WEBVTT - How the Hyperloop Will Work 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:03.640 Hey, March is tripod month, my friend, and you know 0:00:03.640 --> 0:00:06.680 what that means. Yes, that means it's time to let 0:00:06.920 --> 0:00:11.360 people know about your favorite podcasts, just to share the 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:14.400 sheer joy of podcast listening. That's right, it's t r 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:17.479 y pod still in nascent industry. A lot of people 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:20.880 don't know what podcasts are and helps everybody out if 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:24.240 you would go out and just say, hey, family member, 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:26.920 who I see it? Thanksgiving once a year? Right, you 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:29.000 should try out this thing called a podcast. Here's what 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:30.920 they are. Here's a cool show you should try, and 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:32.479 here's how to get it. Yeah, and it doesn't have 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:34.800 to be our show, just any podcast you like in 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:38.320 general that you think someone else would like, just share it. Yeah, 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:44.120 so get on board the dry pod train. Welcome to 0:00:44.520 --> 0:00:53.800 stuff you should know from how stuff works dot com. Hey, 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:56.640 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's 0:00:56.720 --> 0:01:02.800 Charles W. Chuck Bryant say hi hello, and there's Jerry Jerry. 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:07.520 Jerry can't talk because the tape is still holding after 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:11.520 all these years. Yeah, it's amazing. Well, at any rate 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:15.319 it stuff you should know that tape has gotten kind 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:18.080 of gross that there's like hair stuck to it. We should. 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:20.920 We should swap it out every now and then, she screams, 0:01:20.959 --> 0:01:24.800 though every time we do. Well, the little slit that 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:26.560 we have cut so she can drink her mi so 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:30.760 through a straw is getting gamy. Yeah, I think some 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:33.119 of that miso has a little bit of meat in it. 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:38.399 Oh you didn't like that one? Huh? No, I find 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:43.800 that satisfying. Um. I find it ironic that we're um 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:48.840 podcasting today on this fast thing because I am. I've 0:01:48.880 --> 0:01:52.600 had the lowest energy today any day I can think 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:54.880 of in a long time. They need to bring Surge 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:57.600 back just for days like today, man, because I would 0:01:57.640 --> 0:02:01.160 strongly recommend you drink a Surge brand beverage. I'm not 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:04.800 into those things, dude. Serge was so good. I'm just 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:07.480 I'm not into any of them. But I've had I've 0:02:07.480 --> 0:02:09.919 tried one once when I was super low energy. I'm 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:12.960 not gonna name it, but um, it made me feel 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:15.160 like I was gonna have a heart attack. Oh yeah, 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:19.240 it's like this doesn't feel good? Yeah, no, not at all. 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:22.240 So what about coffee? You've been drinking coffee lately? Right? 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:24.280 Have you fallen off of that? I've fallen off, but 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:28.639 I did. I had a triple this morning? Whoa triple espresso? 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:32.919 That's why you feel low energy right now? You're crashing? Man? 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:35.880 Well I was. That was low before and low after. 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:39.600 So it's just the thing. Are you okay? I'm fine. 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:43.359 Personal problems that I don't feel like telling a million 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:45.880 people about. Do we have a million listeners? Oh? I 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:48.600 don't know. Let's say, what's a listener? What's a download? 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:53.839 Are these bots? Who knows? No one knows? Oh that's good. 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:57.800 That was a nice conversation. Well, I'm I'm super hyped 0:02:57.880 --> 0:03:02.600 up chucking you? Why? Uh? Because you had a serge 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:09.000 energy drink. I didn't know. Because literally every project that 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:12.440 Elon Musk has his hands on I am jazzed about. 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:16.480 He was in our short lived television show supposedly he 0:03:16.560 --> 0:03:20.760 was your man crush hero idol. Yes, yeah, and actually 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:23.760 it has grown exponentially since then. Like the more I 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:27.280 found out about him, the more I actually have come 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:30.720 to I think he's a pretty cool dude. Like that, 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:33.560 would you have such a crush on him if his 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:37.920 name was, like, you know, Bill Burrels. I actually have 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:40.840 a crush on a guy named Bill Burrels. So yes, 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:44.480 A right, Elon Musk sounds so you know, exotic and 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:47.480 James BONDI, oh, it definitely does. He definitely has one 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:50.360 of those guns that slides out of his sleeve when 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:52.120 he needs it. But he can always talk his way 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:56.040 out of anything that's is real. But it shoots kisses. Right, 0:03:57.000 --> 0:03:59.600 So anyway, I'm not the only one. Um you mean 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:01.840 actually loves the guy a lot too. I'm sure you 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:04.520 gotta watch out for that though. Yeah. Well it's it's 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:07.640 like a nice, respectful love from a distance, so I'm 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:10.400 not threatened by just don't let them in a room together. Right. 