• vexikron
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    6 months ago

    Yep, it was a dream too impossible for the world in the late 1800s / early 1900s too.

    Turns out making a train or maglev inside of a vaccuum tube is more expensive and has insourmountable technical challenges when compared to making…

    You know a train or maglev outside of a vaccuum tube.

    For christs sake, Elons original napkin sketch was a train with a giant air intake on the front that would push air downward to make the train float and also propel it forward.

    You know.

    In a vaccuum tube. Where there is no air.

    • BlueMagaChud [any]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      huh, it’s almost like it was only barely designed enough so that it could wreck and steal funding from serious public transport proposals for parties interested in never seeing those happen

      • vexikron
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        6 months ago

        You technically could do that… at least on a relatively short, flat, straight track… but it doesnt make any practical sense.

        First, its a ram jet so something has to get it up to speed before the ram jet starts working. Though if we just make it a scramjet, there we go.

        Next problem is … it might actually need downforce winglets on it the way drag cars do. On every car. Hope there is no sudden cross wind on your nearly perfectly straight track in a large flat area. Now you need a computer system to automatically move the winglets to counter cross winds… or you need some kind of… train… pilot…???

        Biggest problem is: The speeds capable by a theoretically working scramjet train would mean it could not turn on anything other than VERY wide arcs, and it wouldnt be able to get to the speeds capable of a scramjet… ostensibly the whole point… without skipping tons of stops a slower train could make…

        …unless you are going to slow the thing down at each stop with a series of parachutes coming out the back, or some how be able to reverse thrust the scramjet?

        As far as I know there are no reverse thrust scramjets, fairly sure thats impossible due to the nature of scramjets.

        ???

    • D61 [any]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      Fuck… a bank can figure out how to use air to push an object through a tube and an air hockey table to float a puck, I don’t know why these dum-dums couldn’t have figured out how to do the same.

    • Tankiedesantski [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      Turns out making a train or maglev inside of a vaccuum tube is more expensive and has insourmountable technical challenges when compared to making…

      You know a train or maglev outside of a vaccuum tube

      China is already eyeballing a commercial Hyperloop track between Hangzhou and Shanghai by 2035. That said, China is coming from a place where they’ve already ironed out much of the tech behind a maglev already, so a Hyperloop is more of a “what’s next?” Instead of a pie in the sky dream from nothing.

      • vexikron
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        6 months ago

        I would very much like to read as much about that as I possibly could!

        I will be honest, I still think the general idea of a train of some kind in a vaccuum tube makes basically no sense whatsoever…

        … but maybe either this is not exactly that and theyre just using the name hyperloop, or maybe somehow they think they can or already have figured out the engineering/economic difficulties with the core concept.

        Either way would make some interesting reading!

        • Tankiedesantski [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          6 months ago

          Here’s a recentish article from SCMP. Sounds like they’ve got the route planning mostly done and are pushing ahead with the technical issues. Article says that Hyperloop tech is still in the early stages and many technical challenges lay ahead. We probably won’t hear much more about it until the major tech breakthroughs are already made and tested because the Chinese state sector doesn’t blow its trumpet until the project is almost done.

          Seems like high level people from state and SOE organizations are involved so at least it’s unlikely to be a startup grift.

          • vexikron
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            6 months ago

            Welp, they got a test track and a miniature capsule going 600 km/h so far, or such speed is claimed.

            I am not able to find any video actually showing the test capsule moving anywhere near that fast, and strangely the SCMP article you posted makes reference to a potential 1000km/h, while their youtube video on it only mentions 600 km/h.

            So basically they have gotten as far as the American hyperloop did.

            Guess I’ll keep my eye out for updates.