Anyone hear of a hyperloop? by ElvisChrist

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Anyone hear of a hyperloop?

POSTED BY: ELVISCHRIST
UPDATED: Sunday, February 2, 2014 16:37
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Sunday, February 2, 2014 3:37 PM

http://www.spacex.com/hyperloop

I'm intrigued.

That said, I'm also skeptical, because I see one very real immediate problem.

This is proposed to run between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Does anybody else see the fundamental issue with the idea of running 900mph trains in vacuum tubes between those two places?

Select to view spoiler:

Hint: The words "seismically active zone" come into play.

Discuss.

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Sunday, February 2, 2014 4:16 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

Been any number of Science Fiction stories about high-speed tunnels using vacuum. Not sure it's that practical.

Also, in this age of terrorism, seems an easy target.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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Sunday, February 2, 2014 4:22 PM

ELVISCHRIST

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
Been any number of Science Fiction stories about high-speed tunnels using vacuum. Not sure it's that practical.

Also, in this age of terrorism, seems an easy target.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

That, too. Probably even more than the unstable seismic profile of the area in question. Let's be realistic: There *WILL* be an earthquake event in the LA-to-SF area or somewhere between them (aren't the two cities on different sides of the San Andreas?) The likelihood of any such tunnel or railway suddenly having part of itself shift 8-12' to one side while a 900mph train hurtles towards the break is kind of a big deal.

But as big a deal, or bigger, would be the damage that even a hand grenade or homemade pipe bomb could do, not to mention what might happen if someone were to hijack a big rig and ram one of the pylons holding the whole thing up.

So a HyperLoop disaster isn't a matter of "if", but rather a matter of "when".

Building it in a more geographically stable area would make more sense, but it would still be a ripe and tempting terror target, and how can you protect hundreds of miles of such a project 24 hours a day, seven days a week?

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Sunday, February 2, 2014 4:37 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

EC

Aside from the big stuff --- apparently the only way this pencils out is for the stop and start to be done like a rail gun. That's a hell of an electromagnetic field inches away from the interior wall.

From what I've read of EMPs they're very difficult to shield against. So if you have people sitting inches away, you'd need to have really good shielding, otherwise you can forget about people with pacemakers, defibrillators, deep-brain stimulators and metal implants traveling. Not to mention the cellphones, laptops, watches and other sensitive devices people carry with them. And metal objects that would be accelerated like a bullet (similar to an MRI).

It strikes me as being one of those ideas that at first seem great ... but ...

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