WEBVTT - Hyperloop and the Boring Podcast 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:12.239 Get technology with tech Stuff from stuff works dot com. 0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:15.320 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I am your host, 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:19.600 Jonathan Strickland. I'm a senior writer for how stuff works 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:23.760 dot com, where we explain how stuff works. If you've 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:26.920 ever wondered how a car engine works, or how people 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:30.320 work or in some cases don't work, go to how 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:33.239 stuff works dot com. You'll likely find the answers to 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:35.879 all your questions there, and if you don't, let us know, 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:39.440 we'll find the answers for you. But here on tech Stuff, 0:00:39.440 --> 0:00:44.040 I cover all things technological. I love technology, and I've 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:47.120 been doing this for about eight years, so uh not 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:49.480 that I've gotten really great at it, but I'm still 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:53.279 so enthusiastic. I'm so enthusiastic in fact, that I'm going 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:56.920 to revisit a topic that we covered way back in 0:00:57.000 --> 0:01:01.880 two thousand thirteen. That would be hyper loop. Yeah, that's 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:05.559 when we published the episode titled the Hype about hyper Loop, 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:11.360 because I'm clever with headlines, y'all. Since that time, we've 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:14.280 had a couple of startups that formed in order to 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:19.440 pour in money, time, resources effort to make hyper loop 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:23.600 into a reality. Change it from just this interesting vision 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:28.600 Elon Musk had into an actual form of transportation. So 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:31.440 I thought it would behoove us to revisit the topic 0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:34.319 and see where things stand now. Plus I can use 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:37.640 the word behoove again. That's twice in the same day. 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:40.280 I'm recording this. The same day I did a live 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:43.320 stream about the game Dungeons and Dragons on a show 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:47.960 called Game Changers. Behoof is my word of the day. Anyway, 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:51.960 I can also talk about a really boring company, and 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:56.040 that's what's called foreshadowing. Now, before I jump into the 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:58.840 latest news, I should go back over the history of 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:02.160 the hyper loop concepts upped and explain not just where 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:05.280 it came from, but what is the actual idea of 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:07.559 the hyper loop and how is it supposed to work? 0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:11.280 And why is it even something worth talking about. Well 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:16.000 back in August, that's when the world at large learned 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:19.760 about the hyper loop concept. It's when Elon Musk published 0:02:19.800 --> 0:02:22.720 a white paper that was about fifty eight pages long. 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:26.160 And Elon Musk, in case you aren't aware, is the 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:30.960 entrepreneur behind such companies as SpaceX, the private space company, 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:36.000 and Tesla, the electric vehicle company. This white paper was 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:39.040 all about a high tech transportation system is kind of 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:43.639 a train, kind of like a subway, kind of like well, 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:47.040 Elon must described it as a cross between a hockey table, 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:50.079 like an air hockey table and a rail gun, which 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:52.040 is a pretty exciting way to think about getting from 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:54.880 point A to point B. Now, the motivating factor for 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:56.920 all of this seems to be that the state of 0:02:56.960 --> 0:03:01.120 California had approved a high speed rail project and Elon 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:05.200 Musk it got his dander up. If you were to 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:08.280 look at Elon Musk's dander that day, it would have 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:12.519 been in the up position. Now, that's because in that 0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:16.160 white paper, Musk laid out all of his frustrations with 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:19.799 this high speed rail project, and they really boiled down 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:23.040 to two major ones with a lot of subsidiary ones. 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:26.000 The two major ones was that would be that that 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:31.160 one it was incredibly expensive, just really a multibillion dollar project, 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:37.520 so it was in his mind financially wasteful. Secondly, he 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:40.600 argued that out of all the high speed rail systems 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:44.240 that were in operation or proposed, it was one of 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:48.960 the slowest. So he said, on a per mile basis, 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:52.320 it's one of the most expensive. On a speed basis, 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:54.960 it's one of the slowest. So why would you want 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:58.280 to spend a lot of money to not get anywhere fast. 