
HTT Breaks Ground to Make Hyperloop a Reality - daegloe
http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/19/hyperloop-transportation-technologies-breaks-ground-to-make-elon-musks-hyperloop-a-reality/
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hokkos
Not even a working prototype and already planning the routes, entertainment
system with AR and wifi; it tells a lot about their future success.

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azinman2
I can't tell if you're saying it's good or bad.

To me it shows a product-first thought process which is a good sign for me,
assuming they have the technical talent to back it up.

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kzhahou
No, it's a distraction from the problem at hand. They really shouldn't waste
any effort on add-on items.

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notatoad
It's a distraction depending on the size of their team. The people building
entertainment and ticketing systems aren't the same people as those building
propulsion and safety systems. As long as they have enough manpower to
implement the actual technology, fleshing out the business case and the
revenue model is not a bad thing.

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kzhahou
I disagree. Laser focus is required, and every distraction has a cost. I've
seen teams scale up aggressively when their core was still weak, and it just
makes bad worse.

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azinman2
I've seen what happens when a good product has bad business
management/practices -- it goes no where. So if you've got leadership forging
relationships, finding cool ways to rope people in that you have a great
vision and will be the next big thing, then you have a recipe for success down
the road. I wouldn't assume from those few statements that the majority of
efforts aren't actually making things work.

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scythe
Thoughts on this map:

* There's a route from Miami to Orlando and a route from Jacksonville to Atlanta, but nothing connecting Orlando to Jacksonville?

* Connecting Phoenix to Albuquerque and Denver to Salt Lake City is going to be really goddamn hard (mountains) for how small those cities are (but no SLC - SF?)

* Spokane-Boise, but not Reno or SLC or Seattle?

* Boston? Baltimore? Tampa? Charlotte? Cleveland?

* Why is (tiny) Concord, CA even there?

But most importantly, it's huge! Doesn't it make more sense to start with a
single route (IMO, Boston - NY - Philly - Buffalo - Toronto - Detroit -
Chicago)?

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Someone1234
> Denver to Salt Lake City is going to be really goddamn hard (mountains)

There's already a traditional railway that connects the two cities. The
mountains have a bunch of passes through them.

The reason everyone flies is because it takes 15 hours and costs $81 one way
per Amtrak on the California Zephyr.

Relative to a one way plane ticket with Delta which costs $157 and takes 1.5
hours. And while a $76 saving is pretty nice, is a whole day of extra travel
worth $76 for you?

If you worked federal minimum wage (7.25/hour) you'd pay off the difference in
only 10 hours leaving you 3.5 hours to spare... So it really doesn't make cost
effective sense to take the train, only if you enjoy trains/scenery.

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dandelany
> The mountains have a bunch of passes through them.

True, but the passes consist of winding switchbacks (impossible for Hyperloop)
and tunnels (much more expensive than elevated tubes).

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Someone1234
I haven't looked into this concept as much as some, I have some questions...

What happens if the hyperloop train gets stuck, or otherwise stops between
stations? If I understand the concept correctly the tube is low pressure, so
even if an escape hatch could be opened, it would be unlikely that people
could breath.

Additionally what happens if the tunnel joint or a train leaks, and a train
travelling extremely fast suddenly hits a wall of air? Would the change in
volocity be potentially dangerous?

I will admit that the hyperloop is no more dangerous (on paper) than air
travel. But air travel has been made safe through countless human lives, will
we have to repeat that with a hyperloop?

Last question, not about safety, what is the relative energy usage of a
hyperloop Vs. aircraft and or traditional (slower) trains?

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ck2
Not just those passengers, the whole system has to stop if there is only one
tube because nothing else can pass.

Meanwhile airplanes can just pass each other and route elsewhere.

This almost looks like a half-way solution looking for a problem.

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cryptoz
Air travel is responsible for a very significant percentage of our pollution
into the atmosphere, greenhouse gasses that are causing huge amounts of global
climate change and will cost a fortune to adapt or fix. Any solution to rapid,
high speed travel that significantly lowers greenhouse gas output is a very
valuable thing, and certainly not a solution looking for a problem. The
problem that hyperloop solves is high speed travel without gross pollution,
something that no other solution has offered yet.

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Someone1234
> The problem that hyperloop solves is high speed travel without gross
> pollution, something that no other solution has offered yet.

Do you have figures or estimates on that?

How much energy does hyperloop use to decompress the entire tunnel, run the
air locks, and move the trains? And are we assuming a perfect seal on every
joint or are micro-leaks estimated in (e.g. due to weathering and wear)?

On a related note how does one maintain hyperloop? For example segment joint
restoration, do you take the entire tunnel offline?

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notatoad
>How much energy does hyperloop use to decompress the entire tunnel, run the
air locks, and move the trains?

whether it is more or less energy than it takes to keep an airliner aloft is
kind of moot. Transport systems attached to the ground can be connected to the
power grid, which is legally required to be at least 33% renewable energy by
2020. Jet engines can really only be powered by jet fuel, and exhausted
directly into the stratosphere.

