
San Francisco to L.A. in 30 Mins. With Proposed New Transportation System - clicks
http://news.yahoo.com/san-francisco-l-30-mins-proposed-transportation-system-180600043.html
======
jakozaur
Honestly, I'm tired of that kind of articles..

Don't get me wrong I would love to read how hyperloop will work and I'm really
excited about it.

Instead I see on HN tons of badly written speculations about what was said a
long time ago. Especially those from news sites don't add any new information
or analysis.

It just an attractive title to get some page views. It's missing the point,
Elon Musk said explicitly that it's not evacuated tube. There are blog post
which are superior to this article.

~~~
mikeash
Agreed. Why are we paying _any_ attention to this if there are no details?
Musk will eventually tell us what it is, or he won't. Either way, speculation
is pointless and dumb.

~~~
pbreit
I would say speculation is meaningful and exciting.

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InclinedPlane
People should re-read this article carefully. There is an insinuated
connection between Musk's Hyperloop plan and the company ET3 and their
evacuated tube design, but there is none.

~~~
crntaylor
In fact, Elon Musk has said that the Hyperloop is _not_ a vacuum tunnel[0].

[0]
[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/224406502188916739](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/224406502188916739)

~~~
loup-vaillant
Now that I think of it, did he meant "not a _vacuum_ tunnel"?

Or did he meant "not a vacuum _tunnel_ "?

~~~
jack-r-abbit
The comparison to an air hockey table indicates the opposite to a vacuum. Air
hockey tables elevate the puck by blasting streams of air up from the table
surface creating a cushion of air for the puck to glide on. Perhaps by saying
it is not a "vacuum tunnel" he meant it is an "air tube". :)

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kinofcain
There's no way you can get people from LA to SF in that timeframe without some
combination of massive tunnels and viaducts due to what's known as minimum
vertical curve radius.

If he's going to build this for one tenth the cost of a predominantly at-grade
high speed rail system, then the real breakthrough isn't his don't-call-it-a-
vacuum evacuated air hockey tube, it's a magical ability to lay massive
amounts of concrete and bore hundreds of miles of tunnel for several orders of
magnitude less money than is currently required.

If he's figured that out, the resulting company would be worth far more than
tesla, SpaceX and any asteroid mining venture he could conceive of combined.

I don't think he's figured that out.

~~~
IanDrake
>bore hundreds of miles of tunnel

It's elevated, not below ground. But I think most of your point stands. Just
getting through the politics alone would be impressive.

~~~
kinofcain
The Tejon pass (grapevine) is over 4000 feet. Minimum vertical curve radius on
Britain's High Speed Two, with a top design speed of 250mph, is 56
_kilometers_. This thing will need to operate at an _average_ speed several
times that.

As you make the train faster and faster, the route must asymptotically
approach a straight line. A straight-ish line that goes over the mountains
between LA and the central valley would either require viaducts hundreds, if
not thousands of feet tall, or it will require tunneling, or it will require a
mixture of both.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
But it is not a train. It is a short, tube-shaped vessel inside of another
tube and magnetically elevated. I am assuming that the magnetic "elevation" is
all around the vessel which would prevent it from slamming side-to-side or
top-to-bottom. I'm not saying there won't be problems but I don't think it
will need the curve radius like you are thinking for a train.

~~~
kinofcain
It has nothing to do with the ability of the train to stay on the tracks, it
has to do with the ability of the passengers to keep their lunch in their
stomachs.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
ah. I understand that. thanks for clarifying.

------
guynamedloren
Elon Musk. Every time I hear about him, the more fanboy-ish I get. Gotta be
one of the most inspiring people alive today. He has a vision to make the
world a better place (or a vision to fucking dominate, whatever you want to
call it) and _he 's executing on it_. He's ripping industries apart and
creating new ones. He's unstoppable.

~~~
easy_rider
I've never had a mancrush or role-model on someone, but Elon Musk fits the
bill. I would allow Elon to have sex with my girl if he would save the
cuddling for me.

~~~
mangala
That is absolutely innapropriate for HN. You should have at _the very least_
offered to have Elon's babies as well.

~~~
easy_rider
Hahaha you got me there. Indeed, I'm sure people would pay a hefty sum for
some of his "genetic material".

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WildUtah
Of course, if such a thing were ever built, you'd wait so long in security and
lines to pay off every mouth in the national security theater pork barrel
trough that it'd have been faster to drive.

The best thing about driving in the USA is that oil companies, manufacturers,
the UAW, the AAA, the AASHTO, and the rest have established a lobbying network
that can blow down even the most sensible limits on driving. They whine like a
toddler even at tiny inconveniences that would benefit them in the long run
like raising the gas tax enough to keep highways and bridges from falling
down. And the government bows and submits and the motorcar industry gets even
steeper outrageous subsidies while high speed rail, public transit, and air
travelers get whacked with a bat in the teeth. Usually it's the national
security complex that wields the bat but it could just as easily be an
overpaid transit union.