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:03.120 He thought that that was an incredible waste of time 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:06.400 and money, and that it wasn't going to solve the 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:12.680 issue of of of of speeding up travel between major cities, 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:17.040 specifically Los Angeles and San Francisco, which are quite far apart. 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:20.840 If you're not familiar with California geography, you might think, oh, well, 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:22.800 those are two cities in the same state, but they 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:24.920 are hundreds of miles apart from one another. It takes 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:27.880 more than five hours of driving to get between the two. 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:31.240 So a high speed rail system would be nice, if 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:33.599 in fact it were high speed. But Must argued that 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:37.680 the the one that was proposed was not nearly fast 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:42.240 enough to be any more advantageous than just taking a 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:45.080 flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco, and that there 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:47.800 had to be a better way, And so he said 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:52.640 there needed to be a less expensive, safer, faster method 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:57.200 of getting from San Francisco to Los Angeles or vice versa, 0:04:57.240 --> 0:05:02.720 and that he had the better idea. Now Must acknowledge 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:05.719 that for cities that are really far apart from each other, 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:10.920 think about a thousand miles or kilometers or more, supersonic 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:14.440 air travel is likely the best option, assuming we can 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:19.200 solve a few major issues with supersonic travel. One of 0:05:19.240 --> 0:05:23.000 those is getting the right airplane geometry to minimize sonic 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:27.040 booms so that air travel doesn't become massively disruptive for 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:30.320 the population on the ground. A sonic boom, by the way, 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:35.120 is when you have uh some mass traveling faster than 0:05:35.160 --> 0:05:40.360 the speed of sound through whatever medium you are traveling through. So, 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:42.839 in the case of air, depending upon air pressure and 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:45.520 temperature and that sort of thing, if you're traveling faster 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:49.360 than the speed of sound, you're building up this pressure 0:05:49.400 --> 0:05:52.680 wave that ends up collapsing in on itself after the 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:57.080 object passes through that area, and that collapse creates this 0:05:57.279 --> 0:06:01.760 sonic boom. The sonic boom travels with the object as 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:04.239 it moves through. So if you have a supersonic jet 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:07.760 traveling overhead, that boom you hear as it passes over, 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:11.679 it's not just a single boom. That boom is actually 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:15.520 traveling with the supersonic aircraft as long as it is 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:20.279 traveling at those incredible speeds. So there are companies that 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:23.600 are working on building out better plane models that can 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:27.040 travel at these supersonic speeds while minimizing that sonic boom, 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:30.800 and they're making some amazing progress. Uh. These are include 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:35.000 private companies as well as NASA working on these designs. So, 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:39.680 assuming we get that problem solved, Musk says, it's probably 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:42.200 going to be the case that the most efficient way 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:47.279 to travel the most uh the cheapest way. Really, it's 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:49.200 everything from the amount of time you're spending to the 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:53.080 amount of money you spend, will probably be supersonic travel. 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:56.919 But for cities that are closer together than that but 0:06:57.000 --> 0:07:00.520 still a good distance away, let's say, like nine hundred 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:05.760 miles around kilometers apart from each other, you would want 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:10.080 a different solution because with a supersonic jet, you would 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:13.320 reach cruising altitude and you would only then be able 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:16.840 to accelerate to supersonic speeds, but you would only be 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:18.880 doing that for a very short while before you had 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:22.240 to descend. You would be essentially be up and down 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:25.320 so fast that you can't really take advantage of the 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:29.120 supersonic travel part. So it doesn't make sense to take 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:32.320 a supersonic flight between two cities that are nine hundred 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:36.000 miles or closer together. What you could do is build 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:40.080 this hyper loop system in order to travel at incredible 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:43.280 speeds between those points. And that's where the sweet spot 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:47.960 is between two cities that are nine miles apart or less, 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:50.720 and that they have to be two cities where you 0:07:50.760 --> 0:07:53.480 would typically have a lot of heavy travel between the two. 