Posted on 10/31/2013 10:28:05 AM PDT by Freeport
It sounds insane: Take an enormous hamster tube, suck most of the air from it, insert a hovercraft full of humans and accelerate it to 800 miles per hour.
But according to Patricia Galloway, that wild concept is no dream -- it’s very much real.
“The feasibility is done. What we’re working on now is moving toward conceptual design,” Galloway told FoxNews.com. Thursday morning Hyperloop Transportation Technologies Inc., a new company Galloway is spearheading, came out of stealth mode to reveal if not a concrete prototype of the futuristic form of transport, at least an outline of what it will take to get there.
If the company succeeds, Hyperloops may someday replace the train and plane as a way to get between points A and B.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
1) Safety: This system will have all the issues of a high performance jet fighter, a mono-rail, and a train combined. THink of a crash - How do the teams get into the tube at the crash site? Is there anthing left to do but pick up body pieces? There is going to be no such thing as an emergency stop that does not require miles tube (Think of a fright train trying to stop... now take away the wheels.).
2) Energy Disipation: Due the passing of a supersonic object, the air in the tube will get extreamly hot, that heat must be removed or it will, at best, degrade the tube structural integrity and at worst, cause a system failure.
3)Maintinence - How do you maintain the beast? Any problem in the system will require the immediate shutdown of the impacted leg of the system in its entierty.
4) Cost - You have all the cost of 10x Concord development + the land + noise abatement (This thing will make huge amounts of noise.) + the regulatory environment + the emergency personnel stationed out in the middle of nowhere + ... I would hazzard to guess, 500 billion as a floor. Continuing operations? Ouch...
5) Thermal Stress: This system is going to expand and contract due to environmental condisions (Temp, thermal loading, moisture, etc.) as well asage pressurization/depressurization cycles (As the compartments pass, minor pressure variances WILL occur. All impacting the vehicle and tube structure which will induce further mechanical and thermal stresses).
6) Ride Comfort: If going over a speed bump makes you fret, being thrown around inside this paint mixer is going to be intolerable. Vibration is going to be a B#$%H to control!
Like the old mail tubes...............
That would be one heck of a terrorist target...and without going into the physics of that, easy pickings.
Yup... This is known as a zero defect design target... == BAD idea!
But hey, I’m all for them giving it a try.
/johnny
Not to worry, the Healthcare.gov team will do all the programming for full scale rollout.
Hyperloop - Another solution for which there is no problem.
Well, sort of. It doesn’t use vacuum to move the car so the tube/car interface need not be sealed. It does require reduced pressure in the tube and increddible vibration control.
Turning could be entertaining. I think I’ll bring popcorn & beer to the inagural run and plop my cooler, chair, cameras and telescope about 5 miles above and behind the second turn.
How reduced will probably end up as a big safety issue (Depressurized down to an equivalent of 45,000 - 65,000 ft.) due to suffocation if a car has an air leak.
A bigger issue is kinetic energy dissipation: Take a 747, get it up to Mach 3 and bring it back to a stop without turning everyone into pink mist.
Do all that in a flexing, expanding and contracting tube...
The ultimate car sick ride to be sure.
All hail Isaac Asimov!!!!
And what about claustrophobics ? YIKES
I still don’t know how I made it through the Chunnel.
Wonderful. Obnoxious people will enter the system and never reappear.
On the other hand, tons of obnoxious money will enter the Obamoid entrepreneur’s coffers and also never reappear.
Magic.
Without some government handout (like airports and interstate highways get), some hamster tube transport will NEVER be profitable with the MASSIVE infrastructure required... and if it were profitable, the federal government would come in and regulate the industry directly into the red... which is only remediated by MASSIVE subsidies from... the Federal Government. I long for the return of true capitalists to this nation... not the greedy slobs lining up for "their fair share" having grant money tossed their way with a coal scoop.
1) It's NOT a vacuum, just lower pressure.
2) Every time the car contacts the wall, it'll make a hell of a noise at Mach 3.
However, I'd see something like this as a way to move freight, rather than people. Simplifies the issues by at least an order of magnitude.
not to mention Robert Heinlein ;-)
RIGHT!
Whatever devastated Mars broke up the tubes crisscrossing that planet. NASA has photographed tubes exposed when whatever happened.
Once. Then they can pick up the little bitty pieces.
/johnny
The same way it compression heats the air, DUH!
Burying it helps with many of the other concerns, then it becomes little different than any municipal subway, (except as a privately funded effort, it would be MUCH cheaper!)
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