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:13.840 She has this t shirt. UM it says save us Elan, 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:18.720 which is pretty cool. Yeah, and she tweeted to him 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:22.640 last night actually um asking him to design well, it 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:25.360 was on behalf of our dog Momo. She was asking 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:30.159 him to design um safe dog cars or safe dog 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:34.039 seats for cars, specifically testless to start, I think they 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:38.120 have dog restraining systems that are to use. They do, 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:41.040 But I mean, imagine if Elon Musk put his like 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:47.120 even half of a percentage of his brain towards designing 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:49.400 something like that just on the back of a cocktail nap, 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:51.400 can it be awesome? Yeah? MoMA would be in a 0:04:51.600 --> 0:04:55.200 like a plasma bag right with like one of those 0:04:55.200 --> 0:05:00.600 Hannibal Lecter masks. So she looks so cute. Oh boy. 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:04.880 So I bring up elam Musk though, because um, well, 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:08.160 we're talking about one of his projects, but technically it's 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:11.599 not actually one of his projects because this the hyper loop, 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:15.839 was um basically a concept that he thought of about 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:20.080 a fifty seven page white paper on it, just roughly 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:23.440 outlining some of the challenges the problems, and then did 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:28.240 something really unusual, especially for massive transportation projects, which is 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:31.120 what the hyper loop is. He open sources that. He said, 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:33.200 here you go, everybody, let's see what you can do 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:35.640 with it. Somebody take this and run with it. He's 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:38.640 kind of big on that though, right Yeah. I think 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:41.000 though that um yeah, I don't think he did that 0:05:41.040 --> 0:05:44.200 with like tesla um or SpaceX or anything like that. 0:05:44.240 --> 0:05:46.640 I think that's all very like private and hush hush. 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:50.200 This one was. This was like, here's a really good idea. 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:53.200 Here is how you would do it. Somebody go do it. 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:56.000 He It's yeah, this is unusual I think even for him. 0:05:56.279 --> 0:05:59.000 He uh he open source something I can't remember what. 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:02.960 Maybe it was the the the home battery system or something. 0:06:04.400 --> 0:06:07.200 Oh yeah, yeah, maybe he opened sources things that he 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:09.440 doesn't feel like you can make a lot of dough on. Well, 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:11.599 I don't know that battery thing he said that, Um, 0:06:11.640 --> 0:06:14.680 I think he's going to use that to solve Australia's 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:18.600 um black and brown out problems. Oh yeah, all right, 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:22.800 well who knows. I just like that he does that occasionally. Yeah, no, 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:27.560 that's what I'm saying. Cool cat, Yeah, agreed. So let's 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:30.200 talk hyper loop you want to? Yeah, So the idea 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:33.599 here originally, and I've kind of learned to through reading this. 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:36.680 We're gonna talk a little bit about his UM his 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:40.840 boring company pun intended UM as well at the end. 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:44.400 But um, I've learned that when Elon Musk gets irritated 0:06:44.400 --> 0:06:48.520 with something, good things happen. Right. If he has a 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:51.000 problem and he's like, you know, I'm tired of sitting 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:54.600 in traffic or flying from l A to San Francisco 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:59.400 is a real drag. Uh, he gets that cocktail fifty 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:02.440 seven pages of cocktail napkins, and he said, you know what, 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:06.400 how about if we developed a high speed transport system 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:10.119 forget your maglevs? Does only go I know you're building 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:13.560 one California for sixty billion dollars. But that thing only 0:07:13.600 --> 0:07:16.680 goes two hundred miles an hour. It's not even maglev. 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:18.880 It's just a straight up bullet train. Oh it's not 0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:21.440 even I thought it was a maglev now no, no, 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:25.640 it's a it's as he he called it, the UM 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:29.080 like world's slowest high speed train or something like two 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:32.320 hundred miles an hour, right right, which I mean two 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:35.120 hundred miles an hour. That's super fast. How how could 0:07:35.120 --> 0:07:39.440 you possibly improve on that? Well by putting people in 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:43.680 a pod in a tube and shooting them at almost 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:47.720 mock one in twenty three minutes I'm sorry, thirty five 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:51.360 minutes from l A to San Francisco or vice versa. 