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:57.280 There's gotta be a lot of traffic. So assuming you 0:07:57.360 --> 0:08:01.880 have that situation, that's where hyperloop, he argues, would make 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:05.080 a lot of sense. Again, his example being Los Angeles 0:08:05.080 --> 0:08:09.320 and San Francisco, but any major metropolitan areas where there's 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:13.040 a lot of travel between the cities that are at 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:16.640 this distance from one another would be candidates for this 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:23.000 kind of transportation system. Uh. He would want this train 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:28.240 sort of hybrid system to travel at incredible speeds, not 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:32.040 quite supersonic. We'll get into that. This is a system 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:36.440 that that consists of an enclosed tube or tunnel, and 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:39.959 the air pressure inside that tube would be low. It 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:42.240 would still be present, but it would be low. So 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:45.719 you would have these giant pumps along the tube that 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:48.080 would pump out a lot of the air. So you 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:51.840 have a very low pressure system inside the tube that 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:56.160 lowers the air resistance considerably but does not create an 0:08:56.160 --> 0:09:00.199 actual vacuum. So there's still air inside the tube. Usk 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:04.240 acknowledges that the vacuum approach, though very effective it removes 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:09.480 air resistance, UH, would be incredibly difficult to achieve from 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:13.480 an engineering perspective, because even the smallest imperfection in the 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:16.640 tube would allow air to leak in. You know, if 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:19.640 you have an extremely low pressure system and you've got 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:23.320 greater pressure on the outside, obviously any leak, any crack 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:26.280 is going to allow air to rush in. So he 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:28.559 says going with a low pressure system would make more 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:32.280 sense than a vacuum. UH, it's too difficult to maintain 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:35.840 a vacuum within a room, much less a five hundred 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:41.320 mile long loop of tube. In his words, so rather 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:45.319 than using something like a mag lev system magnetic levitation 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:48.240 system in which the train would levitate above the tunnel 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:55.079 floor using electromagnetic repulsion, Musk was proposing using air bearings instead. 0:09:55.559 --> 0:09:57.880 So this would not be a system where you use 0:09:58.559 --> 0:10:01.120 magnets in order to repel one another and that would 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:05.480 make the capsule float off the floor of the tube. Instead, 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:08.320 it would be like an air hockey table. So if 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:10.920 you're not familiar with these, UH, an air hockey table 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:13.640 is a table that's got a surface with tiny pin 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:17.160 prick holes in it, and a fan under the surface 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:20.360 of the table blows air up through those holes. You 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:23.160 put a little plastic hockey puck on top of the table. 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:26.160 The air coming up from the bottom ends up making 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:30.360 the hockey puck glide across the table. So that's kind 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:34.480 of the principle he had for the the hyper loop concept, 0:10:34.520 --> 0:10:40.000 except instead of having the tube generating this air and 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:44.680 blowing against the capsule, he thought of the capsule having 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:48.360 essentially these pin pricks at the bottom of the capsule 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:51.360 blowing air down, so that would be where the capsule 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:53.880 would generate some lift. It would also generate left through 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:58.640 its forward momentum. And at the front of this capsule 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:02.720 he wants he post putting a pump a fan essentially, 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:06.040 because there's still air inside the tube. If you didn't 0:11:06.120 --> 0:11:09.800 have a way of moving that air around the capsule, 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:12.679 you would run into an issue where you're compressing the 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:15.319 air ahead of you. As the capsule moves down the tube, 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:18.000 it's pushing a column of air, and if the air 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:22.200 cannot get around the capsule fast enough, you start compressing 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:24.840 it and that ends up being like an air braking system. 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:28.319 It will actually slow down and ultimately stop the capsule 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:31.520 pushing against it in the other direction. So he proposed 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:34.560 putting a fan in the front of the capsule to 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:38.520 pull air in partly to allow the capsule to continue 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:41.839 moving down the tube at speed, but also feeding into 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:45.840 an air compressor that then would power these air bearings 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:49.600 and allow the capsule to maintain lift on the bottom 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:52.840 of the over the top of the tube flooring. And 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:56.640 because you're not using wheels, you're not losing a lot 0:11:56.800 --> 0:11:59.600 of energy to friction. Right. You've got a little bit 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:02.240 of airs instance that you're dealing with, but you're not 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:07.920 dealing with wheels running against a surface, so that loss 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:11.800 of energy to friction is minimized. It's still there, you 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:13.920 still have some air resistance, you still have some other 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:20.400 elements of friction, but it's greatly reduced. So uh, this approach, 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:24.480 he said, was going to be an effective engineering solution 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:29.680 to the problem. Um, now, what about propulsion. The air 0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:33.600 bearings provide lift, but how does the capsule actually move forward? 