Students from the T.U. Delft win hyperloop challenge

[PA5COR]

http://nltimes.nl/2017/01/30/delft-s...op-competition
http://delfthyperloop.nl/#floating

A team of student's from TU Delft won the overall prize for best designed Hyperloop capsule at a competition organized by Elon Musk's space company SpaceX in Hawthorne, California, the university announced on Twitter.
The Hyperloop is a super fast means of transport invented by Musk himself. It consists of a Hyperloop capsule traveling through a vacuum tube, which offers very little resistance. The idea is that such a Hyperloop capsule will eventually be able to, safely and efficiently, travel at well over 1,000 kilometers per hour.
A total of 29 teams took part in the competition, after already impressing the judging panel enough with their prototypes to gain entry. Only five teams passed the safety and design tests. And eventually three teams took part in a race in a 1.2 kilometer long test tube,including that of TU Delft.

[KG4NEL]

My alma mater was fourth.

[NQ6U]

Of course, the whole hyperloop thing is probably unworkable in the real world.

[PA5COR]

Good for your alma mater ;)

That is what they now try out, if it can be made working it would even rival ( short) plane flights.

[n2ize]

Of course, the whole hyperloop thing is probably unworkable in the real world.

Not only unworkable but potentially deadly should anything fail and apparently there are many catastrophic points of failure. The following video pretty much sums up the problems with the hyperloop.

[PA5COR]

What some said about the fast trains in Europe? TGV for example.

[n2ize]

What some said about the fast trains in Europe? TGV for example.

Yeah, but fast trains are do-able in a practical sense. The main problem with the hyperloop as Thunderf00t pointed out above is the massively long vacuum tunnel and finding a practical way of maintaining that vacuum plus providing adequate safety measures should the vacuum be breached. I sure as hell wouldn't want to be near the thing,let alone inside of it, if the vacuum should be breached.At present there is no practical means of doing so such that we can assure a very wide margin of safety. It's unfortunately a very significant obstacle. At present I think it would be far more practical to build up a high speed railroad. We can really use some high speed rail systems in this country.

[KG4CGC]

Take 4 magnets, a double A battery and coil up some wire.

[NQ6U]

Yeah, but fast trains are do-able in a practical sense. The main problem with the hyperloop as Thunderf00t pointed out above is the massively long vacuum tunnel and finding a practical way of maintaining that vacuum plus providing adequate safety measures should the vacuum be breached.

Yeah, the whole concept maintaining a vacuum within 500 miles of of thin-walled steel tubing running along a freeway in a country full of gun-totin' alcoholic yahoos is dicey at best.

[PA5COR]

We don't do alcoholic gun toting yahoos here ;)
Traveling over rails at 500+ Km'H was oce considered impossible as well, as were cars doing over 30 KM/H, technology changes and with that the possibilities.
Problems are there to be solved practically, or we would never have walked on the moon....;).