The other day, in a sun-warmed desert north of Las Vegas, a technology firm demonstrated a state-of-the-art travel system. This company is one of the few companies and universities trying to build the very first 'hyperloop'. In English, this word has long become a household word and means what it should mean: "hyperloop", "hyperloop", first proposed by Elon Musk. Hyperloop is a futuristic transport system resembling an enlarged version of a pneumatic pipe. How should it work? People sit in a bean that will move at a speed of 1200 km / h inside the pipe. This is practically overcoming the sound barrier.
In the afternoon, the three-meter sleigh accelerated from zero to hundreds of kilometers per hour in one second. There is no pipe yet, but the company says the 60-meter pipe is currently being assembled for full-scale testing at the end of this year. Hyperloop One, founded by one of Uber's first investors, Sherwin Pishevar and former SpaceX engineer Brogan Bambrogan, has raised $ 100 million in investments and is due to connect Hyperloop with Los Angeles and Las Vegas by 2018.
It sounds cool, but the question remains: is hyperloop safe?
Two minutes of a puke (sorry)
When Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, proposed this idea in 2013 as an alternative to all possible means of transportation between San Francisco and Los Angeles in 35 minutes, his proposal was greeted with equal enthusiasm and skepticism. Wired wrote:
“Hyperloop is a completely fictitious transportation device that captures entrepreneur Elon Musk, who continues to talk about him. Presented for the first time at least 100 years ago, it looks like a version of a green pipe from Futurama.
Now it no longer seems fictitious. If everything goes according to plan, Hyperloop One beans will transport goods and people at a speed of 1200 km / h - 30% faster than 747.
"We are friendly to grannies, dogs and do not induce vomiting," says Josh Gigel, senior vice president of development of Hyperloop One. “The user experience will not be much different from what you get on a regular airplane.”
But high speed does not turn the attraction into a puke. It is acceleration - these exciting moments when your body accelerates to Mach 1 - that causes nausea.
Imagine taking off a plane. Jet engines explode, pinning you to the seat and squeezing your muscles and bones. This acceleration is usually described by G-force or gravity. Technically, it is denoted as g, but for readability, we leave G.
If you are sitting at a table or going somewhere at the moment, you experience 1 G. On commercial flights, passengers experience an additional 0.1-0.3 G during take-off and landing. But as soon as the plane picks up its constant cruising speed, everyone again begins to feel 1 G.
“If you fly at a speed of 1000 km / h, you can drink cola and do what you want,” says NASA psychologist Lee Stone, who has nothing to do with any of the Hyperloop teams. “It's like you are on a bus.”
Hyperloop wants to simulate the experience of an airliner, simply by connecting an additional 0.1-0.3 G at the moments when the bean stops and starts. The necessary acceleration will last about two minutes.
It turns out that the passenger will feel as if taking off or landing the aircraft for two minutes. And it seems to be nothing. Only if hyperloop will not turn.
“Anyone who twisted the steering wheel at a sharp bend at a speed of 80 km / h knows that at that moment you are thrown out of the seat by centrifugal force,” Stone says. “The bottom line is that the trajectory will also generate G-forces that cannot be discounted.”
Load limits
Stone knows what he is talking about. Ames Research Center at NASA has been studying G-forces since the early 1960s. At first they worked with the military and studied the experience of pilots and the first American astronauts of the Mercury program. Over time, the Ames Center built a series of giant centrifuges to test how people and equipment respond to strong acceleration. Centrifuges spun people like on a wild carousel. Ames engineers managed to spin a person up to 20 G - he experienced an attractive force of 20 times the normal that we feel on Earth.
Trained people can handle extreme acceleration. The first astronauts who drove Saturn-5 rockets into space experienced overloads of up to 4 G, Stone says. The Russian-made Soyuz capsule can gain a dizzying 9 G. (Some birds can reach 7.8 G, more than some of the most mind-blowing roller coasters on the planet in Johannesburg, South Africa).
“The shuttle astronauts experienced less than 2 G at the launch. This was part of the shuttle design because we wanted to send ordinary people into space,” Stone says. “Such overloads will not hurt you in any way, but everything changes with overloads of 4-5 G.”
Astronauts press their backs and asses tightly during launch, so all acceleration falls directly on their chest.
“The seat angle during launch and landing is a hot topic for discussion. G-force will put pressure on your chest, this is the safest direction, says Stroun. “Because the best thing you can do is direct the blood to your back if you are healthy and not pregnant.”
The fact is that even with an optimal landing angle, excess G from turns can lead to blood splashing inside the arteries and veins. As the astronaut takes off, blood rushes from the front of the body to the back. With strong acceleration, it’s hard to breathe and get all sorts of things. Astronauts are in better physical shape, faced with such a test, and fighter pilots wear suits that protect them from strokes or loss of consciousness.
Hyperloop One and their main rival, Hyperloop Transportations Technologies, say their final bean options will slow down in sharp turns, but how much is unknown. Beans will move due to magnetic levitation - the same technology is used in Muggle trains. The speed of the fastest Shanghai Muggle reaches 500 km / h. But at this speed, the train needs a path along a curve with a radius of 4400 meters so that passengers do not get their breakfast or lunch. So unless hyperloop plans to build giant curves or deliberately slow down when cornering, its path will be relatively straight.
Emergency stops have similar problems, given that fast deceleration affects the body in the same way as acceleration. If the bob uses magnetic levitation, a sudden power outage will mean slowing down to zero kilometers per hour. Hyperloop Transportation Technologies offers reverse traction to reduce speed. But a sudden stop will be 10 times worse than a car accident at a speed of 120 km / h.
With the exception of turns and emergency stops, the consequences for human health will not be significant on average if the maximum load is 0.1-0.3 G, Stone says. He also said that there is no research suggesting that short-term exposure to high G levels causes health problems.
The article is based on materials .
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