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:38.840 This is where Elon Musk was suggesting the external linear 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:45.440 electric motor version of of propulsion. So if you know 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:48.720 how an electric motor works, let's use a very simple version. 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:52.360 You've got let's say, a permanent magnet, and you've got 0:12:52.400 --> 0:12:57.400 some uh, you've got some electromagnet, you know, conductive wire, 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:01.160 insulated conductive wire. We're we're talking more of a dynamo 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:04.199 than a motor here. And you move the permanent magnet 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:09.280 so that it's north and south poles are rotating and going. 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:15.040 The coil of inductive wire is then being exposed to 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:18.160 a fluctuating magnetic field that's going to induce current to 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:20.640 flow through the wire. Uh. That also, by the way, 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:24.160 generates its own electric field because you have electricity voltage 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:28.880 essentially applied to this, uh, this conductive wire. He's thinking 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:31.040 about the same sort of thing, but in a linear pathway. 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:35.520 So you've got this, uh, this electro magnetic force that 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:40.600 is pulling and pushing the capsule. You have opposite poles, 0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:44.400 magnetic poles attracting one another that's pulling the capsule forward. 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:47.920 Then you have like poles pushing against each other that 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:50.400 continues to push the capsule forward. This allows you to 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:54.360 accelerate the capsule like a railgun. You're using the electro 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:57.880 magnetic force to accelerate it in a linear motion. So 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:01.160 it's going straight their bearings or what allow it to 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:04.760 have the lift. The electric motor allows it to have 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:09.240 the forward momentum, and this was kind of his general 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:14.200 idea for the infrastructure. As for the capsules themselves, his 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:18.800 version of it would seat twenty eight passengers per passenger capsule. 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:21.920 He had a couple of different models of capsule. He 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:25.400 also proposed a version that would have slightly larger capsules. 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:28.360 These would hold up to three full sized automobiles, and 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:31.400 you can have passengers inside the automobile, so you could 0:14:31.400 --> 0:14:34.080 be sitting in a car inside a capsule, and that 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:36.360 way you would start in your car in l A 0:14:36.480 --> 0:14:38.960 and then thirty five minutes later you'd drive out of 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:42.040 the capsule in San Francisco, which would save you a 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:47.960 ton of time from the normal five hours plus of driving. UH. 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:52.080 The maximum width for a passenger only capsule would be 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:55.440 four point four three feet or one point three five meters, 0:14:55.560 --> 0:14:58.520 so not very wide, with a height of six point 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:02.120 one one feet or one one zero meters, so again 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:03.880 not very tall. If you're a tall person, you'd be 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:06.600 stooping a bit in order to move around this cabin. 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:10.520 UH doors would either be of a goal wing design, 0:15:10.640 --> 0:15:14.240 meaning like the DeLorean, they lift up, or they would 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:17.760 be slides so that it would allow for easy uh 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:22.040 loading and unloading of the vehicle. Luggage would go on 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:24.160 one of the two ends of the vehicle, depending upon 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:25.960 where you would put the rest of the components, so 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:28.680 either in the very front or the very back, And 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:33.280 the weight of the passenger capsule without the interior components, 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:36.360 just the weight of all the external parts would be 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:40.120 about six thousand, eight hundred pounds or three thousand one ms, 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:45.040 and Musk estimated the cost for each capsule's exterior to 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:49.160 be about two hundred forty five thousand dollars apiece. Now, 0:15:49.200 --> 0:15:52.000 all the stuff on the inside, like the seats, the 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:57.280 door panels, the restraints, the various displays, would weigh another 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:02.080 five thousand, five hundred pounds or two thousand, five hundred ms, 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:05.680 and it would cost another two hundred fifty five thousand dollars. 