A Series Of Tubes

Elon Musk released his new idea for high speed transportation, Hyperloop.  People (who had heard about it) had been speculating about what it could be since Musk hinted at it a month ago.  Most of them guessed it would be a maglev train in a vacuum tunnel, a concept that's been played with for decades.  Instead, it's kind of the opposite: a "train" in a tunnel that uses the air in the tunnel to propel itself.

Something seemed unusual about the whole proposal but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.  Then I realised: it seems strange to hear about something daring and futuristic that's not in China.  We just don't seem to discuss anything like this without relentlessly negative.  For instance, USA Today printed an article titled, "Why Elon Musk's 'hyperloop' transport won't work".  But upon reading the article, it just quotes an expert who discusses some of the potential technical problems with the concept.  At the time I read it, the top comment admonished the paper for the misleading headline.  When Internet commenters say you're taking an extreme position based on flimsy evidence, you've got some serious problems.

Musk's two businesses have plenty of engineers between them - who have supposedly worked on the Hyperloop proposal - so I'll assume it has some real chance of actually working.  But is it practical/saleable?  I'm not sure.  For one thing, there's not a lot of room in there.  I've never suffered from claustrophobia, but even I think it looks a little "cosy."  Having said that, it's probably no less space than you would have in, say, a Lamborghini.  And truthfully, it looks more comfortable than your average airplane seat. 

It's good that the small size and enclosed tube makes it unobtrusive: no fear of crashes at level crossings, no need to slow down in urban areas (which has bedevilled past high-speed rail proposals in the U.S.) and there's less opportunity for NIMBY types to make up some public health concern.  But there is the safety problem: It's hard to imagine surviving a crash in it, so safety will have to come from not having accidents in the first place.  It might be hard to build up the necessary trust with the public.

All in all, it's an intriguing idea, and it's too bad Musk's not going to personally pursue it.  As a long time space fan, I hate to admit it, but I kind of wish he were building this rather than chasing the private space industry dream with SpaceX.  Hopefully some other Internet billionaire will try it.  Let's see, Bezos has the Washington Post, Paul Allen has SpaceShipOne, Bill Gates has Africa...so it's all up to Mark Zuckerberg.