Maintaining a vacuum over long distances is really fucking hard.
You’d be better served utilising existing rail infrastructure and improving that to make high speed trains possible.
Whole purposes of hyperloop was to derail any constructive debate on existing rail network.
The role of government needs to be entirely about removing obstacles on private entities that try to create new (or old if that works better) methods of transportation. Not supporting or hindering anyone. If they let this fucking guy, or any other fucking guy talk them into anything, they’re doing their job wrong. Even if Elon Musk is a persuasive person, this is almost entirely a failure of government.
Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong (before China at least) are good examples of how to handle all this well.
No it’s literally a subway system. Putting trains in tunnels isn’t something new or revolutionary, that’s literally what subways are. And we’ve been doing it for over a hundred years.
People seem to be locked in on examples in the US of bad subways to mean subways inherently suck. But there are plenty of examples of perfectly working subways, which are highly efficient, comfortable and get you from A to B fast.
There are even places with subways that currently suck, but used to be very good. But car culture has meant rich people use their car and sit in gridlock, while the poor use the subway. This lead to a class difference and the richer class in power gutting funding for public transport. That is what makes it suck, not the principal of the thing.
Everything Elon says is new or revolutionary, usually isn’t. The hyperloop (or vacuum train) concept isn’t new either, I remember reading a book in the 80s where they had vacuum trains. And there are examples of the idea going back a hundred years or more.
The hyperloop idea is so dumb, it can be debunked in a couple of minutes with some back of the envelope calculations. The power requirements alone would be huge. But hey slap some solar panels on that bad boy and it regenerates it’s own power right, cause that’s how anything works.
The boring company is a scam. They don’t do anything new or better and in many ways are much worse.
They took the costs of major tunnel projects, calculated the costs per meter of diameter, scaled it down to their max diameter and compared the two. Then they say OMG WE ARE SO MUCH BETTER! Well sure, because that’s in no way a fair comparison to make at all. Let alone the fact that comparing budget to actual costs is a no go, it’s not possible to just scale the costs.
If you want to make a small narrow tunnel, for example to connect two existing buildings on a existing manufacturing site with a small diameter to for example run some infrastructure and a servicing tunnel, you don’t use a tunnel boring machine. You just get out a digger, dig a big hole, drive the digger down the hole, dig forward, brace, dig forward, brace etc. It doesn’t cost much at all, doesn’t require many people or special equipment and goes pretty fast.
If you want to make a big ass tunnel, for example for a road or a railroad, you might want to use a tunnel boring machine, but mostly traditional digging is preferred. We’ve gotten pretty good at creating tunnels using diggers and explody stuff and have been for thousands of years. When it’s figured out a tunnel boring machine is actually the best option, you need a company with a lot of experience and equipment to get the job done.
When you are at that point, money is mostly a non-issue and time becomes the main limitation. These projects take a long time and the public or company providing the funding needs it done, they don’t mind paying if it’s done as fast as possible. And experience is the key to getting huge projects like that done on time.
The costs come mostly from all the red tape, safety provisions and pure manhours getting it done. The costs of the machine is so much a non factor, there are times the machine is custom built for a project and a lot of it is left there because taking it out isn’t worth it. Cutting on red tape isn’t possible, regulations are regulations and they are strict for a reason. Cutting on safety is a Elon trademark, but in a lot of places you can’t get away with that. And doing that within your own company is one thing, but if it’s a job for a client, the client might not be inclined to agree to something like that. The manhours can be minimized with a super efficient setup and you can count on companies having done a lot of projects over the decades know how to do it as efficient as possible.
And on the safety point: The only tunnel the Boring Company has ever built would not be allowed to be open to the public in most places. And it actually isn’t really open, you have to sign a waiver beforehand and only certain personal is allowed in the tunnel and only with their Tesla cars. It’s only barely large enough for a car and would be considered way too small for an actual road. Real tunnels need stuff like emergency exits, guardrails and a walking space behind the guardrails to get to the emergency exits, a lot of safety infra, monitoring, ventilation, air inputs and outputs, fire safety etc. You can’t even drive in their tunnel with regular cars, the fumes have nowhere to go. And the day one of their cars catches fire in that tunnel is a dark day indeed. I’m not sure the driver can even open the doors and for sure emergency services can’t get to it.