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:55.720 That's and I know he wants mock one so bad. Yeah, 0:07:55.760 --> 0:07:58.000 I don't know what the problem is. I I don't 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:01.640 know if UM like the the sonic boom would throw 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:04.920 off the whole thing, the whole UM closed system. You 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:08.360 mean make it cooler. Yeah, no, it definitely would. But 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:11.120 he in the in his white paper, he makes reference 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:14.000 to the shock waves that are created as you get 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:18.720 close to the speed of sound and the supersonic threshold. 0:08:18.920 --> 0:08:21.440 And I was reading UM the right. Stuff that Tom 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:25.320 wolfbook about the early space program, right, And he was 0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:29.360 talking about Chuck Yeager when he broke the speed of sound. Um, 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:32.160 they had no idea what happened on the other side 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:34.600 of a sonic boom. No one had ever gone that fast, right, 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:38.040 And it was Yeager who figured out that. He was 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:40.760 just sure that once you hit sonic boom, everything would 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:44.280 smooth out. But the closer and closer and closer you 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:47.600 got to the sonic threshold, the harder it was for 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:50.240 to for to keep the plane stable. He said, it 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:52.199 felt like it was gonna break up. His teeth were 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:55.839 like breaking off into little pieces. UM. So I would 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:58.400 imagine that if you're doing that inside it closed and 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:01.480 enclosed tube and start to hit those same kind of 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:04.000 shock waves, it would it would screw things up. So 0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:06.440 I would guess that's why they're they're not taking it 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:11.040 to supersonic level, gotcha. So there it's a purposeful thing. UM. 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:13.640 I did look into makwe and apparently it varies, and 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:16.680 I never realized that, um, we should do something on 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:19.920 that at some point. Mack one varies. Yeah, it depends 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:23.719 on the local conditions, um, Like mainly temperature and air 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:26.840 pressure as to how fast you need to be going. 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:30.640 I mean it's generally in that wheelhouse of seven hundred 0:09:30.679 --> 0:09:33.160 and sixty two, you know. I'm not sure how high, 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:36.400 but I saw seven sixty seven. Uh. And it just 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:42.360 depends sort of where you are the object speed as 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:46.280 it relates to the conditions, which is interesting. I got you. Well, 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:49.000 that's one of the benefits of this hyper loop that 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:53.679 he's proposed is it's it's enclosed, it's encapsulated, it's UM 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:57.800 it's a closed system, which means that it can be controlled, right, 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:00.559 so you can control everything from the temperature, to the 0:10:00.600 --> 0:10:02.600 air pressure, to all that stuff, which we'll get into. 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:06.080 But the hyper loop, we I guess we should say, 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:11.320 is UM this proposal for the line, like you said, 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:14.800 from l A to San Francisco, and it's two tubes 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:18.640 side by side. They're actually welded together, but they are separate. 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:22.560 That UM form, this closed system on either end is 0:10:22.600 --> 0:10:25.560 a UM a way for the cars to go one way, 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:28.320 turn around and go back the other way. And like 0:10:28.360 --> 0:10:31.440 you said, it takes thirty five minutes to to for 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:34.600 this this journey, a one way journey. I don't even 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:37.040 know if you call that a journey. Uh a, what 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:45.880 would you call it? Just a yeah, hey, so it's 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:48.400 whatever it is. It takes thirty five minutes to go 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:52.440 three D and fifty miles. It is five d sixty 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:56.439 three kilometers. We should say hello, rest of the world. Uh. 0:10:56.480 --> 0:10:59.760 And he proposed initially that this thing would only cost 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:03.920 about six billion dollars, which the entire world scoffed at 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:05.760 that more than I think they scoffed at any other 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:08.920 part of the plan. Um. I mean, you know, people 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:11.640 were like, first of all, this train that we're building 0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:16.080 in California sixty sixty billion, and the Bay Bridge in 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:20.560 San Francisco, we're just we're just redoing that thing for 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:23.360 six billion, for the same price that you think you 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:28.120 can build this George Jetson machine. Uh but you know, 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:31.079 who knows. We'll see what it ends up costing. But 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:34.679 six billion dollars sounds like a ton of money. Um. 