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Comment by jessaustin | Hacker News Reader

Claustrophobes will not be eager to travel in this fashion.

Then use http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130812-planes-that-can-pic.... Compared to that, this Hyperloop idea is best described as "No pilot. Less space than a 747", by teenage boys.

On the other, more important hand, at firt view, this looks feasible to me (taking into account who published it)

I do wonder about the "little noise" claim, though. That fan a few meters in front of you that compresses air so that you can float on it will not be noise-free. I also think those tubes could start resonating at times.

Finally: only about a thousand passengers per hour or, alternatively, going at close to the speed of sound, on guaranteed collision course, with 30s intervals?

Oh the irony if you try to access the bbc link http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130812-planes-that-can-pic... from the UK :

«BBC Future (international version) We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee. It is run commercially by BBC Worldwide, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC, the profits made from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new BBC programmes. »

For those in the same boat: the BBC article talks of a design where maglev trains, starting in city centers, accelerate to a few hundreds km/h and then get picked up by a huge flying wing that swoops on it like a bird of prey. Later, much farther away, that flying wing will put the trains back on a maglev track, without ever landing.

That truly is a toy for boys (as in "looks cool and dangerous") unlike the Hyperloop ("it may or may not be dangerous, but you can't see that, so who cares?")

The technical challenges posed by that design seem quite significant compared to those of TFA.

Exactly. I think this fails because of comfort requirements. If you stacked people inside airplanes like this, I'm sure they would be 10x more efficient and competitive with this proposal.

I think this would be great for journeys of _under_ 30 minutes. And it wouldn't be for everyone, for sure -- so starting off as a niche transportation mode is not a great start.

Elon mentions in the paper that even on planes today landing procedures take over 30 mins, and during that time people can't get out of their seats, and everybody is ok with it. For longer routes you would definitely need more space, but then he also describes the model that would allow for carrying cars, which is a lot more space.

Travelling in any kind of tunnel is no more claustrophobic than this is it?

"The maximum width is 4.43 ft (1.35 m) and maximum height is 6.11 ft (1.10 m)."

Yeah, that's a little bit more claustrophobic than your average underground train.

But less claustrophobic than sitting in a car.

Cars have windows and stuff.

The passenger compartment mockups indicate there won't be enough room to sit upright. I'm sure the seats will make this comfortable for people of average stature who aren't afflicted with claustrophobia, but there will be much less room than tunnels that accommodate e.g. upright humans or subway trains.

Strap on an Oculus, and simulate a train car. Or, project windows onto the interiors. (Since we're talking future technology)

Yes I expect every visible interior surface would have display capability. A popular mode would be the view outside the tube, which could be constructed from fixed external cameras, and wouldn't have to be precisely "live" anyway. Some masochists might prefer the view inside the tube, which could be prerecorded or even animated.

Why worry initially about a disorder that only affects 5–7% of people. Fix the transportation problem for a large majority of people first, anyone else still has existing transportation as an option.

Comfort is proportional to room, there are plenty more than 7% of the population that would refuse to ride in a windowless box they can't even sit upright in.

Remember there are two passenger compartment mockups, this is the smaller one we are referring to: http://i.space.com/images/i/000/031/716/i02/hyperloop-passen...

Unscientifically I'd bet less than 25% of people would be willing to ride in that for more than 10 minutes, much less 30-40.

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