Submission + - Ask Slashdot: What Happens If A Hyperloop Train Fails? 8
dryriver writes: I've been following Elon Musk's Hyperloop initiative with great interest. The idea of getting from one city to another at 700 MPH without having to suffer through an airport and all that jazz is revolutionary. I'm glad that somebody is trying to innovate in the area of land travel. My question though: When conventional trains going at much slower speeds derail or crash, the result is often serious injuries or deaths. What happens if something goes wrong with a 700 MPH Hyperloop train/pod or with part of the track? Would a Hyperloop accident at that speed even be survivable?
From Google (Score:2)
http://www.businessinsider.com... [businessinsider.com]
Key points:
1) Seat belts
2) Reserve air supplies
3) Auto-braking.
Obviously if something penetrated the sealed tube and hit a capsule, there would be a serious risk of injury if not death. But that seems extremely unlikely.
Far more likely would be a tube penetration without contact to a capsule, most likely resulting in an auto-braking with little to no risk of injury. Assuming the reserve air did not have a problem, I think no deaths would result. Talking sprains and simil
Re: (Score:2)
The worst thing that would happen would be if the capsule escapes the tube or the tube gets bent and the capsule smashes into something. A leak in the tube would just cause an air cushion that stops the capsule.
Re: (Score:2)
Any failure whatsoever will rip though that 2 centimeter outer tube like candy. Now sure, anybody in the capsule would die pretty much instantly in the event of a crashbut a single breach in the Hyperloop would probably kill everybody else in the Hyperloop because air would rush into the tube at about the speed of sound [dailycaller.com]
Cleanup Crew Alert (Score:1)
Overtime Pay.
It only takes one (Score:1)
End of Project.
Lead Designer Quits (Score:1)
Lead designer, Terry Gilliam, quits and heads back to producing great films. Fires his assistant, Archibald Buttle (or was that Tuttle). Writes op-ed on the death of Pneumatic tubes.
Terry Gilliam presents alternative:DUCTLoop (Score:2)
He already had visions of our future; this was in front of him all along. Sorry, Elon, but could you hand me those napkins over there; they have my first sketches