China is bad. Bad fucking ass.
Seriously look at this thing. When was the last time Amerikkka produced something this cool?
NGL, I give Elong mad props for building a particle collider for cars...
A carticle collider.
This is impressive but we absolutey need to consider at what cost. Nowhere in the headline do they even raise the question!
They already have all the high-speed rail you could want so might as well do something new ig
It mostly seems like a flex to me, if they can build this then it shows how advanced technologically China has become. This is the tech that US hyped up, but was never actually able to make it work. China putting this into practice would be a clear sign that China outpaced US technologically.
while that would be funny, I suspect resources would best be spent on something else.
I think this would make sense on certain routes, like Beijing-Shanghai, where demand is so consistently high that someone will pay a premium for getting there quicker. Probably not practical for all current HSR routes.
I think these kinds of projects are really important to have because they're motivating. They show that real technological progress is being made and create optimism for the future. On a practical level, there's always a lot of new tech that falls out of this sort of stuff that's generally useful. For example, a lot of tech that was developed during the Apollo program ended up being used lots of different ways to improve lives of the people.
Building more technology that operates in a vaccum and use it often will create a practical space where people will discover interesting perspectives that are useful for space travel.
China is planning a moon base, so potentially using hyperloop on the moon to connect different bases could make a lot of sense.
So they are making a hyperloop? As in, low pressure speed train? Why?
China already has high saturation of regular high speed rail, and I'm guessing this would supplement that potential for long distance travel. It mostly seems like flex to me, if they can build this then it shows how advanced technologically China has become. This is the tech that US hyped up, but was never actually able to make it work. China putting this into practice would be a clear sign that China outpaced US technologically.
China first put a maglev train into service in Shanghai in 2002. It's just now planning to roll out inter city maglev services in the next couple of years. Call that a 25 year gap from first trial run to broad implementation.
So if they can put a Hyperloop into short limited service by 2030, you're still looking at 2055 for broad implementation.
I guess the point is that you can't get to the far future without first going through the near future. Difference is that Chinese planners and leaders will look at a transport plan that has goals out to 2055 and take it seriously. Western leaders only care about plans they can implelent this election cycle.
I can't imagine this stuff will see operation in the near future, but there's so much that you learn from even just trying to build something like this that will be applicable in a lot of other areas. Big ambitious projects are traditionally really good for pushing the technological envelope.
I'd personally opt for something more "conventional", like the SCMaglev being developed in Japan (or better yet, that Chengdu Maglev prototype). As fast as this train would go inside a vacuum tube, the tube itself will just add much more complexities and points of failure, on top of being more expensive to build/maintain.
Also a large part of the "experience" is also being to watch the scenery pass by at 300-600km/h+ out of the window, which is lost when inside of a very long concrete/steel tube.