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:36.920 The thing that shocked me, I think, well, first of all, 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:41.040 let's not ruin the price tag just yet, um, except 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:44.600 to say that it's shocking. But uh so, so what 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:47.600 you do is you would you would have this tube 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:52.240 mounted on these pylons. The pylons are about their reinforced concrete. 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:55.200 They're about a hundred feet apart from one another, and 0:11:55.240 --> 0:11:58.720 they vary in height because of the train. You know, 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:01.360 he's gonna run along. I've five ye right down the 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:03.719 median is as long as possible, or as they call 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:08.960 it in Los Angeles, the five uh, and it would 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:12.040 be you know, at vary in height hundred feet depending 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:14.400 on the terrain. And UM. Part of the reason they 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:16.719 put it on the five was because it just makes 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:19.000 sense because there's already already highway there. They wouldn't have 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:21.240 to like, you know, buy people out of their homes 0:12:21.240 --> 0:12:24.720 and businesses to build it. And UM, I like to 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:27.480 think another reason is that they could just make fun 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:30.360 of people sitting in traffic right when this thing, when 0:12:30.400 --> 0:12:33.640 you hear that sonic boom as it goes by. UM. 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:37.040 The other thing about the pylons too, is it has 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:41.200 a much It creates a much um smaller footprint on 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:44.840 the actual ground because the whole thing is raised up 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:47.520 in the air and those pylons are they're gonna be 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:50.440 twenty ft wherever possible. It's gonna be about the average 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:54.560 height off of the ground of the hyperloop. Earthquake proof supposedly, 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:56.880 which is a big deal. Yeah, there's gonna be dampers 0:12:56.880 --> 0:12:59.520 in the pylons um so that it could take a 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:02.560 pretty pretty decent sized earthquake. And then I guess the 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:07.040 just the whole process of running this system will cause 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:10.439 some expansion and contraction and so the whole things it's 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:15.320 got to be pretty well um together, you know, I think. 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:19.040 So you can't make it loosey goosey, so um the 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:23.440 any any movement, it's gonna be um conversated for in 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:26.280 these dampers in the pylons and he sway and he 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:30.440 up and down and barrel rolls any of that stuff. Yeah, 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:35.959 I'm sure that was I mean, besides the movement, but 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:39.280 just building something that travels that fast full of people 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:44.319 along the fault lines out there, that was probably a 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:47.480 very early consideration, Like am I just stupid for even? 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:54.040 But then he went on. So when he first started, uh, 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:56.440 I guess what the people like Elon Musk would call 0:13:56.480 --> 0:14:00.360 Blue Sky Territory. People started throwing out idea as he 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:03.480 assembled a team, and they were like, hey, you remember 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:07.960 those cool pneumatic tubes and offices. Sometimes you gotta look backwards, 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:11.080 you know, at old technology to realize that you're wrong. 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:14.280 And they had these fans that would shoot, you know, 0:14:14.400 --> 0:14:17.720 a letter from Florida floor through a tube, so satisfying 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:20.360 the man. Those are the best. It's the same thing 0:14:20.360 --> 0:14:22.360 that they used them when you do a drive through 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:27.880 banking thing. Yeah, which does anyone do that anymore? All Right? 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:30.280 I can't remember the last time I went to a bank. 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:33.440 I'm like, I've got too much gasoline in my car. 