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Comment by acqq | Hacker News Reader

Anybody actually tried to imagine himself using it? It's rather claustrophobic experience, suited more to the astronauts than normal people: you can only be in some quite horizontal position, you can't even go to the toilet while you're in the capsule, the luggage capacity seems to be quite limited... It doesn't appear as something everybody would be ready to use?

If it could be bigger and more comfortable it seems it would be more usable and with more chance not to fail. Then it would have sense to also be more expensive to make it and maintain it.

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Well, the trip is only half an hour. Do people have better comforts on a metro or bus commute?

Yes, people have orders of magnitude better comfort in metros and buses. You can exit the city metro or the city bus every minute. You can sit, stand up and walk in them. The buses for longer distances have the toilets and can stop whenever somebody really needs it. Here you'd be locked in the slanted chair for half an hour where you wouldn't be even able to stand up or stretch the hands! Sounds awful and has real implications on the public acceptance.

Especially after the first case of somebody going sick after he enters the tube and having to remain in it the next 29 minutes. Imagine you sitting next to that person. Imagine you being that person. Imagine your kid being that person. Imagine the press ("Mother watched her kid dying for 29 minutes in Hyperloop"). Imagine the reactions. The project would be dead for good after a few such cases.

You can't put normal people in the capsules for astronauts and just think "what could possibly go wrong." Health issues and effects are real problems and have to be considered. The public is used to car traffic accidents. It won't be so for the whole new transportation suited only for astronauts. This can be the start of the grand failure.

>Yes, people have orders of magnitude better comfort in metros and buses. You can exit the city metro or the city bus every minute. You can sit, stand up and walk in them. The buses for longer distances have the toilets and can stop whenever somebody really needs it.

This is not universally true.

For example, here in New York, the express bus from Staten Island has at least 45 minutes of no stops and has no bathroom (just a regular bus). If you do somehow convince the driver to let you off, good luck finding a bathroom anywhere near the places you'd probably find yourself. Some of the Subway trains (such as the N train between Canal St and Atlantic Ave) run express and is about 10 minutes non-stop (and you're a long trek from a bathroom at either end).

Plus, try going to the bathroom in the first or last 30 minutes of a flight. You have a reasonable chance of being arrested.

It's totally true about NYC, you picked an extreme case of the SI express bus. And if you're sick the bus driver will drop you off.

> (and you're a long trek from a bathroom at either end).

And that's total BS. The long trek is less than 5 minutes on either side.

You're exaggerating. As mentioned in the original thread, if any of those situations happen in a taxiing airplane, or during take-off/landing, it's going to be the same or longer time until you get to the gate. Same goes for an intercity bus, stopping in the middle of nowhere doesn't help with anything.

The vehicle carrying version is a tad larger (1.85m height), without adding much to the cost, and would probably be chosen for an actual build. Given the capsule will be coasting for most of the trip, it would be possible to walk around like in an airplane, if it's not doing a sharp turn.

Solution to the claustrophobia problem: Oculus Rift. Note that I don't have claustrophobia so I don't know if this is a realistic solution; it's just the first thing that popped into my mind.

I wouldn't use it because I would get claustrophobic. But I don't think it's being engineered for claustrophobes -- we'll take the train or drive, and people who are comfortable with Hyperloop will take that. No solution can meet everyone's needs.

Nice of you to recognize the thing is not targeted at absolutely everybody, like absolutely every other method of transportation. People here seem to be forgetting that.

It's aimed at commuter traffic--as somebody who has routinely made a backpack's worth of clothing last a week on trips, I also don't think that the luggage is that much of an issue.

The bathroom critique is again silly--it's a thirty minute trip; if you can't hold it that long, you probably need to repeat preschool.

Has it occurred to you that not everybody has perfect health all the time? You can't actually expect that you wouldn't get sick the first minute after you enter the tube. Then imagine yourself having to remain there next 29 minutes and die!

This would happen. A lot. Then imagine who'd use that cleverness after the first such case and after every next.

I'd rather say "it's aimed at astronauts" than "commuters." Astronauts are thoroughly checked by medical teams and prepared before their trips, would you suggest such checks and preparations every time for everybody entering the tube?

>Has it occurred to you that not everybody has perfect health all the time?

Then those people can avoid riding the hyperloop?

Luckily we didn't use the same BS excuses to stop building planes...

>You can't actually expect that you wouldn't get sick the first minute after you enter the tube.

What? That's what 100% of the population expects when entering any vehicle. "Getting sick the minute they enter" is neither a common expectation nor a common occurence.

>Then imagine yourself having to remain there next 29 minutes and die!

Well, that escalated quickly.

Same thing can technically be said about a HSR or a plane. You can't stop the train/plane because somebody got sick, and although you have a bathroom, and although the extra space helps, the resources you have inside the car/plane are very scarce anyway. Yet, very few people die inside those things nowadays.

He said there could be branch stations, and he also gave the example of someone having an emergency right at takeoff in a normal plane, and it taking just as long to get clearance to land, turn around, land, and taxi to a gate.

In the plane people can stand up, help the one being sick ("is there a doctor on the plane? please come to the seat 34E" -- the steward is already there etc) bring him water, take him to the toilet. It's a big space. Nothing like that here -- everybody is trapped in the tube not able to leave the chair.

Imagine even worse case: fire in the pod. People burn having to remain unmovable in the seats. Again imagine the public response. Just an impression of having absolutely no chance to do anything at all is enough to scare most normal people forever.

It just has to be big enough for people to normally move inside. Everything else is good for SciFi but not for real use.

If you don't travel, then imagine your computer being connected to the control of the tube in which you are and where you can't move. Now imagine that you can't kill the program for a half an hour which is effectively killing you. Even if the chances are low for the killing process to activate, would you even want to try such an experience?

Instead of just crapping all over something that is in very, very early stages of merely ideation, maybe we could switch to positive intent and try to come up with some comparables? Having just returned from Disneyland, I nominate the Finding Nemo submarines which offer a nearly identical experience for 15-20 minutes (and are pitched as "fun" no less).

Now compare it to a car.

A cruising airliner is at least half an hour away from any sort of outside medical help. On oceanic flights they can be up to three hours away. Yet few people die on them and few people use that as a reason to avoid them.

It's harder to imagine riding a horse for hours ..

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