- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.zip
- technology@lemmit.online
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.zip
- technology@lemmit.online
- technology@beehaw.org
The hyperloop is dead for real this time::Hyperloop One is shutting down its operations. The company was founded in 2014 promising pods that would carry passengers at airline speeds through nearly airless tubes. Turns out, it wasn’t really viable.
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Before everyone gets ahead of themselves like in the last thread on this, this is not a Musk company. This is a separate startup based on the same (dumb) idea, that was later bought by Richard Branson’s Virgin. It’s IP is going to the Dubai company that is it’s biggest investor, so I’m sure they’ll actually build one with slave labor and all that.
Nobody is ever going to build one that works anyway.
It might work almost once
Unless they harness my lead at work’s ability to suck they’ll never get enough vac.
I feel personally attacked 🥲
I mean, pretty much any engineering student who’s taken Fluid Dynamics I and a physics/dynamics series could tell you that trying to maintain a high vacuum along hundreds of miles of tube, then accelerating things inside that tube to 700mph (when KE=1/2m v^2), was probably a very very bad idea. the sheer accurate tolerances that would need to be maintained between each tube joint, and the quality of the air seals, along the entire length of tube is just insane.
Yeah. It was always such a weird idea.
My brother worked at Virgin Hyperloop, and I think pretty much everyone there felt similarly that building trains of any kind was a worthwhile ambition, even if this particular implementation was a quixotic and unrealistic approach to high-speed rail development. But you take work where you find it. Hopefully the Brightline trains will demonstrate that a more conventional approach just makes more sense, and lead to more tried-and-tested rail projects.
For something to die it needs to be alive. Hyperloop was never anything more than a vaporware and a sabotage to proven transport methods.
The basic idea of reducing air drag with a vacuum is a good one, but there are so many practical problems with a solution like the hyperloop that it should have been shot down earlier than it was. The problem of thermal expansion across a structure hundreds of miles long while needing to maintain a near vacuum was never solved.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Hyperloop One, the futuristic transportation startup that promised to whisk us through nearly airless tubes at airline speeds, is shutting down, according to Bloomberg.
Musk theorized that aerodynamic aluminum capsules filled with passengers or cargo could be propelled through a nearly airless tube at speeds of up to 760mph.
The company came out of the gate strong, with tens of millions of dollars of funding and a bold vision of hyperloop systems all around the globe.
A year later, another co-founder, Shervin Pishevar, was ousted amid allegations of sexual assault and misconduct.
During the pandemic, nearly all of the top executives and founders left Hyperloop One, which also shed the Virgin from its name after the company decided to eschew passenger trips in favor of cargo.
The Boring Company, Musk’s tunneling operation, is still digging underground passageways in Las Vegas — but for Teslas, not hyperloops.
The original article contains 627 words, the summary contains 146 words. Saved 77%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Good Bot
Now it’s time for the xXx_Hyperloop_xXx, which will definitely, 100%, pinky promise, we swear, fix traffic congestion.
