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Hyperloop One claims that its prototype ultra-fast train has completed a first full systems test in a vacuum, reaching a speed of 70 mph. The sled was able to magnetically levitate on the track for 5.3 seconds and “reached nearly 2Gs of acceleration,” according to the company.
The test was conducted privately but Hyperloop One offered some video that included footage from testing. Based on that footage plus a few seconds of additional b-roll shared with media, a lightweight skeleton sled uses a linear motor to accelerate, levitates briefly, and then comes to a halt as the brakes are applied.
Hyperloop One was created as an answer to a challenge from Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who wrote a white paper envisioning a mode of transportation that would send pods at speeds greater than 700mph using a low-friction environment and levitation using air bearings.
Source: Ars Technica
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @11:39AM (5 children)
After one hellacious accident (basically any accident at 600+ mph) no one will want to ride in these. But they will provide high speed freight transport, like a giant version of the vacuum tubes used to move slips of paper from banks to the car teller lane.
Reference one of the earlier complaints, current proposed pods do not have close clearance to the tube, so small flaws or dents are not a showstopping problem. Since the vacuum is pretty "rough", there still needs to be space for air to get around the high speed pod.
One requirement not mentioned above is the smoothness of the track. A tiny bump at 600 mph is a huge acceleration. Ditto for any kink in the curvature as the tube turns. You might think that rail road tracks have gentile turns (very long radii), but hyperloop turns will have to be much longer radius--potentially making it harder to find a route.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @03:16PM
Freight is the only thing that makes any sense, but even there, what are people going to be ordering that's so urgent to receive that they'd pay for the space and common enough that the whole thing would be viable?
Most things in the US are shipped via a combination of trains and trucks primarily because it's less expensive than other options. Sure, they could fly things around, but even that is more expensive than the benefit.
(Score: 2) by fishybell on Friday July 14 2017, @03:31PM (1 child)
I've yet to be convinced that the idea didn't come from Futurama [theinfosphere.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @06:00PM
A magnetically levitated train traveling in an evacuated tube was being developed in Russia before the 1917 revolution.
- Boris Weinberg, 1917 [lingualeo.com]
partial scan [wikisource.org]
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Friday July 14 2017, @03:47PM (1 child)
Why didn't that happen with air travel? There are hellacious accidents all the time, but people keep getting in those metal tubes.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday July 14 2017, @05:29PM
Because there's no alternative to air transport (except short reach, as illustrated by airlines not competing with high-speed train)?
Because people understand falling from the sky, or being in a stopped train, but getting trapped in a dark vacuum tunnel for hours because some external impact way ahead caused the tube to fold under the pressure, crushing the next few pods, is the stuff of nightmares (what I always say about Mars trip simulators: how long before that door opens?). There's a reason why hollywood tube transporters are always transparent, it's not just an excuse for cool futuristic CGI.
Also because the air is always available. With Hyperloop, like with any tunnel, every tube accident will shutdown the system for a while, threatening the financial viability of the whole platform.
Hyperloop's commercial viability, at the kind of throughput numbers implied by the pods, and limited by vacuum procedures/costs and maintenance shutdown, is highly questionable. Those tickets will be extremely expensive, such that even the the rich and thrill-seekers will take the plane.