They’ve made a concrete hole and called it a tunnel, that’s not what a tunnel is.
I’m not sure what the point of it is, it’s probably an economic vessel of some kind to shift some money around. They haven’t accepted any orders and have only done that shitty Vegas thing. They say they are going to do more in Vegas, but I’ll believe that when I see it.
😂 That’s what Muskrat wanted you to believe. Engineers and people with more than 2 brain cells have debunked the Hyperloop idea for years. Here’s one of them from 7 years ago.
Uh. Buddy. They absolutely are known for building a shitload of trains. There’s the Gottard, which is the longest tunnel through a mountain, and I think also the steepest railtracks in the world?
You’ve never heard of swiss trains always being on time?
Well if you’ve never heard of it, then you must be right. Or it could be that maybe you have no clue what you’re talking about. No that couldn’t be it.
It blows my mind that you’ve never heard of Swiss engineering, but I guess the whole world is wrong since you’re clueless to it. Case closed.
And even maglev is barely done because it’s so expensive to build. Hyperloop is wrapping that same maglev train into a tube that should maintain a vacuum for kms on end, and pretty much every failure mode would end up being genuinely catastrophic.
Plus you would have to armor the whole thing and spend a bunch on security because one guy with a .50 rifle or some explosives could destroy a whole section and close the whole thing by punching one hole in it.
Haha, yeah. Remember the chaos when militia guys started shooting at transformers in substations? Every hick with a gun would be shooting at it just to shut it down.
The vacuum is the hard part, not the maglev. You would need to enclose the entire track inside if a vacuum, and that world be ridiculously expensive and practically impossible with current technology. It’s already very expensive to build a tunnel for a train, which is why they are avoided if possible. But this would need to be all tunnel that is air tight, so even more expensive than regular train tunnels.
To put it into perspective, the current largest manmade vacuum chamber is at a NASA research facility in Ohio. It’s a cylinder with a diameter of 100 feet and a height of 122 feet. If this were laid on its side, about 1.5 New York subway cars could fit inside. The largest vacuum ever made can barely fit the vehicle inside, let alone allow it to travel between two different places where the extra speeds would be warranted.
The drag is air against the whole body of the train, so you need vacuum everywhere.
Assuming that you could build such a big vacuum there would be safety concerns. What if there’s an accident in the tube? Does everyone in the train depressurize and die? Assuming people can survive and get out of the train car, now they’re in a tube that’s 100 miles long. How can you build emergency exits in a system designed to be as airtight as possible?
So basically every project worth doing. Obviously it would be expensive it’s train travel. Any kinda project costs a fuck tonne. Not specific to Hyperloop.
That’s fair enough. I suppose any kind of improvement on maglev would be useful. Just bumping trains to 300 would have some ability to compete with air travel
Yeah that would be very expensive and difficult. However kinda similar to if a plane fails.
All others seem fair enough. Technology moving past is kinda silly. That’s like saying don’t make trains as new tech might come and then it’s a waste.
Not mentioning that making tunnels for rail in rocky areas is already hard. And modern railways are not something simple or easy. That’s without space tech from futurism-themed magazines for teenage boys.
A normal (not high-speed, not something like TGV) railway line getting you from A city to B city 20% slower than a car, departing 5-6 times a day evenly distributed, is already an enormous dramatic change.
If only I could. My life’s goal is that. To build what nobody else will. Unfortunately I must acquire great wealth in order to do that. Proving particular difficult. Still have some years left.
Boo. All I want is fast as fuck transport. I don’t see why maglev trains in a vacuum are so difficult
Maintaining a vacuum over long distances is really fucking hard.
