Meet the Man Building Elon Musk's 760MPH Hyperloop: Interview with Dirk Ahlborn

Can he really build a supersonic tube transport system, which could go from LA to San Francisco in 35 minutes?

1x 1.1x 1.25x 1.5x 2x 3x

:15 :15

Download

Meet the Man Building Elon Musk's 760MPH Hyperloop: Interview with Dirk Ahlborn

HD Video Download

In 2012, Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, released a proposal for a futuristic tube transport system that could go faster than the speed of sound, cutting travel time between Los Angeles and San Francisco to 35 minutes or less. He described it as a "cross between a Concorde, a rail gun, and an air hockey table" that "can never crash," and called it the Hyperloop.

But what exactly is the Hyperloop? "Imagine a capsule with 28 people that's hovering inside a tube at really high speeds of 760 miles per hour," says Dirk Ahlborn, CEO of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT), which is turning Musk's idea into reality. "It's completely solar-powered, it's cheaper to be built, it's earthquake-stable," he adds.

Ahlborn recently sat down with Reason TV's Justin Monticello to talk about the technology behind the Hyperloop, his vision for a fully integrated system that would span the country, and the stark differences between it and publicly-funded high-speed rail projects.

Among the relative benefits of his project are that it would cost 10-20% of the estimated $68 billion being spent to construct California's high speed rail, cut down on environmental harm and land seizures by running along highways on pylons, actually produce energy, and be at least four times as fast.

But his vision doesn't end at long-distance travel; he imagines a world in which people live in the fly-over states and work on the coasts. Ahlborn, who is also CEO of JumpStart Fund, a crowdsourcing platform for business that is enabling his open source approach to the project, eventually wants an app that allows you to push a button and be in a city hundreds of miles away in under an hour. "A self-driving car comes and picks you up and brings you to…a mini-loop inside the city that then takes you to the larger station," describes Ahlborn. "That's really when you change the way people live."

HTT recently announced an agreement to begin construction next year on a fully functional urban Hyperloop in Quay Valley, California, which the company hopes to complete by 2018. If Ahlborn's team is correct, this futuristic technology may be coming soon.

For the full interview, watch the video above. Click below for downloadable versions. And subscribe to Reason TV's YouTube channel for daily content like this.

7:57 minutes.

Produced and Edited by Justin Monticello. Camera by Paul Detrick and Alexis Garcia.

Music by ISItheDreaMakeR and JoosTVD. 

Comments

[Scarecrow Repair]

It all depends on how much money Musk can milk from the taxpayers.

I sometimes wonder if each of his endeavors isn't actually an experiment to see when the public wises up to how much taxes he is looting.

[Puddin' Stick]

Good point, maybe his whole point is to show how easy it is to milk the government...

[Zeb]

Well, if they are dead set on spending $60 billion, this seems like a better way to waste it than conventional high speed rail.

[Agammamon]

Not to me - to me it seems just as bad a way to spend it, or worse.

At least with HSR, in the end, when all is said and done, you'll still end up with a train that will get you from A-B - just only slightly faster than a regular train at 100 times the cost.

This hyperloop thing? In the end we'll probably end up with a bunch of bare pylons and a couple of miles of unfinished track along with a hundred miles of bare lots where houses and businesses were ED'd and bulldozed during the construction.

[LarryA]

a hundred miles of bare lots where houses and businesses were ED'd

Um. There are houses and businesses on the highway right-of-way, where the hyperloop will run?

[NotAnotherSkippy]

Just another way to keep Solar City afloat.

[Digital Jedi]

You did read the part where this is being built by an independent company, right? You also notice there is no "subsidy" for the HyperLoop being mentioned by anyone anywhere? Seriously, some dogs won't hunt people.

[Dweebston]

Most dogs won't hunt people.

[Hamster of Doom]

I believe he is missing a crucial comma. Someone didn't read Eats, Shoots and Leaves!

[Bobarian (sexbot hand model)]

You did read the part where Elon Musk is involved?

Nothing he does, doesn't involve getting some sweet, sweet, tax money.

[JW]

^^This. Musk is the parasite's parasite. It's his entire business model.

[Puddin' Stick]

But his vision doesn't end at long-distance travel; he imagines a world in which people live in the fly-over states and work on the coasts.

So? I could work in LA, making LA wages, and live in, say, Wyoming and pay Wyoming housing prices?

SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!

[Scarecrow Repair]

He already is, as Tesla and SpaceX subsidies.

[NotAnotherSkippy]

SpaceX is overhyped but seems to actually be delivering on the core promise. Certainly appears to be better than ULA.

[JWatts]

So it's not over hyped then.

[NotAnotherSkippy]

Still over hyped. We'll see how far he can really take Grasshopper and while his costs a remarkably cheap compared to the alternatives, they're still nowhere near his claimed targets.

