Comments by "Archangel17" (@MDP1702) on "Thunderf00t" channel.

  1.  GJT-w3y  You might want to take a look at the costs of the moon missions. NASA's budget for that was huge back in the day. Take the $3b mentioned here and do it times 20 or so.
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  2.  @WinstonSmith685  Because it is in the testing phase? The only question about starship is how much payload capacity you give up due to reusability. It is undisputedly the most powerfull rocket in history, which means if you would design it to be expandable, its payload capacity would be massive.
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  3.  @a.velderrain8849  Maglev has been in development for +-50 year, hyperloop for around 5-6 years. The main reason hyperloop hasn't reached high speeds is the lack of long hyperloop tunnels because of this they don't have enough track to actually speed up high enough at a decent acceleration. The main ones that have achieved high speeds (like the TUM hyperloop), did so by increasing the acceleration (above 2g's if I remember correctly), which is impractical long term for a hyperloop passenger concept, so why would companies go this way and waste time on acceleration technology and design they don't need. For a reasonable acceleration (0,3-0,5g) you would 12-7km's and around 1 minute. The maglev on the other hand achieved its record on a reasonably long track, allowing it to actually build up to that speed. Comparing the maglev train speed with hyperloop speed now is just stupid, they are both at a different stage of development.
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  4. There are hyperloop companies in all parts of the world (like 3 in Europe) and some already have received government funding, they just keep most of their progress under wraps, as many companies have done in the past.
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  5.  @neutrino78x  This argument doesn't make sense, a HSR doesn't need to connect all cities or the entire country. There are plenty of spaces HSR could connect cities in the US (LA-SF, east coast, ...) with a similar distance as HSR in Europe.
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  6.  @neutrino78x  ok fine then we have HSR. We have one in the northeast. Problem solved. Why have just one in the northeast? You can connect the entire eastern US (Boston, NY, Philadelphia, DC, Richmond, Atlanta, jacksonville, orlando and Miami) with a HSR that is (slightly) smaller than the lines in the EU (3000km). With 1000km extra you can even connect this line to all major cities in Texas. In total you could connect 21 of the US 22 biggest cities in 2 HSR systems (East coast HSR and west coast HSR) for around 7000-8000km (with +-9000km you could connect all these cities in one network, not really usefull though), that sound like a lot, but this is what the EU's long term HSR plans would end up with. And I am not saying you need to connect everything immediately (or ever), there are plenty of area's where smaller HSR lines can be usefull, like Texas HSR (forth worth-Dallas-Austin-San Antonio-Houston) of 750km, California HSR (SD-LA-SJ-SF-Sacramento) of 850km possibly extended to Phoenix adding around 600km, Northeast HSR (Boston-NY-Philadelphia-Baltimore-DC) of 650km, Florida HSR (Jacksonville-Orlando-Tampa-Miami, though this one might not be usefull) of 650 km and there might be some others. These would come to around 2250km without Florida or phoenix, 2850km with Phoenix and 3500km with Florida. For comparison the EU has now around 3000km of HSR. The question is why don't we have a nationwide network of it. No, that is not the question, connecting the east and west coast would not really be that usefull with HSR (if Hyperloop ever works, that will be something different), the question is, why does the US not have any HSR line. Unlike China we can't just do it against the wishes of the people. Getting it done is indeed a pain in populated area's, but this is no different in the EU. If Australia and Canada are not shitty countries in your opinion I never said anything about Australia and Canada. In Canada they have been working on plans for a HSR and in Australia this has been a topic for the past 20 years, however there are political difficulties. I guess the main problem is the very cheap flights due to (hidden) subsidies and tax cuts, whereas things like rail actually do get taxed (at least in the EU this is the case).
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  7.  @neutrino78x  The thing is that Canada and Australia don't really benefit from several HSR lines/projects, the US does. But fine if you don't want a serious conversation, you should have said so, at least now I now I don't need to respond to you anymore.
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  8.  @neutrino78x  For one, jets are extremely polluting (7-8% of all passenger km traveled, but 12% of transport pollution). Secondly there are many people on those routes that actually use a car rather airplanes. And thirdly for short routes (+-190 miles) the time it takes will be around the same if not better for HSR, due to all the delays and procedures planes need to deal with at takeoff, landing, boarding, ... this is especially the case if more and more people where to start using planes on these routes instead of their cars. Fourth, rail and road transport is 'easily' electrified and even shipping can be made green with not too much difficulty, for planes this will be more difficult and it thus isn't unlikely plane tickets will increase in price in the future. If we look at the US vs the rest of the world we see a huge difference in passenger km travelled per capita by transport type. The US has 2800 airplane passenger km's per capita compared to the EU's 860, Japan 580 and the worlds 480. For railway it is the opposite with only 78 for the US, 750 in the EU, 2900 in Japan and 480 in the world. It seems that the US is using a completely different system than the rest of the world, thus it wouldn't be surprising if this is more due to stubborness, wrong idea of HSR or just the idea that planes are just better everytime, then that they are using the correct system. It is not about distance, all the routes I propose are shorter than some routes in Europe (though these routes are broken in several parts for naming/managing, but in terms of infrastructure it is the same route) and together they are around the same as the EU's whole network (half of the expected EU's future network) and would cover the most populated regions of the US. So distance isn't an argument for this. You can have hsr without having to cover the entire country with it, planes can still be used where hsr is not usefull (enough).
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  9.  @neutrino78x  we don't really have any major cities in the USA that are only 200 miles apart dude Except: Boston-NY NY-Philadelphia Philadelphia-Baltimore Baltimore-DC NY-DC (and ofcourse the two in between ie. philadephia and baltimore) Austin-Dallas Austin-Houston San Diego-LA Indianapolis/cincinnati-Chicago ... I probably can keep going with US cties (less than) 200 miles apart. And it is not uncommon that cities more then 200 miles apart still get connected by HSR, I'd say more than 400 miles is the limit. That's why the USA, Australia and Canada don't use HSR to any great extent. Dude, Australia and Canada are planning/working on HSR or really considering it. There is no logical reason for the US not to use HSR except that you don't want it, geography is really not the issue. Yes, the US is big, but most of its major cities are in the coastal area's or close to it, there aren't many large cities far inland. You could connect the 21 largest cities in the US with two HSR networks that would be around the same size as the now planned European HSR network. The main difference might be that in the EU the HSR network is more of a "spider" network (ie connection multiple cities with multiple lines), while in the US it would be more of a linear network (like a subway line). If hyperloop would work, a hyperloop network would probably be better, just because it is even faster and allows for more of a "spider" network approach. "Aviation accounts for 2.5% of global CO2 emissions" Doesn't sound extreme to me. That's pretty low. This shows me you have no real grasp of the problems, considering you think 2,5% of global emissions for just airtravel is low. Let me just put it differently. Air travel is around 20 times more polluting than train travel. Airtravel pollutes more than all shipping combined, that is insane. And it's only going to get lower as aircraft use more Sustainable Aviation Fuel. That is a possibility, but it won't happen anytime soon and likely will see a rather high cost hike, making it less competitive compared to HSR.
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