You’d be better served utilising existing rail infrastructure and improving that to make high speed trains possible.
Whole purposes of hyperloop was to derail any constructive debate on existing rail network. Pun intended. I’d say hyperloop was quite successful.
The role of government needs to be entirely about removing obstacles on private entities that try to create new (or old if that works better) methods of transportation. Not supporting or hindering anyone. If they let this fucking guy, or any other fucking guy talk them into anything, they’re doing their job wrong. Even if Elon Musk is a persuasive person, this is almost entirely a failure of government.
Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong (before China at least) are good examples of how to handle all this well.
Small vaccum then. They managed to build a tunnel between France and England. Put people on the moon. Can do a lot
We do one thing. Must do other thing. Smart.
Why not just make a tunnel and forget the vacuum? It’s just a subway system, but it’s efficient
Edit: France & England might have dug a tunnel but Paris and London just have a subway. And train to move around the country.
Edit2: fixed wording
No it’s literally a subway system. Putting trains in tunnels isn’t something new or revolutionary, that’s literally what subways are. And we’ve been doing it for over a hundred years.
People seem to be locked in on examples in the US of bad subways to mean subways inherently suck. But there are plenty of examples of perfectly working subways, which are highly efficient, comfortable and get you from A to B fast.
There are even places with subways that currently suck, but used to be very good. But car culture has meant rich people use their car and sit in gridlock, while the poor use the subway. This lead to a class difference and the richer class in power gutting funding for public transport. That is what makes it suck, not the principal of the thing.
Everything Elon says is new or revolutionary, usually isn’t. The hyperloop (or vacuum train) concept isn’t new either, I remember reading a book in the 80s where they had vacuum trains. And there are examples of the idea going back a hundred years or more. The hyperloop idea is so dumb, it can be debunked in a couple of minutes with some back of the envelope calculations. The power requirements alone would be huge. But hey slap some solar panels on that bad boy and it regenerates it’s own power right, cause that’s how anything works.
Well that’s the boring company basically. Don’t need hyperlooo for that.
The boring company is a scam. They don’t do anything new or better and in many ways are much worse.
They took the costs of major tunnel projects, calculated the costs per meter of diameter, scaled it down to their max diameter and compared the two. Then they say OMG WE ARE SO MUCH BETTER! Well sure, because that’s in no way a fair comparison to make at all. Let alone the fact that comparing budget to actual costs is a no go, it’s not possible to just scale the costs.
If you want to make a small narrow tunnel, for example to connect two existing buildings on a existing manufacturing site with a small diameter to for example run some infrastructure and a servicing tunnel, you don’t use a tunnel boring machine. You just get out a digger, dig a big hole, drive the digger down the hole, dig forward, brace, dig forward, brace etc. It doesn’t cost much at all, doesn’t require many people or special equipment and goes pretty fast.
If you want to make a big ass tunnel, for example for a road or a railroad, you might want to use a tunnel boring machine, but mostly traditional digging is preferred. We’ve gotten pretty good at creating tunnels using diggers and explody stuff and have been for thousands of years. When it’s figured out a tunnel boring machine is actually the best option, you need a company with a lot of experience and equipment to get the job done. When you are at that point, money is mostly a non-issue and time becomes the main limitation. These projects take a long time and the public or company providing the funding needs it done, they don’t mind paying if it’s done as fast as possible. And experience is the key to getting huge projects like that done on time.
The costs come mostly from all the red tape, safety provisions and pure manhours getting it done. The costs of the machine is so much a non factor, there are times the machine is custom built for a project and a lot of it is left there because taking it out isn’t worth it. Cutting on red tape isn’t possible, regulations are regulations and they are strict for a reason. Cutting on safety is a Elon trademark, but in a lot of places you can’t get away with that. And doing that within your own company is one thing, but if it’s a job for a client, the client might not be inclined to agree to something like that. The manhours can be minimized with a super efficient setup and you can count on companies having done a lot of projects over the decades know how to do it as efficient as possible.