[oobins]

SpaceX is overhyped but seems to actually be delivering on the core promise.

You must mean Elon's core promise to himself: "I swear, Self, I'm gonna fuck those idiot goys ROYALLY and they'll love me for it."

[Auric Demonocles]

In the hypothetical world where this kind of transportation was suddenly available and affordable, LA wages wouldn't stay much higher than Wyoming wages for long.

[Hamster of Doom]

Nor would Wyoming housing costs.

[LarryA]

And California will still make the train stop at the border for the agriculture check. (Or did they finally quit doing that?)

[Trials and Trippelations]

Hehe, I didn't understand what that was the first time, so I blew through it. Then I didn't stop the second and last time

[crab_apple]

This seemed backwards to me... businesses would prefer to be where land values are lower thus the companies would locate to the middle of nowhere and they could hire the talent that prefers to live on the coasts.

[LarryA]

businesses would prefer to be where land values are lower state regulation is business-friendly thus the companies would locate

[Brett L]

Its amzing how you can find a Heinlein scenario for everything. For this one: Tunnel in the Sky where the kid commutes from Arizona to NYC for school. Also, oe of his better juveniles. Beware of stobor.

[LarryA]

The Tunnel in the Sky was teleportation. The tube through the mountain was described in Starman Jones. But your point about RAH remains valid.

[crufus]

The Roads Must Roll" is a 1940 science fiction short story by Robert A. Heinlein.

The story is set in the near future, when "roadtowns" (wide rapidly moving passenger platforms similar to moving sidewalks, but reaching speeds of 100 mph) have replaced highways and railways as the dominant transportation method in the United States.

[JWatts]

Passenger and freight moving sidewalks.

[LarryA]

he imagines a world in which people live in the fly-over states and work on the coasts.
Reason enough that the EPA should ban it. Californians are an invasive species.

[Zunalter]

Well, as long as they still can only vote in California, I would consider it.

[Agammamon]

So? I could work in LA, making LA wages, and live in, say, Wyoming and pay Wyoming housing prices?

And end up paying the difference in COL to Musk anyway to cover the ticket price.

Sure, that 3 hour trip will only cost you $50 out of pocket - the other $1,450 is taken out of your taxes on the back end.

[$park? the Swifty]

A completely solar powered vehicle that can go 760 MPH, I'll believe it when I see it. Just like I'll believe a busload of average Americans going 760 MPH with no ill effects.

[$park? the Swifty]

Also, nice touch with "can never crash". That ought to fool some morons.

[LarryA]

Yeah. A train that can never crash would be like, Titanic.

[Digital Jedi]

Aside from not being a train, how do you crash a tube? Short of a terrorist attack, there's nothing to crash into.

[VG Zaytsev]

A failure causes one car to slow down but not the one behind it, resulting in a crash and damage to the tube itself.

[LarryA]

Drop by sometime. I'll show you my box of blown-open rifle and shotgun barrels. (People give them to me because I teach shooting.)

A lump of anything dropped in the tube that exceeds the space between train and tube would be nasty. So would the train not stopping at the end of the trip.

Titanic, supposedly unsinkable, was only one of a long list of "infallible" devices.

NOTE: I'm not saying it's a bad idea. Probably far safer than the cars running below it. (Speaking of which, what if a semi runs into one of the pylons?) But "can never crash" is an impossible standard.

[OneOut]

Did you know there was actually a ship within view of the Titanic that watched it sink and didn't attempt to go the the aid because the Capitan was scared to drive his ship through broken ice to get to the Titanic?

All the while another capitan drove his ship at reckless speed through and around the ice all the night long to be the first on the scene.

Just a bit of useless, yet interesting, info.

[mad.casual]

Also, nice touch with "can never crash". That ought to fool some morons.

I wonder if it will 'never crash' if a suicidal pilot steers it into the side of a mountain?

If only we could devise a door locking mechanism to prevent that scenario...

[Digital Jedi]

Why did you build your tube into the side of a mountain in your scenario?

[Agammamon]

Because it goes 760 miles an hour.

Seriously, how could any man resist the temptation to build a dead end tunnel just to see the boom?

[JWatts]

"Also, nice touch with "can never crash". That ought to fool some morons."

Well it probably is highly unlikely to crash since it runs in its on tunnel.

[JWatts]

...own tunnel.

[gary47290]

The physics doesn't "fly" on Musk's hyperloop. How are you going to keep a 450 mile long tube decompressed? His scenario assumes a sealed tube, with air pressure significantly lower than atmospheric pressure. They couldn't keep the environment sealed on Biophere-2, who can believe something the size of Musk's proposal.

