'hyperloop' transport won't work

[dave]

Why Elon Musk's 'hyperloop' transport won't work

by Chris Woodyard, USA TODAY
August 13, 2013




Elon Musk's idea for a system to whiz passengers between cities through tubes gets mixed reviews. Heat and stress on the system are just two big factors. The Tesla founder's plan sounds feasible, but there are huge issues that must be overcome.


The world has had a day to digest Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's idea of a "hyperloop," a high-speed pod train that would shoot through a tube so rapidly that it could connect Los Angeles and New York in about an hour. And he is mostly being hailed as a visionary, an example of the kind of entrepreneurial, can-do spirit that America needs.

But not all think the idea is feasible, that traveling coast-to-coast faster than a jet aircraft by tube would be really, really difficult.

Sam Jaffe, writing on the Navigant Research blog, says after reading Musk's 57-page proposal that he sees some big hurdles.
Continue at:

www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2013/08/13/hyperloop-elon-musk-tesla-space-x/2646969/

[clarencebunsen]

I think Sam Jaffe's blog is not as negative as the USA rendition.
www.navigantresearch.com/blog/hyperloop-faces-technical-hurdles

He points out some technical hurdles and suggests that Mr. Musk's solution to the waste heat problem might not be the most elegant but doesn't say it can't work. A more elegant disposal of waste heat might be to use a Seebeck effect device to convert the excess heat into electricity and feed that back into the compressor motors offsetting some of the compressor current draw.

Of course I've always liked Einstein's paraphrase of Boltzmann in his preface to the General Theory, "I adhered scrupulously to the precept of that brilliant theoretical physicist, L. Boltzmann, according to whom matters of elegance ought to be left to the tailor and to the cobbler."

Coincidentally, my son & I had an email exchange a couple months ago concerning the tube transports described in Robert Heinlein's novels. At the time we were looking at a NY to LA proposal and its engineering challenges. I'll have to look it up and see which side I was on. I like to agree with myself when possible.

[Clipper]

I might be comfortable riding on a mag-lev monorail sort of system, but I stepping beyond the engineering aspects that you are discussing Clarence, I simply don't think I would care to be "fired" through that tube like a document stuffed in a pneumatic tube canister.

Of course I am claustrophobic as hell and simply want to be in the open air and daylight with plenty of space around me. My MRI of a few weeks ago was truly traumatic but by closing my eyes and thinking of other things I survived with minimal stress. Can't imagine closing my eyes all the way from San Francisco to Los Angeles while flying through a modified sewer pipe at 700 mph. LOL

[clarencebunsen]

That would certainly be a consideration. Tight quarters & no windows can cause many people to have anxiety problems.

[dave]

I didn't see a cord on the drawings to pull and ring a buzzer when I want to get off at Eagle Street. Must be the designer has been on Eagle Street.

[Clipper]

I guess you will simply have to ride to the next scheduled stop at the Parkway.

[dave]

Haha! The stopped anywhere you wanted to get off when I was a kid, as long as it was at a street corner.

[Clipper]

Do you remember when they had the utiity poles painted with a red or orange band where there was a bus stop I can't remember which color it was. I almost think it was red with a yellow stripe above and below the red.