> If you pump the (vast majority of the) air out, no reason you couldn't get supersonic.
Doesn't this sound like a maintenance nightmare? I'm not clear on a couple of things. What happens when the vacuum fails? What happens to passengers if the seal fails on the vehicle, and then all the air is sucked into the vacuum? Maintaining long tunnels is by itself hard, but it seems like maintaining long tunnels that also need to maintain a vacuum would be that much more complex.
I don't see much discussion on this aspect of the hyperloop.
Doesn't this sound like a maintenance nightmare? I'm not clear on a couple of things. What happens when the vacuum fails? What happens to passengers if the seal fails on the vehicle, and then all the air is sucked into the vacuum? Maintaining long tunnels is by itself hard, but it seems like maintaining long tunnels that also need to maintain a vacuum would be that much more complex.
I don't see much discussion on this aspect of the hyperloop.