The turning radius for something going that fast is not conducive to the curves in the highways - some of them don't work well at 65 mph, will never work at 760. They mountain curves on the Grapevine (I-5 between Los Angeles and the Central Valley, for non-Californians) will kill any speed, and you can't tunnel through 50+ miles of the Tehachapi Mountains to keep it more level.

Finally, the size of vehicle he proposes will be a cramped human tube. Think Concorde, not 747 or Dreamliner.

I would even be willing to give him a free right away along California Roads, as long as it's 100% privately funded, and he pays taxes like any other corporation, no special subsidies.

[Puddin' Stick]

Yeah, Musk should really put his money where his mouth is and buy a stretch of land to build a prototype and work out the bugs.

With his own money.

[H. Protagonist]

While I'm completely on board with the idea that Musk loves milking subsidies for his "private ventures," he's actually building a test track with his own money.

http://www.texastribune.org/20.....ding-cand/

[Viscount Irish, Slayer of Huns]

From the article:

'The idea for the test facility is apparently in the very early stages as Musk said that "it sounded good last night after a couple of drinks." He explained that he envisioned the track as allowing for "teams of students" and companies interesting in developing the Hyperloop concept to test out different pod systems. '

We don't yet have a test facility and our test facility is going to consist of 'teams of students' testing concepts with no idea of what will actually work or if anything will work.

I am a bit skeptical that the Hyperloop is ever going to actually exist.

[Zeb]

Maybe that's why it can't crash.

[Zunalter]

+1

[Loki]

This is probably going to be another one of those things that's always "just 20 years away."

[C. Anacreon]

Where's my flying car?

[DrZaius]

At the Cubs World Series parade.

[H. Protagonist]

I'm skeptical too. But as someone who's being forced to fund the California medium-speed rail boondoggle, I welcome rich guys fucking around with their own money in the hopes of finding a cheaper, better alternative.

[oobins]

A Gawker fan, here to be patently stupid. So much funnier as "Tony."

[oobins]

...he's actually building a test track with his own money.

The glories of commingled funds, nobody can tell which dollars Elon stole via subsidy, and which dollars he earned on his own. Look, he even duped you!

[Digital Jedi]

You do realize he paid everything back a while ago, right?

[oobins]

You do realize you've been duped, and are now being arrogant while wrong. Right?

[Digital Jedi]

Right. Because that isn't a fact that can be looked up.

[Sevo]

Digital Jedi|4.21.15 @ 11:37AM|#
"Right. Because that isn't a fact that can be looked up."

And somehow, you didn't do it...

[mad.casual]

Just like I'll believe a busload of average Americans going 760 MPH with no ill effects.

Just pile on the false promises, why not?

-Whisper quiet
-Impervious to terrorism
-Prevents Gun, Drug, and Sex trafficking
-Works equally well for *everyone*
-Converts 'Humans in a glass tube' smell to lemons going eastbound, raspberries west.

Honestly, I'm having a hard time figuring out how he does it all without a blockchain or two.

[Gilbert Martin]

I think I'll just skip the hyperloop stage of development and just wait for instant teleportation for my high speed travel needs.

[LarryA]

Just like I'll believe a busload of average Americans going 760 MPH with no ill effects.

I believe that back when trains were being invented, there were theories that humans couldn't travel faster than 30MPH without ill effects.

Maintaining a constant velocity isn't a problem, the Earth carries you around the Sun about 66,600 MPH. It's changing velocity, or acceleration, that makes your face look funny.

[gary47290]

the formulas say it should work. If a car can go from zero to 60 in ten-ish seconds with no ill effect on humans, then this machine can go from 0 to 760 in about 130 seconds (2 minutes).

During that time, it will travel about 12 miles, if I remember my college physics correctly.

On the other hand, think how you feel driving a cloverleaf, say at 35 when the yellow sign suggests 25. Now visuallize that at 760,

[DJK]

The straight line acceleration isn't the problem. It's what happens when you turn. Centripetal force scales rather unfavorably with turn radius. So you need long sweeping turns to keep from turning your passengers into paste. Unfortunately, the plan relies on following the highways (necessary to meet his extraordinarily optimistic price), which feature plenty of turns that are not navigable at 760 mph.

[Pope Jimbo]

Well we spent $4M on Personal Rapid Transit here in Sunny Minnesoda and got nuthin. I'm guessing that there ain't no way a bunch of geeks from Californ-Eye-A can beat us.

http://news.minnesota.publicra.....lluml_prt/

[R C Dean]

Wow. I spent [removes shoes, counts on fingers and toes) less than 1/100th of that on my Personal Rapid Transit.

[Beautiful Bean Footage]

But your personal rapid transit is responsible for the drowning deaths of countless polar bears, so there's that...

