Elon Musk to publish hyperloop design by August
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as to billionaires and there use of money, I am more than happy how some of them turned their fortune into good use. the most obvious being Gates.
E.g. (sorry it's a WSJ link...)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870390620457502...
“I was so close to Steve Jobs I could never really see the transition,” Wozniak said. “I just wanted to be in engineering only – I never wanted to run a company, never wanted to run things, step on other people – Steve very clearly did, and wanted to be a top executive and a really important thinker in the world.”[1]
[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/8956282/Steve-Woz...
Being a creative type does not necessarily mean being an engineer.
Anyone have a list of billionaire futurists?
This also includes making changes to his physical appearance by looking at his old images [1], [2] as well his name brand.
[1] http://www.stepbrother.co.za/images/musk2.jpg
[2] http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18p2ht1rsfinyjpg/ku-xlarge.j...
edit: line breaks added
"Up-to 4 times more effective than a placebo in clinical testing"
Anyone considering hair loss medication should do some concerted research.
So tread carefully. The set of women who are sexually attracted to bald men is much, much larger than the set of women who are sexually attracted to men who are unable to have sex.
They're off-the-counter products, but you still might want to talk to your doctor about it, not because there are any significant side effects, but because it's a good habit.
"Sometimes patients given a placebo treatment will have a perceived or actual improvement in a medical condition, a phenomenon commonly called the placebo effect."
Here is one way that I think has a good chance of working: have your subjects pay a fairly steep amount for the trial, the evaluate it by having them fill in a questionnaire.
The "pay to take part" selects for gullibility, and also makes the subjects feel stupid if they don't report improvement. The "self-reporting", of course, helps get rid of such things as objective measurements that would spoil the party.
Finally, pick a small test group. That's cheaper, and will give positive results if only a few subjects report actual improvement. And if your first test fails, run a second, this, etc. identical test.
I wonder if in fact, as you're suggesting, his changes in appearance were intended as a means of improving his public figure, rather than his health and subjective appearance.
This is another example of what pg meant with his last essay.
"I really hate patents unless critical to company survival. Will publish Hyperloop as open source."
Isn't "critical to company survival" the same defensive argument that every patent holder uses?
It's a different story for Tesla Motors, though.
Mostly. So far. But very quickly SpaceX will start building things that have never been built before, and I would assume small teams are already working on the designs. Ships like human-rated Mars landers, colony buildings, fuel-creating reactors for Mars, etc.
Like the other reply mentioned, they are certainly working on some technologies that are starkly less conservative. One example is the Grasshopper [1], a reusable first stage that is capable of returning to the launchpad under controlled burn.
[1] Here's the most recent 325m test: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGimzB5QM1M
See The Rocket Company
Grasshopper seems to be following this play book.
While the grasshopper is very cool, the concept of a VTVL rocket is not new. Hell, the Apollo Lunar Module technically landed and took off afterwards, as well!
You have to wonder how large a role is played by NASA not having a shuttle now -- and hence no motivation to use its political clout to stop competition?
Let us just hope delaying the real space age capabilities a few decades won't result in the death of humanity... (But if we go extinct because of a bureaucracy's need for job security, we arguably deserve what we get.)
> Hell, the Apollo Lunar Module technically landed and took off afterwards, as well!
It landed and launched in a relatively airless (windless) environment at 1/6th Earth's gravity ... and when it launched it left half of itself behind!
"Technically" indeed.
Tesla at its heart is "put a ton of batteries which were developed by other companies into an electric motor that drives a car." People have been trying this formula for over a century. Tesla happened to do it when battery technology was just good enough to work, with really good styling.
Put a ton of batteries into a car? Yeah, that's how they get 265 miles to a charge. Clearly all other EV cars just need a ton of batteries to solve the range issue.
But let's have this conversation again in 5 years.
Tesla won the highest score ever achieved from Consumer Reports while Fisker perished with a similar formula. That isn't simply luck.
A user on the Tesla Motors forum pointed out that if Tesla actually implements their battery patents, the battery pack which was displayed in a National Geographic documentary (pixelated, of course) was in fact a fake.
You say that as if it was coincidental...
It could well be that Tesla's goal would be to disrupt that fuel-distribution network, first by selling great client devices (i.e., cars) and then implementing and selling access to the network that provides current petroleum cars with "near-infinite range"
Wouldn't that be living up to your image/name?
The number of new automakers who enter the market over time and do very well is very small.
The thing about Tesla is not that they managed to make an electric car, the important thing is they managed to make one with all of the right tradeoffs and design choices to be a car that people actually wanted to buy. That's a big deal even for conventional automobiles.
Moreover, Tesla has done the most important thing possible with electric cars: they've made them no longer a joke. That will make a much bigger difference in the future decades regardless of whether Tesla continues to succeed or not. Now that electric cars are in many people's eyes a legitimate, and even perhaps enviable, vehicle to own people will start evaluating them on the merits and increasingly choosing to buy them. Which will lead to more and more successful electric car models and companies and a snowball effect in terms of the amount of cumulative profits from electric car sales which will get plowed back into R&D for electric car development. All of which is an absurdly huge win for electric vehicles.
