10 Comments on "Hyperloop: the pneumatic travel system"

rollin on Sun, 11th Aug 2013 4:09 pm 



But what if I don’t want to go to Los Angeles or San Francisco? Since it runs on solar, does it only run during sunny days? Is there a big advantage to reducing the travel time to places at such a huge expense. We can’t even put in high speed rail, which involves two steel rails and some wood or concrete ties on gravel. How could we afford a completely closed and sealed high tech driven tube system over long distance?

Aircraft are becoming twice as efficient and need no infrastructure between destinations, much cheaper.
Now if the fellow had invented teleportation, that would be something.

ohanian on Sun, 11th Aug 2013 4:22 pm 



Power by Solar Energy? WTF! What’s wrong with conventional electricity generation? Also how do you keep the tubes vacuum sealed? Or if you do not use vacuum, how do you reduce air friction? There are lots of engineering questions yet to be solved. Creating tube travel is easy. Creating cheap and fast tube travel is the REAL PROBLEM.

Arthur on Sun, 11th Aug 2013 4:40 pm 



Why this need to catapult people around to places they do not belong? Why physically travel from Frisco to LA in 30 minutes if you can achieve the same result in a fraction of a second online at near zero energy cost. Unless you want to procreate or kill somebody, there is no need to travel. Even sightseeing can be done online.

GregT on Sun, 11th Aug 2013 7:47 pm 



Yet another techie dream that will never be built or maintained, without a massive input from fossil fuels. Not to mention that the entire electric grid is in dire need of hundreds of billions of dollars in maintenance and upgrades, which also requires a massive input from oil.

In the not so distant future, people will need to learn to take care of themselves. Satellite communications, electronics, and yes, even the entire electric power grid, will eventually come to the end of their useful lives. They will not be replaced without cheap, abundant, fossil fuel energy.

DC on Sun, 11th Aug 2013 10:44 pm 



Yes,reasonable questions everyone. Amerika cant or wont maintain its simple, low tech LOW-speed rail system like rollin says. There is a long list of countries that have mastered high-speed rail-and North American countries are not among them. Even quasi-high speed rail, as opposed to the snails pace rickety services most N.A.’s are familiar with seems beyond our grasp. Again, its never made clear why traveling between those two amerikan cities at those speeds would be selling feature. I actually dont MIND low speed transport. This idea of spending hundreds of billions to move people around at the highest possible speed for no other reason than we can-is baffling.

DMyers on Mon, 12th Aug 2013 12:04 am 



This one is going to belong in the Museum of Unrealized Transportation Innovations, along with the monorail, which never got much further than Fantasy Land, Dulles Airport, and a brief appearance at the New York World Fair.

This is where progress stops. This thing may live up to its promises, but the infrastructure to support it just ain’t gonna happen. It’s cozy and fast, just as we we like it, but it was destined for a world which didn’t materialize.

arthur plow on Mon, 12th Aug 2013 12:57 am 



Pure fantasy. Who’s going to fund that project ? The entire country is technically bankrupt.

Keith_McClary on Mon, 12th Aug 2013 5:39 am 



Pneumatic tube
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pneumatic tubes (or capsule pipelines; also known as Pneumatic Tube Transport or PTT) are systems in which cylindrical containers are propelled through a network of tubes by compressed air or by partial vacuum. They are used for transporting solid objects, as opposed to conventional pipelines, which transport fluids. Pneumatic tube networks gained great prominence in the late 19th and early 20th century for businesses or administrations that needed to transport small but urgent packages (such as mail or money) over relatively short distances (within a building, or, at most, within a city). Some of these systems grew to great complexity, but they were eventually superseded by more modern methods of communication and courier transport, and are now much rarer than before. However, in some settings, such as hospitals, they remain of great use, and have been extended and developed further technologically in recent decades.[1]

Duke on Mon, 12th Aug 2013 7:12 am 



The wealthy will still need to get around after the airplane so this technology will be developed to service them. And maybe a few of us ordinary folk will be allowed on too!

Abby Digital on Tue, 13th Aug 2013 8:04 am 



Here’s how they did it 140 years ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awRKZxSMsBw