[Sevo]

Pope Jimbo|4.7.15 @ 12:33PM|#
"Well we spent $4M on Personal Rapid Transit here in Sunny Minnesoda and got nuthin"

Pikers!
"When all is said and done, the new Bay Bridge will wind up costing tax- and toll-payers more than $12 billion?a figure that leaves even the officials in charge "staggered." - See more at: http://sfpublicpress.org/news/.....2tKLM.dpuf

Moonbeam doesn't even care if there aren't 12 zeros in the number!

[bassjoe]

We just needed a fancy over-engineered "iconic" bridge, for some reason. An earthquake-resilient causeway at 10% of the cost would have sufficed but... nooooooo....

[Sevo]

Tell it to the Brown Bros, both of whom seemed to want to "spend time with their families" on the day the bridge opened.

[C. Anacreon]

Tourists don't come to see causeways. I think the powers-that-be thought it needed to be something special, being in middle of the USA's top vacation destination.

The new Bay Bridge was ridiculously expensive and a cheaper alternative should have been done, but I will say it is pretty spectacular to drive on, especially at night.

[DJK]

Yup. Absolutely gorgeous. Now if they could just drop the old steel truss eyesore into the bay...

[Sevo]

"Now if they could just drop the old steel truss eyesore into the bay..."

I can see them both from where I walk in the 'hood and the old one is visibly shrinking. Also, by chance, ended up having lunch at a bar with one of the demo guys; he had a pile of pics on his phone, including the 'stop walking HERE!' signs...
Regardless, the new bridge is now being questioned as to whether it is even as seismically-sound as the old one would have been with patches, which patches would have cost some decimal of what we got.
Pissed? Who, me?

[Sevo]

C. Anacreon|5.10.15 @ 3:09PM|#
"Tourists don't come to see causeways."

I'll agree with this, but most tourists couldn't tell you if the road ended at Yerba Buena or not. Anything east of that never gets mentioned to the folks back home.

[adolphowisner]

My classmate's step-aunt makes $61 /hour on the internet . She has been fired from work for nine months but last month her pay check was $12801 just working on the internet for a few hours. try this out.
GO TO THE SITE TEC NEXT TAB FOR MORE INFO AND HELP
????? http://www.jobsfish.com

[Viscount Irish, Slayer of Huns]

So is the hyperloop going to be the next technology that's always ten years away?

[Bam!]

Naw. Musk will go bankrupt before that.

[Dweebston]

California's bankruptcy is always just a few years away, too.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

IL's is closer...

[bassjoe]

Quibble: I hate the misuse of the term "bankrupt". It's a specific term that only means the ability of a debtor to go to court to have his/her/its debts discharged and/or restructured as allowed by law.

A state can't go bankrupt. For one thing, there is no way it can do so under the US Bankruptcy Code. A state can only default and its creditors can get screwed since (in all likelihood) there is no recourse to take the state to court.

Nobody is "bankrupt" because he/she/it is about to default or is defaulting on loans. That just means a default. Bankruptcy is completely different.

[C. Anacreon]

California's bankruptcy is nowhere in sight, in fact the state is suddenly flush with money.

Kids striking it rich with tech are apparently happily paying over 13% in state income tax and buying way overpriced condos, not even noticing all the property taxes, real estate transfer taxes, etc, due to it all seeming like Monopoly money to them, and so are filling the state coffers with one-time unpredictable largess. But this time, it will continue forever!

Of course, having a surplus will lead everyone in Sacramento to grab for all they can and set a new state budget floor. And after the next event causing wealthy people to leave the state -- be it an earthquake, prolonged drought or the bursting of the latest tech bubble -- results in a $30 billion deficit, politicians will be gobsmacked and insist we need to raise taxes 'to maintain minimal services.'

Same thing happens every damn time but I doubt they'll ever learn.

[Sevo]

C. Anacreon|5.10.15 @ 3:21PM|#
"California's bankruptcy is nowhere in sight, in fact the state is suddenly flush with money."

That's because moonbeam is making the $25 monthly minimum payment on the retirement benefits.
Once the principal comes due, that 'surplus' is gonna look like chump change.

[$park? the Swifty]

If we all had flying cars we wouldn't need a hyperloop.

[Loki]

D'oh! Should have scrolled further down before posting.

[sarcasmic]

Monorail!

[Free Society]

Obligatory

[Atillahn]

Bullshit. Unknown untested technology with no prototype costs 10% of the cost oh high speed rail that has been running around the world for 30 years? Riiiiigh.

[crab_apple]

It's not that the technology is cheaper, but if it's being built by private corporations vs any government bureaucracy in California, I'd be willing to bet against the state...

[LarryA]

And it follows existing highways instead of falling into the asset forfeiture eminent domain money pit.