~~~
TheAnimus
>established a lobbying network that can blow down even the most sensible
limits on driving.

Last time I was in the states, they had rather slow limits on the Freeways.
Has this improved yet?

~~~
drone
Depends on the state. Some states have lower, or higher speed limits within
their borders. For example, I-10 West of San Antonio, in Texas, has a speed
limit of 80mph (by necessity, I'll say!), and State 130 between Austin and San
Antonio has a speed limit of 85mph. Utah has some highway sections at 80mph,
and most states in the central-west region of the US have highway limit at or
around 75mph.

------
garindra
With the addition of Hyperloop, Elon Musk is basically transforming
transportation in all possible ranges:

\- Short-range (in-city, cross-city): Tesla

\- Medium-range/long-range (cross-state, possibly cross-country & cross-
continent): Hyperloop

\- Ultra-long-range (cross-planetary, possibly cross-galactic): SpaceX

~~~
Uchikoma
"possibly cross-galactic"

Hyperbole? Or do you know something about the physics of cross-galactic travel
that the rest of us don't?

~~~
jlgreco
Bring back Project Orion and generation ships to alpha centauri become
feasible, just hard:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_\(nuclear_propulsion\)#Interstellar_missions)

I don't know of anyone that is seriously looking at Orion anymore though. I
suspect that whatever will eventually take us there will be to Orion as the
Flying Scotsman is to Hero's Engine.

~~~
qxcv
A trip to Alpha Centauri would be decidedly intra-galactic; the distance from
the Sun to the edge of our galaxy is on the order of 4300 times the distance
from the Sun to Alpha Centauri.

~~~
jlgreco
Yes, calling it "cross" galactic would certainly be stretching the definition
of "cross". Though I suppose a "cross country" race is across the
"countryside" though not across the country. ;)

~~~
javert
What is the best term for inter-solar-system travel? (Or, is _that_ the best
term?)

~~~
jlgreco
"Interstellar" probably. Between the stars.

~~~
javert
I agree. I think I actually meant to ask about "intra-solar-system" travel.

------
jlgreco
I am not quite getting the connection between Elon Musk and ET3, besides some
similarities in goals.

As far as I can tell, this is not Elon Musk's idea/company, the article is
only written to imply but not actually _say_ that it is.

ET3 website: [http://et3.com/about-daryl-oster](http://et3.com/about-daryl-
oster)

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jasonjei
There was always a shred of truth to tube transport in _Futurama_ and the
_Jetsons_. While it may not work exactly like that and may require attendants
to ensure safety similar to airplanes, it's amazing how fast you can go
without air resistance in a vacuum.

It doesn't have to be a large hadron collider, just good enough to get you to
LA in 30 minutes. It can also be done economically; as the article points out,
the high speed rail system may be obsoleted by this as well as flying. Imagine
eliminating the great uncertainties of safety in flying at Concorde speeds.

Perhaps those cartoons scared people away from this technology :)

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ig1
Something not unsimilar has been tried in the past:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Pneumatic_Despatch_Comp...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Pneumatic_Despatch_Company)

In the 1860s there were a series of pneumatic tubes built under London, they
were primarily built for cargo but it was perfectly feasible for people to
travel in them (engineers working on the system did so).

~~~
lukifer
It's a shame there hasn't been more technological progress on cargo transit. A
HyperLoop equivalent for sending goods could be a big deal; trucking is
ridiculously inefficient economically and ecologically, at least relative to
the possibility space.

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k-mcgrady
>> "ET3 has already built mock-ups and prototypes and is planning a 3-mile
test run by the end of 2013."

Every time I've heard Musk talk about this I thought it was something that we
wouldn't see for another 10-20 years. A test this year would be fantastic. Of
course with regulation/law no matter how quickly they build it we might not
see it in use by the general public for a long time.

As we don't know many details I can't be sure but could this be Musk's answer
to long-distance green travel? He already has the solar panel company
(providing green energy to buildings etc.), Tesla (green cars), ET3 (green
airplane replacements). I'm not sure if this was his aim but owning each of
those markets would be pretty amazing.

Edit:

It might take some convincing to get people to use this though. My first
thought when it said it could travel at 4000MPH was "if anything goes wrong
with this I'm dead". A lot of effort/cost will need to be put into maintaining
the system as at that speed even a minor flaw will most likely cause
fatalities.

~~~
DoubleMalt
"If anything goes wrong with this I'm dead" does not deter people from driving
100 mph on free ways and boarding planes.

~~~
k-mcgrady
Both those things offer a chance of survival (just look at the number of
uninjured survivors in the SFO crash a few days ago). And in a car you also
have control of the speed. At 4000MPH I don't think there is any possibility
of survival and the kind of mistake needed to cause an accident at those
speeds is probably very small. It may not sound completely rational but I
think it's something that a lot of people will think about.

~~~
lukifer
Counterpoint: many people will find going 4000mph unbelievably cool (just as
with planes, I suppose).

~~~
schnaars
Just as in fighter jets, wouldn't 4000 MPH put a tremendous strain on the
body?

