
Hyperloop Technologies, a startup trying to build the Hyperloop - dominik2
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601417/the-unbelievable-reality-of-the-impossible-hyperloop/
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dang
We changed the baity title in accordance with the HN guidelines. If anybody
suggests a better title, we can change it again.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

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kowdermeister
Original title is indeed sensationalist. The edit however took out the news
value of the article. I have a somewhat better idea:

"Hyperloop begins testing this week, aiming for 400mph"

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futuremeats
The author notes that HT wants to focus on moving shipping containers before
people.

What are examples of physical goods that people would pay a premium to move
very fast between Los Angeles and Las Vegas (I think it's fair to say two or
three times as fast as a courier in a private jet), and which can be quickly
bundled together at either end into a big enough batch to make sense to move
them in a container?

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aetherson
At first glance, I'd say that there isn't much freight that people would pay
much of a premium to chop 30 minutes or so off the e2e time.

But I guess the concept would be that there's no long-term premium -- that
cost/mile is lower than air freight, after the initial (I'm sure insanely
expensive) costs to build the track. If the cost/mile was competitive with
rail but the e2e time was competitive with air, I expect you could find a lot
of demand for it. That's a big if, of course.

Longer term, in terms of freight, if the system basically worked and you could
build your practices around it, you'd expect to see people delivering goods
that don't necessarily have much "freshness" requirement per se in the name of
the great god of Shortening Supply Chains, which might even be worth paying a
premium for -- but only if there's an extant hyperloop network that you can
plan your business around.

If the hyperloop is physically basically sound (that is: it works more or less
as described) but either the up-front costs are so huge or the operating costs
are higher than expected that you have to long-term pay a premium over air,
I'd expect it would have some success as a people-mover, even if the first
freight route ended up being unprofitable.

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Sakiina_
If the Hyperloop had a very predictable timeline compared to some feight or
other transport, it might make more sense to use it, if the lower deviation
from leadtime lead to reduced safety stock inventory costs.

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vidarh
I found it amusing it mentions the London & Croydon pneumatic railway [1] - I
live just a few hundred meters or so from where the tracks used to run. The
local museum has some artefacts from it.

EDIT: The entire area is quite interesting in terms of early rail. I live near
streets with names like Canal Walk and Towpath Way. There's no canal, and no
coast line - we're more than 10 miles from the Thames. The names are in
recognition of the Croydon Canal [1] which was constructed in 1809 and closed
in 1836. The path the canal followed now makes up part of the rail route
between Croydon and London Bridge.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_railway#London_and...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_railway#London_and_Croydon_Railway)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croydon_Canal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croydon_Canal)

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mrfusion
I want to like the hyperloop idea but I get scared thinking about being in a
1000 mile long tunnel with no exits.

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msandford
It's not the exits you have to worry about, it's the low vacuum inside the
tunnel! Seriously, unless they let the air back into the section you're in,
attempting to get out would mean a fairly swift death.

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Alupis
Not to mention a potential catastrophic re-pressurization event if this long
tube gets a crack in it... or catastrophic depressurization event if the train
gets a crack in it. There's a lot of extremely dangerous and difficult to
safeguard failure modes for this idea.

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hanniabu
Yeah, wouldn't be surprised if somebody tries shooting at the tube.

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trhway
while i don't think they (or anybody else in the foreseeable future, save for
Chinese Communist Party taking over the Western states :) will be able to
build a real infrastructure piece of several hundred miles length - politics,
economy, etc. wouldn't let it, the HT looks like a starting point to develop a
space or subspace launch system - it has all the necessary components like
evacuated pipe, EM acceleration and levitation. Nevada desert isn't a bad
place for it (while throwing over Pacific is less favorable than the other
direction would be, the cheapness of ground boost compensates for the loss of
Earth rotation boost).

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smcnally
HT's hired Bruce Upbin (@bupbin) as head of Comms. Bruce was Managing Editor
of Tech at Forbes for years and is a good, smart guy. Also means we'll be
hearing a lot from HT beyond this MIT Tech Review coverage. They've got
US$100MM already; some progress and some strategic comms will make that grow.

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jokoon
Isn't there anybody already trying to build some hyperloop ring test ?

And at what speed does the hyperloop starts to be more viable than an
airplane?

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schwarrrtz
SpaceX is sponsoring a competition for engineering students.

[http://www.spacex.com/hyperloop](http://www.spacex.com/hyperloop)