And on the safety point: The only tunnel the Boring Company has ever built would not be allowed to be open to the public in most places. And it actually isn’t really open, you have to sign a waiver beforehand and only certain personal is allowed in the tunnel and only with their Tesla cars. It’s only barely large enough for a car and would be considered way too small for an actual road. Real tunnels need stuff like emergency exits, guardrails and a walking space behind the guardrails to get to the emergency exits, a lot of safety infra, monitoring, ventilation, air inputs and outputs, fire safety etc. You can’t even drive in their tunnel with regular cars, the fumes have nowhere to go. And the day one of their cars catches fire in that tunnel is a dark day indeed. I’m not sure the driver can even open the doors and for sure emergency services can’t get to it. They’ve made a concrete hole and called it a tunnel, that’s not what a tunnel is.
I’m not sure what the point of it is, it’s probably an economic vessel of some kind to shift some money around. They haven’t accepted any orders and have only done that shitty Vegas thing. They say they are going to do more in Vegas, but I’ll believe that when I see it.
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😂 That’s what Muskrat wanted you to believe. Engineers and people with more than 2 brain cells have debunked the Hyperloop idea for years. Here’s one of them from 7 years ago.
And even before that the Swiss seriously studied the possiblity and gave up.
Swiss are known for nazi gold and secret banks. Not really building infrastructure for the masses
Uh. Buddy. They absolutely are known for building a shitload of trains. There’s the Gottard, which is the longest tunnel through a mountain, and I think also the steepest railtracks in the world?
You’ve never heard of swiss trains always being on time?
Will the newly proposed tunnel under the Angeles National Forest break that record or because it’s under not through it’s in a different category?
Don’t forget they’re also known for cocaine!
Lol I didn’t get the reference before
(There was a post about Switzerland considering legalizing cocaine cus they have so much and it’s so pure & common, apparently)
Japanese trains being on time. Never heard of swiss.
Haven’t heard if their engineering prestige.
When I think swiss I think corruption and chocolate. Maybe watch makers too. Apologies
Well if you’ve never heard of it, then you must be right. Or it could be that maybe you have no clue what you’re talking about. No that couldn’t be it.
It blows my mind that you’ve never heard of Swiss engineering, but I guess the whole world is wrong since you’re clueless to it. Case closed.
He didn’t even think of the cheese! I don’t think he misses many mensa meetings
He’s never even heard of those idiots.
He relented. No need to go so hard. Try to have some empathy, even if his approach was wrong.
That wasn’t me going hard. I was simply meeting their dismissiveness with sarcastic dismissiveness as a way to show them their faulty logic.
Knowing when to shut up and when to listen are valuable skills that a lot of people don’t have.
Knowing when you are a cunt is difficult too.
Kool story bra. Tell me more of your intelligence
telling me you’ve never been to switzerland without telling me you’ve never been to switzerland.
Lol wat?
Their train infrastructure is fucking amazing.
Leave your state.
Don’t live in America. Leave your country
So Japan has had maglev since the 90s. Explain?
Their Maglevs are not Hyperloops…
Obviously
I’m aware. That wasn’t the question
It is the answer to your question tho. Maglev is feasible, Hyperloop, not so much.
And even maglev is barely done because it’s so expensive to build. Hyperloop is wrapping that same maglev train into a tube that should maintain a vacuum for kms on end, and pretty much every failure mode would end up being genuinely catastrophic.
Plus you would have to armor the whole thing and spend a bunch on security because one guy with a .50 rifle or some explosives could destroy a whole section and close the whole thing by punching one hole in it.
Haha, yeah. Remember the chaos when militia guys started shooting at transformers in substations? Every hick with a gun would be shooting at it just to shut it down.
They gave you the only answer your stupid question deserves.
Oh name calling. How very thoughtful of you.
Clearly very smert
Maglev=! Vacuum. Elon promised an existing technology inside a vacuum.