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davidbrent
As a Carolinian I can't help feeling left out when I look at their proposed
map. Even if this is just fiction at this point, I would be interested in
hearing their reason for completely bypassing both Carolinas.

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protomyth
Well, it looks like they left off Boston?!? Given their graph, they are
certainly making some routes pretty foolish.

Being in North Dakota, I'm not very amused either.

I do believe someone who expects to build a tube with no stops across a whole
state is going to learn a bit about politics.

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simplemath
> someone who expects to build a tube with no stops across a whole state is
> going to learn a bit about politics.

The entire thing is a pipe dream

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erispoe
This is the thing not accounted for in Hyperloop cost projection. It's
comparing the whole cost of HSR with the system cost of Hyperloop. The bunch
of HSR's cost is right-of-way and land acquisition, that requires a long and
costly process that isn't going to disappear because of new technology. These
costs should be accounted for in any Hyperloop cost estimate. Hyperloop isn't
going to magically terminate any right-of-way and land problem. Especially in
dense, urban environments. DTX, the rail tunnel access to Transbay terminal
has an estimate cost of $2.5 billion for 1.3 miles. Getting to downtown SF via
tunnel is gonna be super expensive for Hyperloop as well.

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walshemj
Interesting at the first place I worked we did experiments on pipeline
transport and we had a small test track in Milton Keyenes.

Sometimes when the pigs (the cars transporting the goods) got stuck the
research assistants had to crawl into the tunnel to unstick them :-)

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protomyth
I thought the dream was SF / LA to NYC, how does that work with that map?

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dtparr
No. At least in the original plan[0] presented by Elon Musk, he indicated that
anything longer than about 900 miles would be better served by supersonic air
travel, which wouldn't require a whole new infrastructure. But for closer city
pairs, you'd spend so much time not at cruising altitude/speed that the
hyperloop wins.

[0] -
[https://www.teslamotors.com/blog/hyperloop](https://www.teslamotors.com/blog/hyperloop)

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protomyth
"supersonic air travel" is really not going to happen unless NASA's sonic boom
mitigation actually works.

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Animats
I like their proposal to close off the ports of San Francisco, Oakland,
Stockton, Richmond, and Redwood City so they can run their pipe across the
Golden Gate just above sea level.[1]

The tube size seems to be increasing, with proposals now up to narrow-body
airliner dimensions. That's probably necessary, but it makes it harder to put
tubes in freeway medians.

Nobody seems to have a good solution to emergency escape. There's an
assumption that vehicles can be pushed or driven to the next station. That's
probably not good enough. Experience with subways and Eurotunnel indicates the
need for escape systems. Emergency exits at the ends of cars, escape stations
from the tubes, and emergency repressurization systems for the tubes will
probably be necessary. Airlock doors across the tube will be needed so you can
repressurize a section rapidly, without waiting to repressurize hundreds of
miles of tube. That's all possible, but it adds cost. Remember, the whole
point of this is that it's supposed to be much cheaper than maglev, because
the tube is cheap and dumb.

This is a classic problem with monorails, too. Look at pictures of fictional
monorails[2] vs pictures of real ones.[3] The real ones have bigger and
heavier track. Single track sections usually have walkways, while double track
sections can use a rescue train on a parallel track. Here's a list of monorail
fires and evacuations.[4] Remember that Hyperloop cars are powered by lithium
batteries.

At least HTT is trying to build a closed loop. Musk's prototype is just a
straight run. Straight is easy for this; it's turns that are hard. Turn radius
is the big constraint on high speed anything - route planning and land
acquisition are very tough for large turn radii. That's why the Northeast
Corridor rail system runs so slowly.

Maybe people will be more tolerant of high-G turns if roller coaster videos
are played inside.

The Hyperloop system is probably buildable. It's the low-cost claim that may
not hold up.

[1] [http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/19/hyperloop-transportation-
te...](http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/19/hyperloop-transportation-technologies-
breaks-ground-to-make-elon-musks-hyperloop-a-reality/#.zgu9sf0:8WRN) [2]
[http://www.transfuture.net/transart/albums/userpics/10002/ci...](http://www.transfuture.net/transart/albums/userpics/10002/cityhall.png)
[3]
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Tokyo_Mo...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Tokyo_Monorail_Tennozu_Canal_1.jpg)
[4]
[http://www.monorails.org/tMspages/KimEd3.html](http://www.monorails.org/tMspages/KimEd3.html)

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rottyguy
surely some crafty 3d modeller has already made the plans for a hyperloop
model set so 3d-printer people can play at home :-)

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ck2
Not sure Americans are going to give up driving their 15mpg SUVs and F150s
when gas is dropping to $1.50/gallon

Maybe millennials or their children will finally think differently though.

ps. I really hope it was a marketing idiot and not an engineer that came up
with the concept photo of the tube sitting lower than the bridge so ships
cannot pass.

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Natsu
That looks like an artist's rendering to me. They appear to have done it to
keep the bridge in the picture instead of blocking it, sacrificing realism for
aesthetics.

Also, I don't think this is meant to replace cars per se. It looks more like
it could replace shorter flights to me. For example, people could take trips
to Las Vegas on one instead of going by plane.