~~~
jonathlee
It's not the speed that puts strain on the body, it's the _change_ in speed
(i.e. acceleration). You are currently going ~67062 MPH around the sun and
probably didn't notice. If you suddenly slowed down to 4000 MPH around the
sun, you would definitely notice that. ;-).
([http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=356](http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=356))

------
jayfuerstenberg
I saw the possible mock-ups of such a tube system (where everybody has to be
seated) and had only one question: Where is the restroom and how do you stand
up to walk there?

I hope Elon has considered this.

~~~
drmr
If you can't hold your urine for 30 minutes you shouldn't be commuting in the
first place.

~~~
jayfuerstenberg
You have to think about children and older people who don't have the degree of
self control we adults do.

Or the car itself will become the toilet.

P.S. Wondering who downvoted my above, and quite legitimate, comment. Somebody
mustthink I don't like Elon Musk or something, when nothing could be further
from the truth.

~~~
Nav_Panel
I have yet to see a restroom on a New York City subway train. Trips on those
can take upwards of an hour depending on where you're going. Old folks and
children seem fine. I don't think a lack of bathrooms is a very significant
problem; I'd say it's not even a problem worth considering.

------
natch
Did Elon ever publish his promised paper with the details of the proposed
Hyperloop idea?

~~~
ygra
Didn't he say ~three weeks ago that he would do so in ~four weeks?

~~~
ash
Last year?

------
drpancake
I can't find evidence for any link between Musk and ET3. The article states:

 _" ET3's Hyperloop-like project already has a number of schematics and plans
already in place."_

Which doesn't suggest to me that they're affiliated.

------
yread
> In theory, this elevated tube system could be built for a tenth of the cost
> of high-speed rail and a quarter the cost of a freeway.

How are they planning to build evacuated tube with magnetic rails for 1/10th
of a price of railway?

~~~
InclinedPlane
It's not an evacuated tube, Musk has said so explicitly on more than one
occasion.

Also, the Hyperloop system is still extraordinarily expensive, characterizing
it as "1/10th as expensive as a railway" is misleading. It's, potentially,
1/10th as expensive as the ludicrously expensive California high-speed rail
system which comes in at an astounding $68 billion just to connect San
Francisco and LA. Which might be more than the entire TGV system cost to
construct, for that matter. It's certainly several times the cost of the
channel tunnel, for example.

~~~
arrrg
Why is it so expensive?

~~~
jffry
Land rights. High-speed trains cannot travel in tight turns, so to build
SF<->LA requires pretty specific right-of-way purchases.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Nope.

Total cost of lease/purchase of all land in the right-of-way is estimated at
$1.5 billion for the initial operating section and $4 billion (inclusive) for
the full phase 1 system (this is only about 6-7% of the total cost), by far
the biggest expenditures are for construction and in operational overhead.

------
Tloewald
The idea you can bore tunnels and seal them with vacuum for cheaper than high
speed rail is totally bonkers. I assume hyperloop involves flinging vehicles
through the air and thus avoiding the biggest expenditure.

~~~
dasmoth
One problem with rail is that there are established companies (often with
highly-unionized workforces) that build them. And, at least in some
juristictions, lots and lots of rules and safety standards, some of them
dating back a long time.

Building something that doesn't have to fit within railway rules, and which
you can build yourself using workers you've hired and trained _de novo_ might
well end up looking quite attractive on paper, even if the resulting system
isn't fundamentally better than a "normal" railway.

The political feasibility of such a project is another matter.

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wmblaettler
There is much discussion over this NOT being an evacuated tube. If there is
air in a closed loop tube, why not accelerate it as well? Thus providing a
"tail wind" giving even greater speed over a friction-less vacuum - which is
presumably more difficult to create. Though, I can't even imagine the
technical difficulties of creating and containing a 4,000 mph wind speed.

------
verytrivial
The first thing that leapt to my mind: failure modes. I can imagine many, and
none of them are pretty.

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kalleboo
This link was in the comments on that article with some speculation on how it
might work [http://bentilly.blogspot.de/2012/11/speculating-about-
hyperl...](http://bentilly.blogspot.de/2012/11/speculating-about-
hyperloop.html)

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varelse
So how does one propose to get around negotiating land usage permission in all
the podunk districts between SF and LA? That's what kept BART from circling
the Bay 20 years ago and I suspect it has a great deal to do with the
ridiculous price and schedule for the HSR.

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huherto
If you are confused like I was after reading all the comments. This clarifies
what is currently known.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperloop](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperloop)

~~~
Schiphol
Thanks, that was useful. I'm very surprised by the "it leaves when you arrive"
bit in the second quote in that article. Is it something like an evacuated
moving walkway, then?

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capkutay
Does anyone know the status of the current plans for the CA high speed rail?
Last I heard, its not going to be convenient or even high speed.

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future_grad
How about we produce a decent public transportation system in L.A? Oh....

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snake_plissken
So it would take 9 minutes at 1-G to get to 4000 MPH?