Now, it's not as though Musk did something absurdly special with Tesla (heck, he didn't even found the company), but there's a strong argument he didn't do so with SpaceX either. The Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 are not technological marvels, they're simply, practical sensible designs well-executed. The same could be said of the Tesla vehicles. However, today it seems like simple practicality well-executed is hard to come by in most industries, and he deserves a lot of credit for putting his money and time on the line and staying the course.
In the same context, SpaceX have not applied for many patents when compared to the work they are doing. However in this case the prime motive could be keep the tech secret.
Can't wait to see it.
Of course, I'm sure he's well aware of these issues.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6040206
Rather than maintain a vacuum hundreds of miles wide, why not just ride along the vacuum that occurs along a very low frequency soundwave (low frequency enough that the wavelength is larger than the vehicle).
To visualize: http://profmattstrassler.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/wavegas...
Since this wave would be going the speed of sound, that could be what he meant by comparing it to a Concord.
And since a pressure wave isn't exactly like wind (it would just pass through the vehicle), there would need to be some kind of propulsion that could get the thing going fast and occasionally maintain speed (e.g. the railgun and PV solar part of his idea).
I can see many ways to work in the air-hockey portion from his hints which would avoid the cost of mag-lev.. but who knows exactly what approach he will take there...
my idea: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6046134
@cma's idea: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6046081
...
While we're throwing out our Hyperloop hypotheses, I posted this a while back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4806458
But all that aside: bleh to passengers, think freight! If it's too complicated for people, because they won't use it if it takes as long as taking a plane... even though being a passenger on just one airplane ride is like riding a fat car for a whole year (give or take, it's nuts either way)... then automate it and use it for cargo. Especially since in that case and for a lot of products the vacuum wouldn't matter, the cargo could just ride in open carts and get picked up by robotic arms. Heck, you might even just throw it on while it's moving, and even use hooks to get cargo off without stopping the cart at all. This might seem too tricky... until you realize what marvels are going on in a bog standard HD these days, right? (though I remember a similar invention for passenger buses from MAD Magazine: something about spring-loaded seats haha)
I don't know anything about fluid mechanics, but wouldn't there be some serious friction between the fast moving air and the tunnel wall? I'd be surprised if that resulted in less energy loss than a fast moving vehicle through static air, but perhaps someone with expertise about such things could chime in...
This is essentially a vac-train, except instead of a vacuum, the air in the tube is propelled along with the pod.
There will be friction, but only between the air and the inside of the tube. I imagine there'll need to be some kind of "repeaters" to counter-act energy loss, but with so little loss, they could probably be solar-powered; which I think Elon alluded to.
I know as good as nothing of aerodynamics, but even if you get the latter flow perfectly laminar, I doubt it is a net win, as the contact area is 1000 times as large or so. But educate me.
Also, when you move cars into and out of the tunnel with the rotating air, you must take care not to 'plug' that air flow. Even if you do that only partly, there will be a pressure front (read: noise, vibrations, energy loss); each car will, for a moment get a sidewind at the speed of the train.
Here is a variant that, to me, makes more sense: it is not a vacuum, but they use the motion of the cars to push air out of the tunnel, so that air pressure drops. I don't have the vaguest idea how that would work, but if you can get it to work, it would be a nice trick.
Again: "I think..." I'd be happy if someone who knows more would chime in to tell me why I'm wrong. :-)
"The power required to run a supersonic wind tunnel is enormous, of the order of 50 MW per square meter of test section cross-sectional area."
A train would be, say, 20 square meters in cross section. That would be a GW of power to operate this. And that likely is a severe underestimate. I am sure one cannot lengthen a wind tunnel to kilometers without lots of power loss, but for now, let's ignore that.
For reference: Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV#Rolling_stock, a TGV uses at most 12MW at the relatively low speed of 300 km/h. Also, the three Gorges dam produces 22GW (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_power_stations_...)
If you could travel hundreds of miles in a half hour, you might make a lot more trips. Changing the cost structure and timing dramatically would change the way people think about long distance travel from something you do once in a while to being as common as going across town for an afternoon.
Obviously this is all far-fetched given today's technology, but I'm just letting myself daydream.
That said, if we take Musk at something close to face value, it has a major advantage that the HSR doesn't: it would be faster than the air route. That would give it at least a fighting chance to draw extremely high ridership and make up for high costs with high revenue.
And if the idea is basically sound, but the implementation is impractical on the SF-LA corridor, then it could be put into use in some other intercity connection with more favorable terrain and lower land costs.
It looks a lot like a schematic Lofstrom (launch) loop. Just replace the rotor with air.
Attitudes towards public transport in general seem more favourable in the EU, Japan, China and South Korea.
Perhaps I'm missing something, but I imagine getting such a system built in the EU (for example) would be easier than the US. Then again, Musk has been building a reputation with law-makers in the US for some time, so that might count for a lot.
Plus, Elon doesn't live in Europe or Asia, so why would he?
As a result, they aren't in as desperate need of public transport as the US.
