debris (or non removed pod) due to human or computer error. Integrity of pod failing and breaks apart. Door lock fails and attempts to open mid trip.
The titanic was badged as "unsinkable".
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Well, I addressed debris, and like I said, if a tunnel break happens close enough in front of you that air resistance doesn't stop you long before reaching it, then it's unlikely you'll survive anyway. Similarly collision with a stalled pod, or having your pod break apart at speed. Some risks are sufficiently severe that you simply have to trust that they won't happen because there's no cost effective way to protect against them. You do that every time you step outside without protection against lightni
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"Safer that way anyway."
Safer in terms of decelerating force applied directly to the body. More dangerous in terms of objects breaking lose and hitting you in the face.
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So decelerate over a longer distance. For long travels, doing this won't add much to the travel time.
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Acceleration is no problem. You are just pressed into the seat with a bit more than your "weight".
Deceleration is however, as you will fly into the front of the cabin with more than earth gravities acceleration.
So you better have safety belts.
Point taken, although, it'll probably be the other way around. Because the pods will be unlikely to have windows (who needs a window if you're travelling in a tube) there is no reason to face forwards.
If there is no reason to face forwards it is better to face backwards for safety reasons.
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I always sit backwards in trinas, for exact that reason :)
And if I'm in the restaurant and have a beer in front of me, I prefer it not falling away from me, albeit if it would drop on me it would be more nasty. Anyway, the beer is usually secure.
Looking out if the window, I like it if I ride backward. Somehow if something catches you attention you can watch it for quite a while.
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"If there is no reason to face forwards it is better to face backwards for safety reasons."
People insist on facing forwards. You can take care of that by rotating the pod after the doors are closed or using other illusions to make them think they're facing the direction of travel as they take their seat.
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Yeah, but with safety belts you could handle a LOT more than 1G of deceleration - 1G deceleration is the equivalent of hanging face down while the car balances on its nose - uncomfortable, but unlikely to be dangerous. Heck, automobile seatbelts are required to restrain about 4000 pounds, roughly 200lbs x 20Gs of deceleration, though the bruising from that is unlikely to get you a lot of repeat customers.
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Hmm, it just occurred to me, there's another method for comfortable deceleration - recline the seats and provide a solid footrest. If you're lying at 45* while decelerating at 1G, then it'll feel like you're standing up at 1.4Gs while strapped to a padded wall for support. Not really pleasant for extended periods, but your body is designed to withstand acceleration in that direction.
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Or, easier to achieve, you'd better not give them the option of removing their seatbelts. Extreme roller coasters with 3- or 5-point harnesses come to mind.
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No. But neither can humans if they wish to remain humans.
Re:So "Hyperloop" is a 200mph maglev? (Score:5, Informative)
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No. But neither can humans if they wish to remain humans.
Hmm, is there an error in my maths then?
ignoring trivial rounding that is...
267 mph = 430 kph = 120 m/s
0.8 miles = 1.3 km
Assuming a constant acceleration, from rest, to peak speed, followed by constant deceleration, to standstill, pod will use half the track to reach peak speed.
i.e. distance to reach peak speed = 0.65 km = 650 m.
Using: v^2 = u^2 +2as gives:
'v' and 'u' are interchangeable, depending on whether we're accelerating or decelerating. 'a' will have the same magnitude in both cases...
120*120 = 0 +
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Yes, because a sure sign of intelligence is basing your opinions on engineering topics not on the work of engineers, but on the Youtube rants of biochemists.
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"The difference between scientists and engineers, that's easy--engineers make money; scientists spend it."
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But not necessarily. In essence, it's just an engineering problem, as the parent poster said. All the factors you describe, are not directly related to having such a system work. They *can* be factors of consideration in certain area's for it to be successfully implement in a long-term context, but they are not necessary components to get the system itself working. For instance, if one would build it in a country where dictators (half the middle-east) or authoritarian leaders (Putin) or the Party (China) h
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Except that his objections and analysis are incredibly sane and valid. Instead of resorting to ad hominem fallacy, why not dispute the analysis? Or are you simply discounting his analysis because this is outside his field of expertise without examining it at all?
Even without a lot of physics knowledge, we have to acknowledge the tremendous engineering difficulty of maintaining large stretches of vacuum. And the dangers of decompression. Or extreme difficulties of safety. Doesn't take a lot of physics k
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"Except that his objections and analysis are incredibly sane and valid."
Except they are not.
Or, to be fair, they are valid and reasonable sane in the domain he's an expert in, which is biochemistry. There, his vids are worthwhile watching. The further he deviates from his on field, the more his analysis because insane and invalid. This is most obvious in his 'analysis' (hardly the name worthy anymore) of political-economic topics like the Brexit, and of engineering domains he really doesn't know much about,
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Well, I think the test is weird.
Their test is a tunnel of 1 mile.
I guess it is hard to get to anything useful on such a short test track.
It means you need to accelerate like crazy at first and immediately slow down.
Though to be fair. their previous test was a 60mph. So going from 60mph to 200mph one test later, promise to go higher. Hyperloop is supposed to deliver 500mph. So I reserve my judgment for the next test. Hopefully on a longer track.
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I suspect the acceleration is much lower though.
And this is only at the proof-of-concept testing stage of entirely different technologies
I agree this won't set any historical records, but very little does. It is an accomplishment though, in that it's an advancement of the technologies necessary to make this happen. And it continues to be an accomplishment even if it's abandoned before anything substantial is created - there are far more false starts in science and technology than there are successful conc
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Is "Solar Freakin' Roadways!" also good?