

University Students Made a Working Model Hyperloop - miralabs
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/university-students-made-a-working-model-hyperloop

======
UnoriginalGuy
I've not read anyone claiming that the Hyperloop is technologically
infeasible. It re-uses a lot of known concepts and will likely work.

Most of the concerns I've read are about construction costs, safety (e.g.
escaping a stuck hyperloop train), failure modes (e.g. what if the tunnel
suddenly floods with air from e.g. an earthquake), practicality (the Hyperloop
trains as envisioned don't support wheelchair access, and don't have toilets),
and similar civil engineering challenges.

If a hyperloop were designed to transport cargo/mail then I think that would
"solve" most of the perceived problems (except maybe construction cost). But
transporting people adds a whole new vector of complexity to the concept.

Again the core concepts of the hyperloop are likely sound. The thing would
work if we built it. But it doesn't mean it will ever be built and even if it
is, that any passengers will ever be able to utilise it commercially.

~~~
cma
The trip is short, short flights have the same issue with restrooms as you
aren't allowed to use the restroom while taxi-ing or during takeoff/landing,
which can easily pass 30-40 minutes, especially if there is a line to use the
restroom after a delayed takeoff.

It is a pod, so wheelchair access will involve stowing the wheelchair, just
like a car or seated bus.

~~~
jacalata
Not all wheelchair users can leave the wheelchair for a normal seat though.
They can't use cars, but the ADA won't allow the hyperloop to exclude them.

~~~
reagency
Why does the ADA allow airplanes, then?

~~~
jacalata
Looks like I was wrong- people who can't leave the chair in their own will be
lifted out on planes. I should have realized that they don't sleep in their
chairs so they must be able to leave them :/ This is a pretty slow operation
though - it would be a real challenge to do this without ruining the
throughput numbers proposed. In my experience they don't leave the chairs for
cars or buses (buses have space for chairs or offer paratransit, they use
adapted vans and wheel the chair in instead of a normal size car).

------
sneak
No they did not. The defining features of the hyperloop are air bearings and a
partially evacuated tube. This has neither.

~~~
akhilcacharya
That's exactly what I was thinking. This appears more like a generic maglev
system - except in a tube.

~~~
walshemj
Pipeline transport has been around for ages at my first job BHRA we had a real
small scale test rig I was offered math modelling or working on that
department.

I didn't fancy crawling 1/4 a mile down a tube to unstick the pigs (with a one
tone load) when they got stuck.

Ps Elon if your reading this I am sure that my old Boss at BHRA can put in
touch with the research we did back then

------
macinjosh
Why spend billions (perhaps trillions) of dollars to get a pod full of people
to fly through a tube when we already have technologies to fly pods full of
people through the air at the same or higher speeds?

Cheaper and greener air travel will be the solution to this problem in our
lifetimes.

~~~
thret
Because it is safer, faster, cheaper, greener?

But mostly: [http://smbc-
comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2088#comic](http://smbc-
comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2088#comic)

~~~
macinjosh
How can we possibly know that it is safer? The damn thing doesn't even exist
yet! Also we already have the infrastructure for air travel so there is no way
it is cheaper.

~~~
thret
Well, like commercial submarine it is one of the few forms of public transport
yet to suffer a fatality :)

I am sure it will be safer than cars, and unlike a plane it cannot be
redirected by hijackers. I'd be willing to bet a substantial amount at say,
2:1 that over the first 10 years of operation it will prove safer than planes
in passenger deaths per trip taken.

------
mattmurdog
The Hyperloop would be a nightmare to inspect in a natural disaster. I know
how difficult it is now to check on trains now, can't imagine this being fun.

~~~
jacalata
What's involved in checking on trains?

------
confiscate
woohoo University of Illinois

goooooo get it!