[Brett L]

So what do you do when you get to LA? Rent a car and sit in traffic? Thid ain't exactly the same as riding the train from Union to Penn where both cities have good alternatibes yo driving. Bonus points if the Hyperloop ends up in Oakland because they can't get permits across the Bay.

[Sevo]

"Bonus points if the Hyperloop ends up in Oakland because they can't get permits across the Bay."

You can imagine the Palo Alto poobahs approving a RoW through downtown, right?

[Curtisls87]

I'm betting that the ROW ends in San Jose, not SF or Oakland.

[marslife66]

The magazine is pretty cool. The comment space is, as usual, a receptacle of nonsense... I'll sign out.

[Sevo]

Glad you could come by and add some of your own!

[Gilbert Martin]

How would the hyperloop be any better or faster than a commercial spaceplane leaves the atmoshere to go supersonic and then comes back down at the destination?

[mad.casual]

More relevantly, how would a hyperloop full of people effectively compete with a hyper(er)loop full of cargo and leaving the people in place and free to interact via photons, electrons, and radiowaves at the speed of light?

I admit there are places that humans will need cool new technology to travel to/from, but the transcontinental railroad already exists/existed and Amtrak runs the route on subsidies, and LA to SF *might* be one of those places. Chicago to LA (for anything besides freight) is not.

[Agammamon]

*Technically* if your not in an atmosphere, then *any* speed is supersonic.

[starman2112]

Cool interview. I'm glad to see it focused more on the social engineering than the physical engineering. Musk's companies don't seem to have problems engineering impressive technologies - making them profitable on the other hand... Who knows, maybe he can generate enough interest from investors; he doesn't seem to have problems doing that either.

[HenryC]

And when you get there you are still left without transport, which is why people will continue to drive most of the time.

[The Laconic Esq]

But his vision doesn't end at long-distance travel; he imagines a world in which people live in the fly-over states and work on the coasts.

OMG NO WAY most people could already do that for almost no cost, if their employers would let them. It's called "telecommuting".

Why is it necessary to shuttle meat around like this? (Answer: more sweet sweet government handouts for Elon Musk.)

[Digital Jedi]

Somewhat impractical for services like construction, law enforcement, public speaking, etc. People still need to go places depending in their profession.

[retiredfire]

actually produce energy
Someone needs a physics class.

[Chumby]

WMDs don't actually destroy mass.

[LarryA]

I took that to mean that the solar collectors produce more energy than the trains use.

[Timon 19]

Yeah, that's where I stopped paying attention. Really? They had to turn it into a perpetual motion machine?

[cruralimes]

Google pay 97$ per hour my last pay check was $8500 working 1o hours a week online. My younger brother friend has been averaging 12k for months now and he works about 22 hours a week. I cant believe how easy it was once I tried it out.
This is wha- I do...... ?????? http://www.netjob80.com

[hakimweinreb]

I make up to $90 an hour working from my home. My story is that I quit working at Walmart to work online and with a little effort I easily bring in around $40h to $86h Someone was good to me by sharing this link with me, so now i am hoping i could help someone else out there by sharing this link... Try it, you won't regret it!....
==================
http://www.NavJob.com
==================

[Timma]

A lot of America and innovation hating Luddites here on "reason", I see. LOLOL!!!!1

[Palin's Buttplug]

Elon Musk doesn't play for TEAM RED! therefore he is despised here.

[PH2050]

The fact that you even write that lets us know to never take you seriously. He catches flack around here for suckling at the government teat. Explain to me how my tax dollars going to his company is a good thing. How is it compatible with your worldview as a "classical" liberal?

[Sevo]

Palin's Buttplug|5.10.15 @ 1:13PM|#

Turd is a TEAM BLUE ignramus, therefore he is despised here.

[Hamster of Doom]

I don't know that it's exactly him being TEAM BLUE. I think it's the 'mendacious cunt' thing that pisses people off. Defer to your superior experience in that regard, you know the commentariat better.

[Sevo]

HoD,
Turd has seemingly tuned-down the Obo-licking for which he is justifiably condemned, while simultaneously cranking up the mendacity.
So by now, I'm not sure which is the greater cause, other than, say, both.

[tardisisbiggerontheinside]

Taxpayer expense or not, at least someone is trying to advance to the future outside of watches, phones and HDTV.
I am happier with my taxes going to a scientific project anyday then the military, police, DEA, etc.
The future will come, it is going to happen, and it wont be free, or easy.

[PH2050]

Principals, not principles, amirite?

[Beautiful Bean Footage]

You know who else knew his vision of the future was coming true in spite of it not being free or easy?

[Trials and Trippelations]

Nostradamus?

