Chinese researchers have successfully carried out a systematic test on a cutting-edge transportation system involving a high-speed maglev train running in a low vacuum pipeline in North China.
Just to be clear, the problem with Hyperloop and related infrastructure plans isn't that Elon Musk wants them so they are automatically bad, it's that 1) the cost per kilometer to lay "track" (vacuum tube with a maglev rail inside along with all of the necessary vacuum pumping hardware) like this is comically expensive and 2) the fundamental concept of a hyperloop is extremely difficult to design any failure tolerance into, meaning that small problems can lead to mega-million dollar damage and loss of life events.
It's still safe to assume that if Elon likes an idea, it is a bad idea. But this one is bad for a more fundamental reason than just because he likes it.
I admitI haven't looked into "Hyperloop", but I thought it was something different from the VacMagLev that Gerard O'Neill and others talked about.
Searching for it now, I see references to a "cushion of air", so it's a different thing. https://www.reddit.com/r/hyperloop/comments/6rph81/hold_up_hyperloop_glides_on_a_cushion_of_air/
The fundamental concept is a vehicle traveling in a vacuum tube. Making this a high vacuum tube is too much of a joke for even Ol' Musky to suggest, so the consensus is that these hyperloop-family devices use low vacuum just because it's more feasible. Air resistance is only one major source of friction though, the other is the friction between the car and the track. The air bearing idea, which is to essentially fit the car and the track together with tightly toleranced metal and pump a small amount of high pressure air in the gap to keep the rail and the car isolated, is a viable way of getting a low friction interface, but for various reasons magnetic levitation, where the train and the track are isolated by magnetic or supermagnetic forces, has kind of rendered it obsolete afaik (also, maglev and air bearings are mutually exclusive unless they're doing something really weird).
Just to be clear, the problem with Hyperloop and related infrastructure plans isn't that Elon Musk wants them so they are automatically bad, it's that 1) the cost per kilometer to lay "track" (vacuum tube with a maglev rail inside along with all of the necessary vacuum pumping hardware) like this is comically expensive and 2) the fundamental concept of a hyperloop is extremely difficult to design any failure tolerance into, meaning that small problems can lead to mega-million dollar damage and loss of life events.
It's still safe to assume that if Elon likes an idea, it is a bad idea. But this one is bad for a more fundamental reason than just because he likes it.
I admitI haven't looked into "Hyperloop", but I thought it was something different from the VacMagLev that Gerard O'Neill and others talked about.
Searching for it now, I see references to a "cushion of air", so it's a different thing. https://www.reddit.com/r/hyperloop/comments/6rph81/hold_up_hyperloop_glides_on_a_cushion_of_air/
The fundamental concept is a vehicle traveling in a vacuum tube. Making this a high vacuum tube is too much of a joke for even Ol' Musky to suggest, so the consensus is that these hyperloop-family devices use low vacuum just because it's more feasible. Air resistance is only one major source of friction though, the other is the friction between the car and the track. The air bearing idea, which is to essentially fit the car and the track together with tightly toleranced metal and pump a small amount of high pressure air in the gap to keep the rail and the car isolated, is a viable way of getting a low friction interface, but for various reasons magnetic levitation, where the train and the track are isolated by magnetic or supermagnetic forces, has kind of rendered it obsolete afaik (also, maglev and air bearings are mutually exclusive unless they're doing something really weird).
Nice one, thanks for the explanation
:sankara-salute: