Balancing a Vacuum

I often find my mind wondering as I am riding my motorcycle to work or school. Perhaps not the safest of practices I know, but day-dreaming and contemplating comes as naturally to my mind, as breathing to my lungs. So, with my body responding with muscle memory to shifting, engaging and disengaging the throttle, my mind wonders to what it would be like to ride my bike on the moon or maybe on Mars. Now, I could say that I think about how to balance the different forces at each environment relative to the earth; how would the near vacuum and lower gravity effect the performance of my bike? But in earnest, that wouldn’t be quite true. What I do find myself wondering about, is how much faster I could ride or how higher of a jump I could get off a ramp with the same engine, on the moon and Mars respectively.

Which brings me back to my project of interest from last week, the Hyperloop or vactrain. Now, I’m not saying that the Hyperloop has any ramps in its design (maybe until I get involved), what it does deal in, is creating a vacuum for a more efficient (not to mention quicker) transport of goods and people across the land. While this does create a more efficient way of transport, there are some obstacles that will have to be addressed if this design is to have any future (let alone ramps).

The first obstacle that the project will have to overcome, is the same as many a project, the business and financing. The Hyperloop needs a large amount of money to finance its construction. Just to give a small indication of the cost, constructing a new 2-lane road in rural areas is estimated to cost two to three million per mile. That is of course dependent on the country and area itself, so the cost per mileage will vary. With costs being high, would governments, companies, or private investors be willing to cover the initial costs? I am not sure, but it might turn out to be a combination of these groups. Additionally, once the project is set to begin construction, how will the business side of it be managed? What will you charge for transport, to the industrial, commercial, and residential sectors? How much will maintenance cost? And lastly, at what margins will you charge to recoup the initial investment and cover operational cost? All difficult questions to answer, but time will tell.

The second challenge that the project will have to overcome, has more to do with the design itself, how will emergency exits and route connections work? As with any form of public transport, some form of emergency exits are required for the Hyperloop. However, because you’re dealing with a vacuum tube, creating emergency exits and maintaining acceptable costs will be complex balancing act to say the least. As far as different route connections, the latest information from Hyperloop development is that, the transport will be one way with no high-speed switches, as you see with cross country trains. Still that leaves the question of, if there are city hubs that these Hyperloops are connected to, how to design a safe area of passengers to embark and disembark when changing between Hyperloop paths.

Now I could continue, but I believe dear reader, you get the idea (and it’s time for me to go ride and contemplate these challenges). The Hyperloop design has never been implanted before, which brings a set of challenges on top of what any form of transport system might have. It would seem, that balancing a vacuum isn’t quite as easy as you might initially imagine it to be.

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