[DEG]

I haven't been paying much attention to H&R over the last week. I've been busy with work. The few times I could check in, I noted some folks posting Nostradamus quotes. What brought that on?

[oobins]

Elon Musk, Yellow Kid Weil, spot the differences.

[Digital Jedi]

Luddites. It's not meant as an insult. But you should probably still try not to be one.

[oobins]

Just as soon as you quite standing in front of Elon while he blows the population of Sacramento and scurries off with money earned by people not named Elon Musk. Sure.

[Digital Jedi]

See, that's not how any of that works.

[Agammamon]

Elon? Is that you?

[Sevo]

Elon's got fan boys all over the place, ones dumb enough not to look too closely at what Elon is doing but smart enough to read his press releases.
'Useful idiots' aren't only commies!

[John Titor]

Discussing blatant engineering and financial problems of a project is not being a 'luddite'. It's a legitimate criticism of any engineering project.

Throwing around the term 'luddite' while ignoring all possible flaws and complexities of a project is the very definition of ignorant. In fact, that criticism is vital in order to improve technology. George Westinghouse didn't plug his ears and yell 'lalalala technological innovation shut up luddite' when people pointed out the more obvious design flaws of railways. He went and developed a better brake.

[C. Anacreon]

Bah! Next you'll be trying to tell us that challenging theories and assumptions is part of some delusion you call the 'scientific method'. Why are you so anti-science?

If a certain number of experts vote in favor of a scientific idea, then it becomes irrefutable science, and any questions you might have are worthy of ridicule. Even the President of the United States knows that.

[lerohi]

Google pay 97$ per hour my last pay check was $8500 working 1o hours a week online. My younger brother friend has been averaging 12k for months now and he works about 22 hours a week. I cant believe how easy it was once I tried it out.
This is wha- I do...... ?????? http://www.netjob80.com

[Agammamon]

Can he really build a supersonic tube transport system, which could go from LA to San Francisco in 35 minutes?

That's the wrong question.

The right question is can he do that *and make it self-funding*.

Because he *can* build it.

[Sevo]

Can he build it so it produces power at the same time?

[Hyperion]

It's going to run on unicorn farts, Moonbeam said so.

[Hyperion]

If it's public funded and run, then it will be just as expensive or more than flying and the security won't be any less of a bottleneck and all around pain in the ass.

Unless they can make these go long distance, like LA to NYC or NYC to London, etc, and keep both the cost and safety at least equal to air travel, it's a complete waste of time. I hate flying, but there is no alternative to long distance travel. So unless they make these available and equal to air travel, most people just are not going to care. And that makes it economically unviable in the long run.

[Sevo]

"I hate flying, but there is no alternative to long distance travel"

I really love flying; it's the TSA crap at the beginning and the union labor on the plane that means I drive 5-600 miles rather than fly.
Unless I can somehow justify chartering; what fun!

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Transportation is one of the most regulated sectors there is. I put it to you that without the FAA/DOT...we'd have had our self-flying cars long ago.

[Beautiful Bean Footage]

Hey "Digital Jedi," go fuck yourself. This site already had more trolls than slots for them, you're redundant here.

[See Double You]

OT: I'm not sure how to preface this without coming off completely jarring, but this past Wednesday there was a murder-suicide in my town. A man killed his wife and then himself. Perhaps the most tragic part is that there are three girls who are now parentless and with the knowledge that dad killed mom.

I think the best Mother's Day gift would be to send support to these girls. Here's their GoFundMe page.

Background information.

[Sevo]

I tried to credit 'Reason H&R Commentariat' to give you some sort of credit for bringing it up, but there was no chance; it's under 'anonymous'

[See Double You]

Thanks for doing that, Sevo.

[Sevo]

BTW, CW, I have doubts that it's a good Mothers' Day gift; just pass on to them that people they might not ever meet still wish them the best in a really tough deal.

[DEG]

That is sad and brought back a memory.

When I was in grade school, there was a murder-suicide near where I grew up. A husband shot his wife then killed himself. Their daughter went to the same school as I did and was a year or two ahead of me. They had a son as well, the son was younger then me and went to a different school.

Supposedly the husband locked the kids up in a room and cut the phone lines before doing the deed. Sometime later, one of the kids, I never found out which one, got free and ran to a neighbor's house.

A couple of days later the whole school got called into an assembly. The daughter hadn't been back to school, and the relatives that took her and her brother in transferred the kids to another school. A couple of cops and the county DA were in the hall housing the school assembly. They took questions. My memory is too fuzzy to remember details beyond that a few folks, myself included, asked questions about details of what happened that night and the DA's response to all of them amounted to, "We don't know and we don't care because it doesn't matter for our investigation."

