[jasonkolb]

The shit talking about this is disappointing to me. Isn't this the route of crazy idea that moves us into the future? It's not supposed to be easy. You think people would put their livelihood and reputation on the line for something that they think is a sham?

Seriously, if this mentality were pervasive we would not be having this conversation on the internet or driving cars to knowledge work jobs, we would be riding horses to the field.

I love the nerve and ambition it takes to try something that seems impossible, these are the people moving the world forward.

Edit: words

[jandrese]

Being a realist I have to be skeptical about the idea of building miles of vacuum tube through earthquake country.

It still smells like one of those crazy Sci-Fi ideas that crashes and burns when people do the math and discover that they'll need to charge $10,000 a ticket and be at 100% capacity for decades before they break even.

The cost estimates I have seen for constructing the tubes are hilarious lowballs thus far. It's definitely not going to be cheaper than high speed rail per mile, especially when you're talking about California (land of NIMBY).

[mozumder]

Indeed. High-speed rail would be cheaper when using the same cost estimates, if land was cheap like out in the country.

But then you have to build transit into dense cities, where a single building that you have to go through might cost $1 billion.

And then you realize why infrastructure is so expensive when you actually figure out the real costs.

[Reedx]

Perhaps, but by all accounts Elon is a pretty smart engineer and has ready access to smarter engineers. Not to mention those actually working on it. It just seems unlikely to me that none of them accounted for something so obvious? Certainly they did and felt it was a solvable problem.

If nothing else, if it increases expectations people have about transit then that's good. The currently planned California "high-speed" rail is pretty underwhelming.

[pbreit]

The cost estimates are coming from the same person/group that has built cars and rockets.

Skepticism is fine but doesn't warrant calling off the project at this point.

[MaysonL]

You think people would put their livelihood and reputation on the line for something that they think is a sham?

Pets.com. South Sea Bubble. Tulip mania. et omnium cetera.

It may work, but that's not the way to bet, right now. (Unless you've done a lot more math on it than I have, or, like the VCs and angels backing it, you're getting really good odds).

[notahacker]

Also its proponent notably didn't commit to involvement in the project, despite being comfortable juggling multiple other projects. I don't think that means he's not keen on the idea, but I do think it means he knows its risk/reward ratio is vastly worse than other ambitious projects he's involved with, especially if he's judged on the ability to hit the rather... optimistic metrics in his original paper.

[Grishnakh]

You have to remember, you're in America (I'm assuming, since this story is about something in America). This isn't the country you might think it is.

You might be thinking this is the country that put men on the Moon. That's incorrect. That country is in the past, and no longer exists; most of the people involved in that are dead.

This country couldn't put men on the Moon right now, with far better technology than existed back then, if its survival depended on it. This is a country that doesn't do anything big any more, it just sits back and says "that can't be done", and "that'll never work". This country says these things even while other countries like China actually go out and do them.

These people are probably right: this fancy new ideas never will work, here. Instead, they'll be taken overseas somewhere where people there will make them work. And we'll continue to sit around here, telling ourselves "no way, that'll never work, it's not feasible, etc." while our economy stagnates more and more.

[MaysonL]

Note that it took eight years to put the first men on the moon for a short stay. It's quite likely that within the next eight years there will be men on the moon, maybe even to establish a base.

[knieveltech]

To clarify you claim our economy is stagnating predominantly due to a lack of innovation?

[Reedx]

"No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame."

[noobermin]

Half an hour in a tube is better than 4 hours of flying with wifi (including the security and delays in an airport)...not to mention the cost.

[acomjean]

I optimistic. I'm hoping its the new thing garners excitement and political good will and someone builds one. It works and spreads.

In the US the shifting of the populace to the left after the long period of "we need smaller government, get government out of the way" (see Bernie Sanders).

As someone in a small Northeast City that can't seem to extend a trolley based subway line 3 miles, and commuting time here is stupid... I'm a little worried, plus I"m not sure I'd like to ride it..

[mozumder]

It's not an impossible idea. It's just a really bad idea.

There are far more efficient ways of transporting people at high speeds and lower costs than this.

What are the advantages here? It's more expensive than high-speed rail, for example.

[pbreit]

SF to LA in 30 minutes for $20? Seems advantageous to me.