CPR: In July 2012, Elon Musk sat down for a “fireside chat” with Sara Lacy, founder of the PandoDaily website. In between discussions of PayPal, Tesla and SpaceX, 43 minutes in, Musk unveiled his idea for the “Hyperloop,” a new transportation technology that “incorporates reduced-pressure tubes in which pressurized capsules ride on air bearings driven by linear induction motors and air compressors.”
The concept wasn’t new. Hyperloop concepts have existed for nearly 200 years. Small scale “pneumatic railways” were actually built in Dublin, London, and Paris, mostly as a novelty, as far back as the 1850s. In 1910, American rocket pioneer Robert Goddard proposed a train that would go from Boston to New York in 12 minutes. Goddard’s design advanced the technology, replacing wheels with magnetic levitation of the passenger capsule inside a vacuum-sealed tunnel.
Musk’s “Hyperloop Alpha” study was released by a joint team from SpaceX and Tesla in August 2013. This 58 page study remains an excellent investigation of the financial and engineering feasibility of Hyperloop technology. The concept is relatively simple. Passengers and freight travel in “pods” or “capsules,” through a tube that has had all the air pumped out, eliminating the friction of air resistance. Moreover, these pods ride on electromagnets, repelled away from the inner surface of the tube, eliminating the friction of wheels. Not only would these electromagnets keep the pods levitated off the inside surfaces of the travel tube, but through “linear induction,” they would provide the force to propel the pod through the tube. Most proponents claim these innovations make speeds feasible in excess of 700 MPH.
A system like this, assuming there were nonstop service, could deliver passengers from San Francisco to Los Angeles in around 30 minutes. From the Hyperloop Alpha report, here is the route a Hyperloop system could take in California: more
So what would terrorists have to do, make a hole on the side of the tube?
Even James Bond would fall off.
We certainly have the technology. Isn’t that big Synchrotron in Switzerland/France hermetically sealed? It’s only – what – 5 miles in circumference but I’m sure that some good engineering will make hundreds of miles feasible in a matter of minutes.
I would question the “cost/benefit” ratio.
It sounds enormously expensive – and would probably require the gov’t to expropriate money from the taxpayers (as do other of Mr. Musk’s endeavors) – and would have a break-even point about 200 years into the future – 150 years after it was dismantled for scrap.
All in all, I’d rather have a Mars Colony.
(but then I have no desire to visit either San Francisco or Los Angeles – rapidly or otherwise)
izlamo delenda est …
If you believe in Musk’s hyperJackAlope, then I have a lovey NASA space elevator in which you might also be interested.
So long as Musk has the government to give him money to tinker with, his projects continue. Paypal was his first and last privately funded innovation.
I sure hope that crew of engineers have their green cards in order because if not, Trump will be emptying out that whole complex.
Hey, using the term “Fireside Chat” is Roosevelt Appropriation and must cease immediately.
Unless, of course, it refers to a TESLA that has burst into flames killing all its occupants. That’s OK.
I’d rather see a “beanstalk” be built than a Musk Loop.
I think Jerry Brown is interested.
Hey Elon, Squirrel up your ass!
Not a chance in hell. Environmentalists and their lawyers will stop this concept dead in its tracks. Not because there is anything wrong but just because doing so is very profitable for them.
In theory it works, but you need to be close to the vacuum of deep space in the tube. I remember engineers looking into for an Trans Atlantic crossing system at least 30 years ago! Way to costly only California could afford something like that! 🙂
They can’t build a conventional train system in Kaliphornia without massive cost overruns and they think THIS would turn a profit? Just another way to fleece the taxpayers.
Remember, by the 1980’s we will be living in colonies on the moon!
And commute to work or play in our own personal helicopter! The miracle of space age acrylic bubble makes it all possible.
The most tragic part of the video is the PC-need to always show foreigners front and center, as if Americans just can’t engineer things w/o the foreigners. Sad. And stupid.