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:35.400 I need to get rid of some of it, and 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:38.800 I need to bank and a lollipop. I'm going to 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:43.120 combine those two. So, uh, they had that idea to 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:45.480 use these giant fans, and he said, you know, I 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:48.400 don't know if he personally said this, but they basically said, 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:52.600 not a bad idea. It is possible to build a 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:56.880 fan that large, but over three fifty miles that's going 0:14:56.920 --> 0:14:59.360 to create a lot of friction with this thing, and 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:04.360 it would explode. You know. Something interesting is somebody actually 0:15:04.400 --> 0:15:08.440 created that very system in London in eighteen sixty four 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:11.480 and exploded. It didn't explode. It it ran for a 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:15.440 year apparently without major problems. It's called the Crystal Palace 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:18.280 pneumatic railway. I think I've heard of that. The thing 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:22.920 is is It wasn't trying to go a thousand kilometers 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:25.920 an hour. It was just puts them along, like isn't 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:29.320 the future amazing? Or in a pneumatic railway. But I 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:33.320 mean it worked, right, So it had Actually that had worked. 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:36.080 But for what the hyper loop is trying to be 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:39.720 pneumatic just it wouldn't work. It would It would just 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:43.000 create too much drag pushing a column of air three 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:46.840 d and fifty miles too much friction. Yeah, so the 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:50.000 pneumatic one, he said, no, we're not doing that. By 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:52.120 the way, that made me think the exploding thing. Did 0:15:52.120 --> 0:15:56.360 you know that cars don't really explode like a car 0:15:56.440 --> 0:15:59.200 on fire? Oh yeah, I think there's a lot of 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:01.720 like safety feet. Does that keep it from doing that? Right? No, 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:06.400 it's just gasoline just doesn't explode like that. It can 0:16:06.400 --> 0:16:09.440 catch fire very fast and cause a big fire very quickly, 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:12.080 but it's not like a movie where a car catches 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:15.720 on fire and then goes boom really loud. Yeah. I 0:16:15.760 --> 0:16:18.960 feel like Chuck Norris really misled me all these years, 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:23.000 well in many many ways. But I saw a car 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:24.560 it made me think of because I saw a car 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:27.880 on fire the other day on the highway and the 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:31.040 people were running away from it, and which is you know, 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:34.920 it's probably not a bad idea anyway, but um, I 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:36.320 was kind of curious, so I looked it up and 0:16:36.360 --> 0:16:39.000 apparently that doesn't happen. So I if my car is 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:40.680 every one fire, I'm just gonna like stand right next 0:16:40.720 --> 0:16:42.920 to it like the coolest dude in the world. You 0:16:43.040 --> 0:16:46.080 just light a cigarette off exactly. You're like, I don't 0:16:46.120 --> 0:16:49.080 even smoke. But I'm not recommending that I would still 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:50.560 get away from a burning car if I were you 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:55.720 people time. That's sage advice. Uh So anyway, Um, the 0:16:55.800 --> 0:16:59.640 other they came up with another idea and they said, well, 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:02.280 you know, we mentioned Maglev trains. They said, that's a 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:04.560 pretty good idea to get trains to go fast. And 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:07.120 we did a we did a whole episode on that, right, Yeah, 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:09.240 we did a Maglev episode. It was pretty good. And 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:11.680 I think when we did the Maglev episode, everybody's like, 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:14.040 you have to do a hyper loop episode. So we 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:16.000 go everybody, well, it was probably good that we did 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:19.760 it years later, you know. Um, and you know Maglev, 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:23.560 when you when you put two magnets together, uh in 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:26.080 the correct way, that will either snap together or they 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:29.080 will have that, um, you know, they will push each 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:32.119 other apart. And we also did one on magnets, so 0:17:32.280 --> 0:17:36.480 refer to that for for that magic explanation. But um, 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:40.800 the idea is that there what you create is no friction, right, 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:43.359 And there's a couple of problems. We talked about drag 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:46.160 and friction, or we're gonna talk about drag, but those 0:17:46.160 --> 0:17:48.680 are sort of the two issues with the hyper loop. 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:51.400 Those are the things that will make something slow down, right. 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:55.480 And there's like really no problem with the maglev train 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:59.400 except that it's extraordinarily expensive to build track. Right. So 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:02.280 Musk was like, well, we maybe we could put a 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:06.120 maglev train in this tube in the hyper loop, because 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:08.480 there's drag even on a maglev train, but in a 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:11.000 vacuum there would not be. No But that's what he 0:18:11.080 --> 0:18:12.639 was saying is Okay, well we can put it in 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:15.520 a vacuum and it would just go zoom and you'd 0:18:15.520 --> 0:18:18.000 be there in like half of a second. The problem 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:22.720 is is it would be extraordinarily expensive, um to build 0:18:22.800 --> 0:18:26.000 and operate. And the reason it would be so expensive 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:29.280 to operate is because the closer and closer you get 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:34.160 to creating a full or perfect vacuum, the more