Fast forward twenty-some-odd years. I was back in Pennsylvania visiting relatives. I found out that my niece's then boyfriend (now ex-boyfriend) lived in that house. My niece wasn't too thrilled about hearing what we knew about that night.

I still have no idea, to this day, what happened to those kids after the incident.

I donated.

[See Double You]

Thanks, DEG. Life's intense, but I hope that these girls know that even perfect strangers care very much about them, and I hope that will help them get through this.

[The Late P Brooks]

A lot of America and innovation hating Luddites here on "reason", I see. LOLOL!!!!1

Innovative rent-seeking; what could be more American than that?

[DJK]

It would be nice if it were even innovative. Based on what has been shown publicly, the plan doesn't even fall in the realm of the physically possible. I'll accept the possibility of fast tube travel in straight lines or along modest curves. But certainly not along a significant portion of the proposed route. To make it possible, you need a drastically altered route. Which makes the extraordinarily optimistic cost estimate even more bullshit.

[PH2050]

Yawn. Jaunt or GTFO.

"Longer than you think!"

[Episiarch]

IT'S FOREVER IN THERE

Man that is a creepy short story.

[Warrren]

If we all just moved to one city we wouldn't need to worry about things like high-per-swoops and such shit.

[C. Anacreon]

The entire "Plan Bay Area" idiocy around the San Francisco area is based on forcing future development (whether your town wants development or not) to be high-rise condos around and above train stations. The idea is apparently we all will live above one train station and our job will be over another train station.

They actually want the power to declare single-family houses with yards as a 'blight' so that they can be torn down to build condos in their place. I wish I was making this up -- but your line about "if we all just moved to one city" isn't far off from what elites want for us.

[Suthenboy]

People are easier to control when they are concentrated in small places. That makes it easier to destroy privacy and autonomy.

[Derpetologist]

Examples include prisons and concentration camps.

[IceTrey]

I can't believe anyone is taking this seriously. The whole thing has to work under a vacuum which is ain't gonna happen.

[Suthenboy]

Does anyone get wealthy without rent-seeking anymore?

[Sevo]

Suthenboy|5.10.15 @ 4:48PM|#
"Does anyone get wealthy without rent-seeking anymore?"

Pretty sure it depends on the definition of "wealthy".
If you want to score without having to convince the world of your product's value, there is really only one source of money.
See, oh, Musk, Elon.

[Derpetologist]

I have a hard time seeing how this venture would be profitable. There are already cars, buses, planes, and trains that go between LA and San Fran. How many people travel that route per month? I'd guess is not more than a few thousand. And those few thousand are mostly traveling by car or plane.

Rail travel was popular only when it was the only way to travel quickly between cities. These days, rail travel is only profitable between large cities that are close together like DC, Philly, and NYC. Amtrak's only profitable routes are on the Bos-Wash corridor.

A round trip cost for LA to SF is about $70 by car, $300 by plane, and $100 by train. I have a hard time seeing how the hyperloop will recoup $17 billion by moving 28 people at a time for $100 each. At that rate, it would have to move 6 million passengers to break even. And that's not even counting operation costs. I doubt if 6 million people have traveled between LA and San Fran in the entire history of the US.

[Suthenboy]

The dollars aren't the only thing that doesn't add up here. The physics doesn't either. But then, I don't think either one of those are the point of this venture.

[Derpetologist]

I have an idea. Let's give every CA politician a toy train set. Then they can play to their delight for a fraction of the cost. Or better yet, we can give them one of those Cybersyn control rooms so they can play at "running" the economy:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi.....l_room.jpg

It's like those shopping carts with seats and steering wheels so the kids can pretend that they're driving.

[PH2050]

Is there a newsletter subscription link on your website?

[Derpetologist]

No, but you can read the Derponomicon, which I carefully compiled and for which I sacrificed my last shreds of sanity.

What follows is collection of responses from the dumbest person I have ever known. Not only is he the dumbest person I have ever met, he may be the dumbest person ever. He could even be the dumbest person theoretically possible. To preserve the remaining dignity of this poor creature, he will be known simply as D.
Each response will be based on a short video or quote I sent him to challenge his thinking. Be warned- his views on these matters are exceptionally idiotic.

http://platedlizard.blogspot.c.....art-1.html

[wild, evil cackling]

[PH2050]

In response, and in line with my Jaunt comment, I will now claw my own eyes out.

[Suthenboy]

Slow day around here.

I have been looking at gun-porn all day. I have a new toy on the way and I am all excited.

http://www.ruger.com/products/.....odels.html

It is the .41 rem mag with the 6.5" barrel.

Just ordered 500 nickel plated brass and 500 nosler 210gr jacketed hollow points.

I can't wait to get a hog in my sights this fall. I will have to take a couple of them to my brothers for a cochon de lait.

