Actually his numbers indicate it would be faster and cheaper than planes for cities closer than about 900 miles. He mentions the plane comparison specifically. You may not agree with his numbers, but then you should say that and give your reasons rather than just spouting the first thing that comes to mind that makes you feel clever.

I imagine they'll rely on the same system that stops rednecks from shooting their rifles at airplanes, cars, and trains?

That's actually a great idea. A slightly smaller version of this is well within the economic and political grasp of a number of middle eastern people. I imagine at least one of them would be far more likely to move on something like this than the ever-whining naysayers that some half of Americans have become. Though even after it becomes commonplace and successful elsewhere we're unlikely to adopt it because a large number of us have decided that change is scary.

Another person who didn't read the paper. Sigh. Is this really what Slashdot is now?

The reason we're posting this is because it isn't just dreaming. He laid out a specific plan with some reasonable numbers. Did your daughter calculate the the drag effects for moving through a low pressure tube at mach 1? Did she spec out the size of batteries it would take to power the turbofan that moves the air from the front of the system to the back while creating a suspension cushion? What about how the lateral g force limit for human comfort impacts the maximum turn radius for various speeds?

And he priced it out. And the components aren't far more exotic than stuff his companies already build. And the cost is likely to be less than the, actually, $70 billion rail project.

So no, you have, like everyone else in this thread, failed to levy an intelligent criticism. Without any interest or understanding of the topic you dismissed it. Are there any real geeks left out there? Anyone have intelligent criticism of this project so we can analyze it and learn?

You either didn't read or didn't understand the paper.

This idea is indeed a clever combination of already existing technologies. Nothing about it is mystical. It's just engineering. Like Space X. Like Tesla. Like, well, just about every bit of progress ever. I don't know how you think it happens, but reworking existing technology is how it actually happens.

I've already seen all the "it's impossible" posts today. When something like this eventually works, I'll look forward to the "it wasn't that hard, and he doesn't deserve too much credit posts".

People are a riot.

I don't think he ever claimed 4000 mph. The one time I saw that number was in a confused article that claimed the 30 minute travel time was for a NY to LA trip, not the SF to LA he had stated. As far as I have heard, he has always placed the speed at under 1000 mph.

> How on earth can he possibly keep on insisting that all this will be cheaper than a high-speed rail?

Maybe it's because he estimated prices for all the components, many of which aren't entirely unfamiliar because his companies work on similar hardware?

> It just flies in the face of common sense.

Ah, there's the problem. Common sense is no substitute for actually sitting down and doing some math. Which he and his engineers did. Common sense, despite it's popular reputation, isn't really that useful beyond the most basic of problems. It certainly isn't what got humanity out of the dark ages.

Yes, he's making ballpark estimates. Yes there are many unknowns. But he made a legitimate effort to price it out and it looks like it will be much cheaper. You may want to ask yourself how much you really know about the complexity and cost of high speed rail systems.

Like almost every other question or criticism in this thread - if you read the proposal he talks about that exact issue and proposes a solution. You may not be convinced his proposed solution will work, but this is something the hyperloop plan covers.

> With the planned design, only one vehicle at a time can be in the tube

This is not true. The system states that it is designed to have multiple simultaneous pods, separated by several miles for safety.

Whatever you think the problem is with land rights for hyperloop, they're worse for the already approved rail system. Like almost everyone else here, you don't have an intelligent criticism, but rather a knee-jerk reaction that would be alleviated by thinking for a moment instead of trying to find ways to sound cleverly skeptical.

I'd love to hear some intelligent criticism. That would actually be interesting. All we've got so far seems to be ignorance and complaints more vague than the proposal itself.

I'm guessing you're another person who has either not read or not understood the proposal?

They're already building a bullet train with vastly more land requirements than the hyperloop proposal. So if you think moving people out of the way is a problem, then you are saying the hyperloop is better than the approved bullet train. This is not a valid criticism of the hyperloop

Everything you say is true, but Space X isn't done either. I think you'd have to admit they've done better than many people predicted. What is strange is how with each milestone they pass, people move the goalposts and withhold respect. Same with Tesla, though that's starting to change a little now. Not saying that's what you're doing, but it does make me wonder what the motivation is when people do that.

What part of the science is not clear enough? It's a new combination of technologies, but every aspect of it is reasonably well understood physics. And what's wrong with hyping a fairly dramatic new idea that needs a lot of input and momentum to reach fruition?

This rest of my comment isn't directed at you, but so far I've seen a hundred critiques of this thing, and each one would be eliminated with reading comprehension. Expensive? Likely cheaper. Necessary? Voters already approved a more expensive, less functional system. Eminent domain? Less of an issue than current plans. G forces? Calculated. Air resistance? They cover that. Maintaining vacuum? They cover that too (or rather, they don't, because it's not a vacuum). Earthquakes? General Safety? Failure modes? They touch on each in the paper. It's a well thought out starting point for a new mode of travel. Of course it needs work - he says that right up front. But this is a hell of a kickoff. I can already hear the people who, after saying it was impossible, finally going through the paper and understanding it, jumping straight to "well it's not that amazing, it's all kind of basic". It's like people desperately need to bolster their self image by shitting on things.

Actually I'm curious to hear some intellegent criticism because it would be interesting to consider, but all the criticism so far is either a) ignorant idiocy or b) even more vague than his proposal.

For heaven's sake people, if this paper doesn't get you at least a little excited, you really ought to turn in your geek card and pick up a boring naysayer card in exchange.

v2 now loop free!

    perl -e 'a: print rand() > .5 ? "/" : "\\"; goto a'

Watching the video it occurs to me that the interesting part is that if you randomly print out slashes or backslashes endlessly, you create an endless "maze". It works particularly well on the c64 because the printable graphics set includes a slash and backslash that have no spacing around the character. But you can do the same thing in a terminal like this:

    perl -e 'while (1) { print rand() > .5 ? "/" : "\\" }';

Although depending on your font it won't look as compelling as the c64 version.