Of course, this is infinitely more feasible than Musk's hyperloop because a) it's a real fucking train, and b) China is the world leader in HSR. This thing loops sexy.
Of course, this is infinitely more feasible than Musk's hyperloop because a) it's a real fucking train, and b) China is the world leader in HSR. This thing loops sexy.
still extremely skeptical about the vacuum part
I don't see how the gains from eliminating drag outweigh how labor and resource intensive it is to build and maintain large vacuum chambers
like, how do you even make a vacuum chamber with expansion joints?
You don't actually need to hold a perfect vacuum, you could get massive drag reduction by just reducing the atmospheric pressure by some amount. Just regular having a massive metal tube sitting at 0 psi with a high speed object traveling through it is like building a multiple mile long bomb. Sitting at 12 or 10 psi would still give a speed boost, but rapid depressurizing wouldn't be as catastrophic. You could also do that with a lot less infrastructure
Yeah I don't think the vacuum tube thing is a realistic idea in the near future. I imagine it's mentioned in this video more as a "fuck you build trains" bit than anything substantial. I mean the engineers are clearly treating it that way, considering they're just building a real train first, and then might move on to the hyperloop stuff.