I know
The vacuum is the hard part, not the maglev. You would need to enclose the entire track inside if a vacuum, and that world be ridiculously expensive and practically impossible with current technology. It’s already very expensive to build a tunnel for a train, which is why they are avoided if possible. But this would need to be all tunnel that is air tight, so even more expensive than regular train tunnels.
To put it into perspective, the current largest manmade vacuum chamber is at a NASA research facility in Ohio. It’s a cylinder with a diameter of 100 feet and a height of 122 feet. If this were laid on its side, about 1.5 New York subway cars could fit inside. The largest vacuum ever made can barely fit the vehicle inside, let alone allow it to travel between two different places where the extra speeds would be warranted.
That kinda puts it in perspective. What about particular vaccum? Or just where the tracks meet the train. That’s the only bit with drag ?
The drag is air against the whole body of the train, so you need vacuum everywhere.
Assuming that you could build such a big vacuum there would be safety concerns. What if there’s an accident in the tube? Does everyone in the train depressurize and die? Assuming people can survive and get out of the train car, now they’re in a tube that’s 100 miles long. How can you build emergency exits in a system designed to be as airtight as possible?
Of course. What a thiccy
That kinda puts it in perspective. What about particular vaccum? Or just where the tracks meet the train. That’s the only bit with drag ?
That kinda puts it in perspective. What about particular vaccum? Or just where the tracks meet the train. That’s the only bit with drag ?
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Such as ?
Keeping a vacuum in a big area is extremely inefficient and energy costly, because it is impossible not to have leaks.
A tube for 6-8 people doesn’t come close to the capacity of a train.
During an emergency, the people in those tubes are stuck with no way to get out, unlike a train.
Hyperloop is basically a fancy looking but worse train in about every aspect.
Except it would be 10 x faster. Bit fair enough
Engage your brain please
Seems rude.
Take a flying leap please
How about a 35 minute video about it?
https://youtu.be/RNFesa01llk?si=haCoCDo5oc1Or8JT
Such as having to withstand over 100 tons of air pressure per square meter
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So basically every project worth doing. Obviously it would be expensive it’s train travel. Any kinda project costs a fuck tonne. Not specific to Hyperloop.
That’s fair enough. I suppose any kind of improvement on maglev would be useful. Just bumping trains to 300 would have some ability to compete with air travel
Yeah that would be very expensive and difficult. However kinda similar to if a plane fails.
All others seem fair enough. Technology moving past is kinda silly. That’s like saying don’t make trains as new tech might come and then it’s a waste.
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Because maintaining a train length vacuum is really difficult and doesn’t really provide that big of a benefit.
Atmospheric rail has been attempted with varying degrees of success (but never to a ‘replaces traditional rail’ degree) for 200 years.
Not mentioning that making tunnels for rail in rocky areas is already hard. And modern railways are not something simple or easy. That’s without space tech from futurism-themed magazines for teenage boys.
A normal (not high-speed, not something like TGV) railway line getting you from A city to B city 20% slower than a car, departing 5-6 times a day evenly distributed, is already an enormous dramatic change.
Thunderf00t has many videos on the subject. I recommend checking them out. He’s been calling out musk’s bullshit for years, and is right every time.
But! It’s just like an air hockey table! I swear it’s not difficult! :P
It sounds pretty complicated, Elon!
Most engineering channels on YouTube. Guess thunderf00t has made progress recovering his public image.
He’s always been an OG.
Hyperloop ate half a billion $ and the only “transport” they managed to actually build is THIS
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I think you were being sarcastic with that last line and nobody caught it. Sorry mate.
Read the rest of their posts. It doesn’t seem like they’re being sarcastic.
Do you also believe the Moon is made from cheese?
I want to believe.
Then make it.
If only I could. My life’s goal is that. To build what nobody else will. Unfortunately I must acquire great wealth in order to do that. Proving particular difficult. Still have some years left.
Then I can implement my manifesto
Don’t bother asking here, people on Lemmy blindly hate anything that has anything to do with Musk
There’s a whole lot to not like though. Are you saying people aren’t justified?