I guess I don't know what your point is. Should people never work on anything except sure-fire bets? That's a good mentality to never make any progress on anything.

Ten years ago, no one believed that we'd have cars driving themselves or rockets landing themselves, either.

Yeah I guess I'm giving on the wrong signal. Basically I'm saying the project as it currently stands is neither cost effective nor viable. People are free to research whatever they want.

...well yeah that's why they're going to keep working on it. Everything including good ideas starts off as being inefficient and costly. Then they keep working on it and figure out what areas they can improve on and it eventually works hopefully.

If this thing actually works, for those worried about cost... You don't think a company like GE or Amazon wouldn't pay by the truckload in private investment? Employees waste a shitload of time traveling. Even on planes when you factor in all the screening and idle time.

I'm not worried about the cost beyond just finding enough money to get a full-scale version working. There's a chance they put the whole thing together and it just plain isn't going to work, and that'll be a big investment that just evaporates - possibly from a government agency that is going to have to deal with political fallout for it.

If someone can prove it works, though, the money won't be hard to find at all. It'll be expensive, but I wouldn't think it'd be dramatically worse than a train line, and it should be easier to install due to the small footprint.

But for me, the biggest issue is the passenger experience. Yes, it can go really fast, but that means that the passengers are gonna be experiencing a lot of Gs over a lot of time. Not to mention it's a closed system without the ability to easily see outside. It just doesn't seem like it will be an enjoyable experience.

Why am I getting flashbacks? Oh yeah, this is why...

https://youtu.be/ZDOI0cq6GZM

Let's just keep in mind that building a high speed rail, of the type seen all over the world, from San Fran to Anaheim was started in 2008 and it's currently projected to finish in 2033 at a cost of approximately $100 Billion. This is basic, simple, proven tech which is exclusively in one state and covering 400 miles of coastal area, and it'll cost $250 million per mile.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cali...igh-Speed_Rail

Sad but true, but the USA just can't build infrastructure anymore. There's fights for land rights for every mile you want to cover, and then environmental impact studies that need to be done, zoning concerns, on and on it goes, a sea of endless regulations and red tape.

The same concerns which exist for high speed rail are magnified many times over for something going much faster, and especially when it comes to unproven new tech, so don't be surprised if it ends up costing $1 billion per mile, or $250 billion to go from KC to St Louis.

Since Musk loves using public money, often by misrepresenting costs and projected earnings (why there was the SEC decision against him), that'll be on the taxpayers dime, so at a cost of $50k per resident of Missouri. Don't worry though they'll borrow that money from the federal government rather than actually get it in taxes, and the federal government in turn will just borrow it from China and toss it into the pile with the $20 trillion in debt we've accumulated ($61k per US Citizen).

Nothing to see here though. Everything's fine. Definitely a worthwhile investment. :rolleyes:

(Btw how do I embed videos?)

Elon is such a hack. He stole the pneumatic tube Hyperloop idea from the movie the Polar Express. The elves and the kids take it into the square to see Santa. FRAUD!

Edibles?

This is the new science

They're overcomplicating it. I can come up with a very easy high-speed transportation system. Listen to my concept.

You know when you go to the airport and they've got those moving sidewalks? You walk up and get on it and it goes maybe 3 mph. It's easy to get on and off.

Now imagine a moving sidewalk where you get on from the left. You're cruising at 3 mph, but now to your right there's another moving sidewalk, and it's going 6 mph. Relative to your current speed, it's only 3 mph faster, so you can easily step onto that sidewalk. Now you're trucking along pretty good.

But keep the concept going. Now imagine 240 of those next to each other. You get on, and then you move to the right, speeding up with each crossing, and in the far right sidewalk you're going 720 mph. When it's time to get off, you just start moving left again and eventually get off of the 3 mph moving sidewalk as your destination. Voila. I have solved high-speed travel.

The only problem would be wind so you'd want to wear goggles and crouch at the higher speeds. But maybe we put a big fan in or something to neutralize that.

Now, you might ask what happens if the drive belt breaks. Are you going to go flying at 720 mph toward something stationary? The answer is no. Because per the Rain Man design, you don't just enter from the left side. You enter from both sides. So you've got 479 moving sidewalks, and the outside ones are the slowest, and the middle one is the 720 mph walk. If the 720 mph walk breaks suddenly, you pitch forward at 720 mph, but you'll land on an adjacent walk that's going 717 mph. Nothing but a scuffed knee.

I'm going to email Musk about this to discuss a partnership.

You know we're talking California here. They live in a totally different universe. :spock:


The other statement I noticed was it said the human body can only endure 1/10 of a G of lateral force. Even without a pressurized suit, people pull higher G's on a roller coaster. So I'm not sure where they came up with that statement.

<iframe src="https://giphy.com/embed/V2AkNZZi9ygbm" width="480" height="203" frameBorder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowFullScreen></iframe><p><a href="https://giphy.com/gifs/will-ferrell-zoolander-V2AkNZZi9ygbm">via GIPHY</a></p>

Kind of like how the Titanic was unsinkable.

The minute you think something is idiot-proof, the universe will always create a bigger idiot. The minute you think you've created something that can't fail, it will.

It's called Murphy's Law. ;)

Not really...the plane isn't going through a form-fitting plane-shaped tube. Planes can correct for errors.