Hyperloop

[Beati Dogu]

Basically a levitating passenger or cargo transporter propelled down a low pressure tube at great speed.

Elon Musk wants this to be the future of inter-city travel, although he's not directly behind any of the companies that may put it into use. That said, he's building a 6 ft diameter / mile long test track next to the SpaceX HQ in Hawthorne, California. This will be used as part of a design competition for the passenger cars in the summer.

http://www.spacex.com/hyperloop


Hyperloop Technologies are also building a larger diameter, 2 mile test track out in the desert north of Las Vegas. This is to develop the technology into a usable form.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35361093


Very early days of course, but it's worth keeping an eye on.

[Beati Dogu]

He isn't claiming they're his idea. He's just pushing others to go out and finally do it.

[Beati Dogu]

The first part of the Hyperloop pod design competition is going on this weekend at Texas A&M University. The keynote is by U.S. Secretary of Transportation, Anthony Foxx.


http://fortune.com/2016/01/29/spacex-hyperloop-com...

[Beati Dogu]

Anything makes more sense than that.

Musk thinks they'll be best for journeys of less than 500 miles. After that, it makes more sense to get on a plane.

[Beati Dogu]

Near where I live are the remains of Brunel's atmospheric railway dating back to the 1840s. Instead of having a big heavy steam engine at the front of the train, they built static ones in trackside buildings. Between the two broad gage rails they laid an iron pipe with a slot in the top, which was sealed with a series of leather flaps. The train was attached to a piston which rode the central pipe and was pulled along by a vacuum generated by the pumping stations.

While it did work ok, it didn't turn out to be as practical as they hoped. The had problems with the leather seals in particular. They abandoned the system after a couple of years and used steam locomotives instead.

While this is not quite the same as the Hyperloop, there were ideas to have passenger carriages within the vacuum pipe even in Victorian times. A working pneumatic railway was exhibited at the Crystal Palace in 1864.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Palace_pneum...

[Beati Dogu]

They had that in the Total Recall remake. Made for a nice zero-g fight part way through.

At least the Futurama tube system would dump you out into the street as well.

Greg66 said:

There must be a challenge in keeping low pressure in the transit part of the tunnel but normal atmospheric pressure at the loading points. I guess you'd need a system of airlocks, but that is going to slow down the whole stopping/unloading/loading/setting off process quite a bit. Can't see it would be efficient as a London tube replacement.

The feeling seems to be that the technology already exists, it's just a matter of putting it together. They are getting technical help from related industries though.


http://www.wired.com/2015/08/elon-musk-hyperloop-p...

http://www.oerlikon.com/leyboldvacuum/en/media/new...

[Beati Dogu]

By induction I imagine.

Seems that for practical reasons, both Hyperloop companies have moved away from Musk's initial idea of an 'air ride' type capsule (like an air-hockey table) towards mag lev.

So that may mean the capsule itself is relatively simple and has just ancillary stuff like lights, AC etc.

The track / tube on the other hand....


http://www.wsj.com/articles/hyperloop-race-picks-u...

[Beati Dogu]

They're running the Hyperloop pod race event this weekend at SpaceX HQ in LA. They've built a mile long circuit to play with.

[Beati Dogu]

I hear his midichlorian count is off the chart.


Here's details of the various teams:

http://uk.businessinsider.com/spacex-hyperloop-com...

Edited by Beati Dogu on Saturday 28th January 00:28

[Beati Dogu]

Yes, the Japanese university one, the Keio Alpha, looks suitably futuristic. Definitely some bullet train influences there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMmpZrI5Lo4

[Beati Dogu]

Nice footage of the competition venue and the SpaceX factory:

https://vimeo.com/201610485

Spot the falcon 9 gate guard.


As for the results:

"The Delft Hyperloop team, of Delft University in the Netherlands, got the highest overall score. Technical University of Munich, Germany secured the award for the fastest pod. And MIT placed third overall in the competition, which was judged by SpaceX engineers."

http://uk.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-spacex-hyp...

[Beati Dogu]

A journey onboard a hyperloop ...err...train.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYxgfpWW5Q8


Best played alongside this video in another window:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvuvljREPlI

[Beati Dogu]

Musk is just trying to spur interest and help get the party started. There are commercial organisations developing it as well, such as Hyperloop One and Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrh_pWIgEVQ

[Beati Dogu]

The technology isn't even settled yet. There's various ways to implement magnetic levitation for example. Others teams were using wheels for slow speed and air bearings for fast. I don't have a problem encouraging a bunch of students to put their minds to experimenting with this stuff.

[Beati Dogu]

6 foot diameter pipes actually and 0.75 of a mile long.

[Beati Dogu]

As demonstrated by 007 in The Living Daylights back in 1987.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCm3ZZBae6I


Not to mention The World is Not Enough and Diamonds are Forever, which was set in the desert outside Las Vegas, just like Hyperloop One's test track.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1kqpFqgyyo

[Beati Dogu]

I can't see anyone wanting to travel by tube.

[Beati Dogu]

Yes, at last something tangible. More here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeyEbwguRls

[Beati Dogu]

Places like the test track in Nevada are built to work out the practicalities. I'm sure a lot of theoretical work has gone on already.

[Beati Dogu]

Gonna need a montage for that !