expensive 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:38.280 the pumping operation gets right. So you know, if you're like, uh, 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:41.760 if you're one or two percent away from a perfect vacuum, 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:45.640 you're spending five bucks pumping out the air to get 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:50.320 to that point. But it's ay a hundred trillion dollars 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:52.680 to get to a perfect vacuum. I don't think that 0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:56.560 those numbers are accurate, but you get the picture, right. Well. Yeah, 0:18:56.600 --> 0:18:59.399 And the other thing too is it's it's nearly impossible 0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:03.240 to create thing over that distance. Uh. Musk himself even 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:07.280 said if there's one small leaky seal or small crack 0:19:07.600 --> 0:19:11.120 anywhere and that three fifty mile tube, then everything's down. 0:19:11.320 --> 0:19:14.199 So one of the other problems when they were in 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:16.639 blue Sky Territory, which I guess was starting to look 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:22.639 like dark Sky territory at this point, um wash, what 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:26.760 if we had something like a syringe, Like we're moving 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:31.040 air through this tube, but it's pushing this entire column 0:19:31.080 --> 0:19:34.359 of air. And they basically said it would just go 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:37.080 too slow unless you built it super big, and then 0:19:37.119 --> 0:19:38.960 it would go too fast, which I don't I don't 0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:42.280 fully get right, um because well, I think about it 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:45.280 when you're pushing air, when you're pushing something through a 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:49.719 tube a cylinder, it starts pushing the air ahead of it, 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:53.080 which slows it down. Right. The only way for that 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:56.280 to um to get away, to get around that is 0:19:56.320 --> 0:19:59.880 to make your little whatever you're pushing through the tube small, 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:03.600 or make the two bigger. So he he looked at 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:07.080 all these challenges, you know, the problem with a vacuum, 0:20:07.160 --> 0:20:12.560 the syringe effect, um, the idea of newmatics, and he said, 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:15.359 I think I'm onto something with a closed loop, a 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:18.800 closed tube and pushing something through it. So I just 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:20.720 got to figure out the details. And he did, and 0:20:20.760 --> 0:20:22.680 he came up with the hyper loop. And we'll tell 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:25.800 you how he solved a lot of these problems, uh 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:50.560 in just a minute, all right. So he does not 0:20:50.640 --> 0:20:54.000 work in a vacuum, even though he works on a 0:20:54.080 --> 0:20:59.760 vacuum that was terrible. But he has a great team 0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:02.760 of brilliant, brilliant people. Um. So he gets his engineers, 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:04.919 the same folks who work on the Tesla and the 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:08.080 same people at SpaceX, and uh, I get the feeling 0:21:08.119 --> 0:21:10.280 that these men and women can kind of do anything 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:13.320 when they put their mind to it. So, like you said, 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:17.280 they proposed these two tubes a northbound line in a 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:21.679 southbound line along I five, and he said, what we 0:21:21.720 --> 0:21:24.800 want to do is reduced drag and reduced friction, the 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:28.280 kind of two things that will slow down something that 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:32.800 you want to go super fast. Uh. And if you notice, uh, 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:35.520 jets fly really high in the air at high altitudes 0:21:35.880 --> 0:21:38.119 because it's less dense, so you're gonna have less drag. 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:42.960 So he said, we can recreate that by uh manipulating 0:21:42.960 --> 0:21:47.040 the air pressure in that system in a big, big way. Yeah, 0:21:47.240 --> 0:21:51.080 by dropping it tremendously, like hugely. So he figured out 0:21:51.160 --> 0:21:53.320 that you don't have to have a vacuum. Like, sure, 0:21:53.359 --> 0:21:56.359 a vacuum is nice, but it's just so prohibitively expensive 0:21:56.359 --> 0:21:59.320 to pump the air fully out of an enclos system 0:21:59.560 --> 0:22:01.199 and all it takes his one little leak in the 0:22:01.200 --> 0:22:04.600 whole thing's toast, right, So he figured out that you 0:22:04.640 --> 0:22:08.200 could still get roughly the same effect by lowering the pressure, 0:22:08.200 --> 0:22:10.439 not to a vacuum, but just super super low. And 0:22:10.480 --> 0:22:14.040 what he settled on was about a hundred pascals of 0:22:14.200 --> 0:22:19.159 air pressure within the tube. That's extremely low air pressure. 0:22:19.160 --> 0:22:21.879 It's something like a sixth of the air pressure on Mars, 0:22:21.960 --> 0:22:23.960 which is pretty thin, but if you haven't been to Mars. 0:22:24.160 --> 0:22:27.280 It's actually about a thousandth of the air pressure at 0:22:27.320 --> 0:22:30.679 sea level on Earth. So it's significantly lower pressure air, 0:22:30.880 --> 0:22:33.720 which just means the air is thinner, which means things 0:22:33.760 --> 0:22:36.640 will move through that tube with that low pressure air 0:22:36.960 --> 0:22:40.920 much more easily, with much less drag. So the other 0:22:41.040 --> 0:22:44.639 point to UM having very very low but not a 0:22:44.640 --> 0:22:47.720 full vacuum as far as air pressure goes, as even 0:22:47.760 --> 0:22:49.879 if there was a crack or something in the tube, 0:22:50.320 --> 0:22:53.119 you can still pump that air. You can overcome it 0:22:53.560 --> 0:22:56.680 um by pumping air out a little more, but it's 0:22:56.680 --> 0:22:59.080 not gonna raise your cost of five or ten trillion 0:22:59.119 --> 0:23:01.840 dollars again because not creating a vacuum and just a 0:23:01.840 --> 0:23:04.280