After all, at a reported 1000km/h speed, it would be faster than a Boeing 737 or Airbus A320, the typical modern transcontinental aircrafts around the world.
Why tackle a meager market of medium-distance routes (realistic for HSR) when you can kill off airlines entirely?
The talk about LA-SF in half an hour sounds only like phase 1 of a much more ambitious plan.
$100 billion is an approximation of an old estimate of the total system cost (which includes HSR with terminii in the San Diego, LA, Sacramento, and San Francisco, and a upgrades to a number of existing intercity and commuter rail systems that would connect to HSR) -- the most recent estimate is much lower at $68.4 billion. The Bakersfield to Fresno line is a ~$3 billion first construction segment which will initially be used to improve exisiting Central Valley heavy rail passenger service and which will eventually be part of the HSR initial operating segment from Merced to Palmdale.
No one is lighting $100 billion on fire chasing HSR from Bakersfield to Fresno.
For more, see http://www.hsr.ca.gov/About/Business_Plans/2012_Business_Pla...
I started having doubts about this project when I found out technicals were skeptical, but when the bombshell dropped that it would have cost half if SNCF built it on the I-5 corridor[1] I decided there's no way I could continue to support it. It's just a device for politicians to bring pork to their districts, and anyway at this point it seems doubtful that it will ever actually exist.
[1] http://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2012/07/11/the-c...
Building something with immediate utility to improving existing service is lighting money on fire. The initial construction segment was chosen, among other segments considered for that role, because it provides considerable short-term return in terms of improvements in service on an already heavily traveled intercity rail route, as well as providing a good foundation for the initial operating segment for HSR.
> but when the bombshell dropped that it would have cost half if SNCF built it on the I-5 corridor
The SNCF proposal -- as those criticizing the High-Speed Rail Authority for rejecting it always fail to mention -- would have both used an alignment with lower ridership projections (and, thus, substantially less expected revenues) and required the State to provide SNCF with a revenue guarantee, both of which violate the laws governing the HSR project, and have the open-ended potential to cost the State far more in the long run.
That's why this announcement is big news.
"There may even be an inverse correlation between launch magnitude and success. The only launches I remember are famous flops like the Segway and Google Wave. Wave is a particularly alarming example, because I think it was actually a great idea that was killed partly by its overdone launch."
I can actually recall the launch of some things that succeeded (ipad & iphone, for example). Still, this reminds me in some way of Wave. When wave was launching there was a lot of hyperbolic explanations by people who didn't seem to understand what they were describing. realtime collaboration-communication hybrid that's really more of a cloud based protocol than a app. The app itself is just a proof of concept People either didn't get it or made unlikely assumptions about what it was.
Something about all this excitement pre-reveal feels wrong to me. Especially since this sounds like such a big, long term project.
a) He's getting asked a lot.
b) By publicly announcing a deadline, everyone involved (including him) will be racing to hit that deadline or lose face.
c) He's telling the world "I say what I do and I do what I say".
Given that they may not actually be working on what he specifically has in mind, there is a risk that his idea gets a bad connotation if someone implements something similar (but not identical) and does it poorly. There is a whole political dimension to this in terms of getting zoning, approvals, etc... and the last thing he needs is for it to be stillborn because a bunch of politicians hear it "was tried and failed".
I get physically ill trying to empathize with intellectual property sycophants.
It'll be a closed loop where the pumps take air from holes in the top of one end and push it through holes in the bottom of the other end. The holes will be spaced so that the upward-pushing force decreases over the loop as the upward-pulling force increases. This creates a slow acceleration at the beginning of the loop and a slow deceleration at the end of the loop. Some mechanical system will move cars from the end of the loop to the beginning (since there is no air force there). The speed at any given point is determined by how many of the up/down holes are behind/before the car, so speed in the center is incredibly fast.
The idea is pretty simple, it's just a matter of getting enough funding for the execution since the entire system must be constructed before any returns. Patents are a non-issue since you need government involvement to do it (even Musk isn't going to get a $6 billion loan on an unproved idea with unknown liability, need to get land rights, etc).
Also, the obvious use of a launch loop is for launch, of course. Why serve a market where prices are cents per kilogram when you can serve a market where prices are hundreds of dollars per kilo? And with less capital investment too.
This project has to be the most impactful thing on my life he has proposed and I welcome it with open arms. Paypal was smart, Tesla is cool, Space X is plain bad a^^, but this could change everything. Coast to coast in hours, half hour from NY to DC. And it could make it much cheaper than air travel due to less energy usage overall.
http://www.wnyc.org/blogs/transportation-nation/2013/mar/28/...
An electric hovercraft design without tires and without a fan, but driven by one large/many small linear or stepper motors that build-up and fire Electromagnetic pulses or compressed Air to build thrust.
When he said hyperloop I pictured a normal road with large Metal loops (induction) every mile with smart-meters tracking how much energy you consumed and charging your bank for that amount. Do you remember the games where you have to drive over the yellow arrows to speed up? The same principle.
..still inefficient, even though it's pretty creative and more efficient than all current implementation of car and infrastructure design.
before you ask, yes I know a much more efficient way, but it's useless to explain here, because nobody will listen anyway.