[Derpetologist]

I went to a roadside attraction with giant dinosaur statues:

http://platedlizard.blogspot.c.....nodon.html

[John Galt]

My childhood friend's mom had two vaginas. Sadly she wouldn't let us confirm. Not even on double dare Mother's Days.

[Suthenboy]

"I've always hated my "lady parts," even from a young age ? it was unfair.......... Due to a mix of low self-esteem, the media's portrayal of women in society, and a series of sexual traumatic occurrences in my teens, having a vagina (let alone two) has always made me feel void of my own image and identity, like an object as opposed to an overcomer. "

I challenge anyone here to find a single, solitary feminista that is not batshit crazy. Just one sane women's issues writer/blogger/activist.

Also, I want to see the double pussy. And I have questions. Lots of very interesting questions.

[John Galt]

Are double pussy ladies into simultaneous penetration plus vaginal gonad tea-bagging, or do they prefer the less kosher double dude one lady act. Questions now that I may never have answered.

[John Galt]

The lady on the Gasgacinch Gasket Sealer and Belt Dressing can looks just like my friend's mom. Well, at least that's how she looked 50 years ago.

[John Galt]

btw cool dino park.

[John Galt]

Musk somehow envisions himself a Nikola Tesla. Not even close. Tesla died poor after giving mankind great things. Musk has yet to give us anything and still has made himself extremely wealthy by the tax burdening of mankind.

[Derpetologist]

I guess Saddam watched the Princess Bride:

Barzani recalled confronting him, alone, in his office: "For five minutes, I stood there, unable to breathe, and I thought I was having a heart attack. Finally, I told Saddam, 'I have swum through a sea of blood.' " Saddam, he said, was cordial, even deferential; when tea was served, he reached across the table and switched cups, assuring Barzani that his tea was not poisoned.

http://www.newyorker.com/magaz.....ight-lives

[Agammamon]

Ha ha!You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders, The most famous of which is 'never get involved in a land war in Asia', but only slightly less well-known is this 'never reference the Princess Bride on the Reason comment board'. Hahahahahahahahahaha! Hahahahahahahahaha!

[Notorious G.K.C.]

His this one been covered?

Put on your protective cups and pay attention.

In Georgia, nine sheriff's deputies have been fired for the death of a domestic-violence suspect arrested on New Year's Day. He was bipolar, and his girlfriend gave the cops his medication as they hauled him away.

"While the cause of Ajibade's death has not been made public, the sheriff's office released a Feb. 9 memo instructing deputies never to use stun guns on detainees in restraints.

"The sheriff's office noted that it instituted new policies to check on the use of stun guns in jail and notify medical staff immediately when a detainee requiring medication arrives."

http://www.nydailynews.com/new.....-1.2216240

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Hot Dem-on-Dem action!

"Mr. Obama said that some of Ms. Warren's warnings about the potential damage of the trade deal were nothing more than the "hypotheticals" of a law-school professor and, repeating an assertion he used recently, "absolutely wrong."

""The truth of the matter is that Elizabeth is, you know, a politician like everybody else," Mr. Obama told Matt Bai of Yahoo News in an interview conducted on Friday at Nike's headquarters near Beaverton, Ore. "And, you know, she's got a voice that she wants to get out there, and I understand that. And on most issues, she and I deeply agree. On this one, though, her arguments don't stand the test of fact and scrutiny.""

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05.....times&_r=0

[Suthenboy]

You left out 'interracial'.

The only catch is that I can't believe Obumbles would be involved in anything straight.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

OK, I'll need a ruling on this one:

Can I post an article from the New Republic about how "the French extreme-right" is endorsing "secularism" as part of a scheme to promote racism and "a white, culturally Catholic France"?

On the one hand it's about secularism and race, but on the other hand it mentions cultural Catholicism.

Whoomp, there it is!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffCEr327W44

[Agammamon]

Look at this arsehole, always bringing religion into things.

[Gilbert Martin]

For people who live in the middle of the country and want to commute to a coast (east or west) for work, how would the Hyperloop be any better than a space plane that departs the earth's atmosphere to travel supersonic for most of it's trip?

Once the plane is developed, it can go anywhere - change routes and destinations to respond to shifts in traffic demand. Unlike a Hyperloop that is fixed in place once it is built. A massive investment for a Hyperloop is banking on the demand being what and where they predict it will be far into the future. A space plane does not have that problem. It can go anywhere that it is needed to go - just like current airliners - only a lot faster.

[annagun]

I make up to $90 an hour working from my home. My story is that I quit working at Walmart to work online and with a little effort I easily bring in around $40h to $86h? Someone was good to me by sharing this link with me, so now i am hoping i could help someone else out there by sharing this link... Try it, you won't regret it!......
http://www.work-cash.com