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:07.840 Then there are all the other elements that add to 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:10.600 the cost, such as the propulsion system components that would 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:14.720 be in each capsule, the air compressor blades, the air bearings, 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:17.480 all of this stuff. All of that told, Musk estimated 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:21.080 that a passenger only capsule would cost one million three 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:25.400 hundred fifty thousand dollars apiece and have a weight total 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:28.680 of fifteen thousand kilograms, And he goes on to estimate 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:31.960 that you need about fifty four million dollars to make 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:35.560 enough capsules for the hyper loop system he was proposing 0:16:35.560 --> 0:16:39.960 between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Now that's enough capsules 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:42.000 where you would have them at either end so that 0:16:42.080 --> 0:16:45.920 you could have a consistent UH service between the two 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:50.840 cities on any given day. So fifty four million dollars 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:54.040 for just the capsules, that's not too bad. However, that 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:56.680 doesn't include the cost of the infrastructure. Will get to 0:16:56.720 --> 0:17:00.320 that if you were traveling on that route, helps safe 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:04.960 would it be? Well? Elon Musk, again arguing for the 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:07.480 system he was proposing, said that there would be a 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:11.359 lot of redundant safety features, including maintaining a healthy distance 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:14.840 between capsules. So between you and the next closest capsule 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:18.080 would be a gap of twenty three miles or thirty 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:21.320 seven kilometers on average, which is a lot of safety 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:25.640 space to prevent collisions between capsules. Still, tons of other 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:29.720 safety issues that you would have to take into account 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:35.520 and make sure we're UH prepared for. So that way 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:39.760 you don't have any massive issues. Now. According to Musk, 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:43.159 the hyper loop would allow for eight hundred forty passengers 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:46.879 to travel per hour between Los Angeles and San Francisco. 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:50.119 Now that number could be increased by decreasing the amount 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:54.679 of departure time between capsules. He was envisioning capsules arriving 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:58.879 at a station, unloading, loading up, and every two minutes 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:01.600 you would have a capsule leave either l A or 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:04.360 San Francisco. Now that that doesn't mean that a capsule 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:07.880 only spends two minutes per station. You would have one 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:12.760 station or one capsule arriving at a station while another capsule, 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:16.200 maybe three capsules ahead, is leaving, So you would still 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:19.879 have several minutes to unload and load each individual capsule 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:25.719 before it blasts off and heads over to its destination. Uh. 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:28.720 These capsules would be going pretty darn fast. Musk talks 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:31.199 about them hitting speeds of seven hundred sixty miles per 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:34.600 hour or one thousand, two hundred twenty kilometers per hour, 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:38.439 which is also known as mock point nine one at 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:42.000 sixty eight degrees fahrenheit or twenty degrees celsius. So you're 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:44.960 talking about going nearly as fast as the speed of sound, 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:48.199 but not actually breaking the sound barrier at that speed 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:51.400 at those temperatures. And again that offers me the opportunity 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:53.800 to remind you guys, sound travels through the air at 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:57.679 a speed that depends on other things like air temperature, 0:18:58.000 --> 0:18:59.359 So you have to take that into account when you 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:01.600 talk about the speed of sound. It's not a constant 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:04.920 through all altitudes and temperatures. You have to have these 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:07.680 other variables in account before you can actually talk about 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:11.560 the speed of sound, although we can usually just assume 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:15.720 we're talking about a standard temperature when we're usually using 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:19.480 that term. Back to the show, At that speed, you 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:21.800 would be able to make the trip between Los Angeles 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:24.960 and San Francisco in about thirty five minutes, and the 0:19:25.040 --> 0:19:27.840 high speed rail system would take two hours and thirty 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:30.159 eight minutes on that same trip. So the system that 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:34.240 Elon Musk was saying was inefficient, slow, and expensive would 0:19:34.320 --> 0:19:37.679 take two hours thirty eight minutes. Driving takes five hours. 