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from the just-wait-until-Apple-supplies-an-iPod dept.
We had submissions from two Soylentils on a recent high-speed demonstration by Hyperloop One.
Hyperloop One's Passenger Pod Takes its First Ride
Just weeks after Hyperloop One demonstrated a working, albeit slow, version of its levitating sled, the company has made another leap forward. This time around, the startup has successfully tested its XP-1 passenger pod, reaching speeds of up to 192 mph and levitating off the track as it accelerated.
XP-1 traveled for just over 300 meters before the brakes kicked in and it rolled to a gradual stop, hitting a top speed of 192 mph. That speed puts Hyperloop One's system a little bit ahead of Category 1 high-speed rail, which has a maximum running speed of 155mph, although it's not yet faster than Japan's bullet train.
Then again, Hyperloop One's plan is to push its pods at speeds closer to 750 mph, but that's clearly going to be tough to test in a tube that's just 500 meters long. But the milestones, slow and steady, are being met, and it's clearly a demonstration of the company's strength that it is developing its prototypes for real.
Source: https://www.engadget.com/2017/08/02/hyperloop-one-first-pod-xp1-test/
Hyperloop One Claims Successful 192mph Test
For the number nuts, such as himself, your humble editor (FP), in a freshly woken daze - and assuming 300 m of acceleration, 50 m of gliding, and 150 m of deceleration - has calculated that the acceleration was at 2.5G, and the deceleration was at 5.0G, which doesn't make breakfast seem such a good idea.
[NB: That contains a factor of 2 error, as pointed out below by a careful reader, my bad -- FP.]
Today Hyperloop One claimed that its demo pod reached 192mph (310 kph) on the 500m (1/3 mile) test track that the startup built outside of Las Vegas. Hyperloop One showed off that demo pod last month—it's basically an 8.7m (28.5 ft) carbon-fiber shell on a magnetically levitating chassis.
This test run follows on a "Phase 1" test that sent a bare-bones sled down the test track at 70mph. At the time, Hyperloop One had said Phase 2 would involve getting to 250mph, but in a recent press release, the startup said that the 192mph test run this month satisfied Phase 2 development goals. Ars has reached out to Hyperloop One for clarification, and we'll update when we receive a response.
Although no media were present, Hyperloop One claims that in this most recent test, its large pod "accelerated for 300 meters and glided above the track using magnetic levitation before braking and coming to a gradual stop."
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Thursday August 03 2017, @11:54AM (8 children)
Have you ridden the NYC subway lately?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday August 03 2017, @12:04PM (2 children)
No, but I did watch The Warriors (1979) last night.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Thursday August 03 2017, @12:09PM
Yea, It's gotten worse.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday August 03 2017, @10:08PM
And I dig it!
Brilliant one to turn into a drinking "game" (I hate that use of the term, there's no game involved), so many things to select as triggers.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday August 03 2017, @02:37PM (4 children)
Are you talking about the subway system in NYC that's currently in a "state of emergency" and has enormous delays and is basically falling apart? The NYC is a great example of US infrastructure: many many decades old, built when we could actually get stuff done, and still in use but falling apart due to lack up upkeep and upgrades and barely holding together, just waiting for a disaster to happen. The DC subway is another good example: it's plagued by problems and deadly crashes. I think they've been building (or "building") the extension to Dulles airport for 20 years now...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Thursday August 03 2017, @10:18PM (3 children)
Governments and getting things done are concepts that should not appear in the same sentence unless there is an odd number of negatives.
Bring back on topic - of course, hyperloop is not governmental, and therefore has an unimaginably higher chance of actually going somewhere. (Even if that somewhere is simply going nowhere but advancing a dozen closely related fields of engineering.)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 04 2017, @03:42AM (2 children)
So the Manhattan Project and the Apollo missions were non-Gov projects? Even the Nazi Gov got things done too.
The hyperloop is a big con-job. Do the math. Work out the safe minimum spacing between pods and how many of those pods they can have then you know how many passengers they can safely carry per hour. These has some old numbers, so replace them with the latest numbers as of 2017: https://ggwash.org/view/32078/musks-hyperloop-math-doesnt-add-up [ggwash.org]
Even if it works it'll be a expensive fancy ride for the rich that if you're unlucky ends up partially funded by your taxes. There's no way it's going to be cheaper per passenger than stuff like light rail. It'll be like Concorde vs 747. That vacuum stuff will be super-expensive to maintain especially in earthquake zones.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday August 04 2017, @07:05AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday August 04 2017, @02:27PM
Your argument doesn't make any sense at all. I haven't looked at your numbers, but when you compared Hyperloop to light-rail, that completely invalidated your argument. You can't use light-rail for intercity transport, and certainly not for regional transport; light-rail is for intracity transport only. Even if you did build it between cities, it's slow. Hyperloop is near the speed of sound; it's meant to compete with airplanes, not inexpensive local mass people-movers. It's not meant to be cheaper per passenger than light-rail, only regional airfare. Airplanes don't hold that many people either.