Elon Musk proposed to send people in evacuated tubes at more than the speed of sound. The idea is not new… it was proposed for Switzerland long ago… And it was used in pneumatic systems all over major cities, a century ago. Strictly speaking the accelerations would be unbearable, and Musk obviously knows this, so, as it exactly stands, the idea is a lie.
Already 40 years ago, French high speed trains could induce nausea for the reason of acceleration as they crossed gentle mountain ranges such as the hills of the Morvan. They now go at 350km/h. If the speed of an object around a curve of radius R is V, the acceleration goes according to VV/R
In Europe 400km/h very high speed lines come with vertical radius of rises of 56 kilometers (35 miles). Such is the case of (under construction) High Speed 2 in the UK, At three times the speed, that is, the speed of sound, the radius would be above 500 kilometers (as the square of 3 is 9…) In other words, Hyperloop as proposed would have to tunnel from San Francisco to LA, all the way… A strange experience at great cost necessitating a minimum of three tunnels, with the maintenance tunnel, etc…
Thus the natural domain of hyperloop would rather be subway systems… But then people want to be able to come in and out… Etc. But then again, accelerations would be unbearable if speeds were much higher than present systems… Plus air would come in…
The reason for evacuated tubes, or fast planes flying high, is to reduce air resistance. At 11 kilometers high, flight level 360, air pressure is a fourth of that at sea level. But there are other methods to reduce air resistance, including forward spikes used by French and US sea-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles… This is an active field of study, to reduce the shockwaves of supersonic jets…
Could evacuated tubes still be used for merchandise, say between the port of LA and Las Vegas? Of course…
Musk is a great engineer, and inspirational. But he is also a great businessman: both Tesla and SpaceX have leveraged government financing… Perhaps the best thing Obama did… Here it is, from six years ago:
“Tesla, the poster concept of present-day American mercantilism. It is flooding the world with luxury electric car of dubious ecological merit. All the way to Norway, huge government subsidies are piled up on it (and I would be very interested to know the details on the mortgages and conferences various officials involve take). Thanks to well-organized propaganda and financing by the US government. In truth, Tesla and the other companies of Elon Musk (Solar City, Space X) are companies massively financed by the US governments“
Now SpaceX provides with (not enough!) secure links for the Ukrainian military, which has serious communication problems…New York Times in “On Front Lines, Communication Breakdowns Prove Costly for Ukraine. The Ukrainian Army has tried to modernize, but still falls short in coordination among units, so they often fight independently of one another — with sometimes deadly results.”…
The General faced similar issues during the defense of Sievierodonetsk when his platoon was on the front line near a small river. On the opposite bank was another platoon with which he had no way to communicate. So almost every time the enemy attacked, the other unit would not just shoot at the Russians but also, unknowingly, at the General’s men who were in the line of fire — with everything from rifles to heavy machine guns.
“Nobody knew how to connect with them,” the General said. “Every day as we were standing there, for over 20 days, as far as I understood, nobody could connect to that unit next to us and let them know they were firing on their own.”
Ukraine needs plenty of Musk wares. “Soldiers say the most reliable equipment they’ve received, though in small quantities, has been Starlink satellite internet, enabled by a small square-like antenna that can be connected to act much like any Wi-Fi network.” High output encrypted US military radios’ locations get detected by the Orcs (who are busy destroying just arrived US howitzers, and their crews; so far the French CAESAR guns, which are highly mobile, shoot and scoop, have escaped lethal battery counterfire, but there are not enough of them…).
The tech supremacy successfully achieved by business men is not to be frown on: tech supremacy is how civilization is saved, and progresses, time and time again…
So Musk knows what Musk is up to with Hyperloop… besides gathering money from gullible investors… But it’s hyperloop is not for transporting people.
Patrice Ayme
Patrice Ayme's Thoughts 