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:40.240 A plane trip would take a little bit more than 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:42.840 an hour, like an hour and fifteen minutes. So the 0:19:42.920 --> 0:19:45.840 hyper loop would theoretically be the fastest way to get 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:49.159 from Los Angeles to San Francisco, assuming it works. The 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:52.720 way Elon Musk imagines, so thirty five minutes is a 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:57.159 huge amount of time saved going from point A to 0:19:57.240 --> 0:20:00.400 point B. It would be the fastest solution by far. 0:20:00.800 --> 0:20:02.879 You might wonder what it would be like to actually 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:07.760 travel inside one of those capsules. According to Musk, he 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:12.080 imagines that the entire interior would have displays, kind of 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:17.800 like television displays or computer displays that would show a landscape, 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:22.000 maybe a model of the landscape that you're actually passing through, 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:25.600 or maybe it would be something else like outer space 0:20:25.840 --> 0:20:28.320 or under the water or some other city if you 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:30.840 wanted to, Or maybe it would just be television, because 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:33.720 there's no point in having windows your inside and enclosed tube. 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:35.639 All you would see is the interior of a tube 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:39.520 whizzing by at seven miles per hour. Using the displays 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:44.120 would help you get some other sensory input. Uh. There's 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:48.959 other interesting questions like would this affect your sense of 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:52.399 of your your perception of space, Like would you feel 0:20:53.000 --> 0:20:57.040 an emotion sickness due to this kind of thing. Uh, 0:20:57.560 --> 0:20:59.320 that's a question that I don't know the answer to 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:01.800 because as far as I know, no one's actually tried it. 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:05.000 But it is really interesting Now we've got a lot 0:21:05.040 --> 0:21:08.000 more to talk about, uh, and I'm going to dive 0:21:08.040 --> 0:21:11.119 into some more details about what travel aboard the hyper 0:21:11.119 --> 0:21:13.720 loop would theoretically be like, as well as talk about 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:15.240 some of the companies that are trying to bring it 0:21:15.320 --> 0:21:17.600 to life. But before I do that, let's take a 0:21:17.640 --> 0:21:26.600 quick break to thank our sponsor. Now I just mentioned 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:29.920 about being inside those capsules and looking at those displays, 0:21:30.000 --> 0:21:33.520 and you know, seeing some gorgeous stuff and and that 0:21:33.560 --> 0:21:36.640 sounds really nice. You would have restraints on your your 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:40.280 seats because you're talking about accelerating too pretty incredible speeds 0:21:40.320 --> 0:21:43.600 and then eventually decelerating. Now, the ideas that you would 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:47.160 do this gradually so you wouldn't be experiencing any very 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:49.639 powerful G forces. That would also mean that the tube 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:53.200 itself would not be able to have any sharp turns 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:55.320 on it because the amount of G force you would 0:21:55.359 --> 0:21:58.879 experience as a passenger would be too great. You would 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:04.920 be very very much uncomfortable, if not blacking out due 0:22:05.000 --> 0:22:07.400 to those G forces being placed on your body if 0:22:07.520 --> 0:22:10.320 you were making sharp turns. So you'd have to have 0:22:10.400 --> 0:22:14.960 very gradual curves to your hyper loop track, and you 0:22:14.960 --> 0:22:20.000 would have to again have this long acceleration and deceleration 0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:24.320 so that you're not placing too much stress on your passengers. 0:22:24.920 --> 0:22:26.560 But let's go back to price for a minute. So 0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:28.640 I talked about the capsules and that they would cost 0:22:28.640 --> 0:22:31.280 a cool fifty four million dollars each. But what about 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:34.479 the tube itself, Well, Musk said it would be several 0:22:34.520 --> 0:22:38.040 billion dollars. He eventually came up with the figure rough 0:22:38.640 --> 0:22:41.720 Napkin figure of being six billion dollars for a hyper 0:22:41.720 --> 0:22:44.800 loop system, but he adds that this would still be 0:22:44.920 --> 0:22:47.919 less expensive than the high speed rail system that California 0:22:47.960 --> 0:22:50.679 had approved. He said, Yeah, it's six billion dollars for 0:22:50.760 --> 0:22:54.320 this hypothetical thing I just made up, but it's many 0:22:54.359 --> 0:22:58.720 more billion dollars for this other thing that exists. So, um, 0:22:59.040 --> 0:23:00.720 you know, it's it's kind of easy to say that 0:23:00.760 --> 0:23:04.160 it's only six billion dollars, only six billion dollars, when 0:23:04.520 --> 0:23:06.679 you have just proposed it and no one said to 0:23:06.680 --> 0:23:10.960 actually build the thing yet. But let's just for argument's sake, 0:23:11.040 --> 0:23:13.479 say that, in fact, it would cost six billion dollars 0:23:13.520 --> 0:23:17.600 to build. Because I don't want to cast aspersions towards 0:23:17.600 --> 0:23:20.560 Elon Musk. I'm just saying that until you build something, 0:23:20.600 --> 0:23:23.399 you really can't say how much it was going to cost, 0:23:24.280 --> 0:23:26.680 not with any real authority. It's only after you've built 0:23:26.680 --> 0:23:29.719 it that you really understand the cost of it. The tube, 0:23:29.720 --> 0:23:31.840 he says, would be made out of steel, and he 0:23:31.920 --> 0:23:35.879 says that you could constructed and prefabricated sections and then 0:23:36.200 --> 0:23:38.640 kind of snap them together, which is being a bit 0:23:38.640 --> 0:23:40.880 flippant on my part. It actually would involve using an 0:23:40.960 --> 0:23:45.480 orbital seam welder to create a seal between each length 0:23:45.560 --> 0:23:49.359 of tube. So you would put in a prefabricated length 0:23:49.359 --> 0:23:51.919 the tube, and then you would just seal it to 0:23:52.040 --> 0:23:55.880 the previous one using this orbital uh seal welder which 0:23:55.960 --> 0:23:58.359 kind of goes around the entire tube and make sure 0:23:58.400 --> 0:24:02.119 that they are nice and tightly welded together. And he 0:24:02.160 --> 0:24:05.439 also suggested that these tubes would rest on pylons, so 0:24:05.480 --> 0:24:08.720 it would be an elevated track that would be above 0:24:08.920 --> 0:24:13.080 or really to the side of Interstate five in California, 0:24:13.119 --> 0:24:16.040