Astral Codex Ten

Hyperloop

4 min read

Hyperloop

Article

Hyperloop is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between September 13, 2023 and September 18, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as “Ahead of the Hyperloop announcement”; “The same goes for the hyperloop”; “I don’t know about Hyperloop. The book made it sound like he originally proposed it”. It most often appears alongside Ashlee Vance, Boeing, Elon.

Metadata

  • Category: Concepts
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: September 13, 2023
  • Last seen: September 18, 2023

Appears In

None.

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Book Review: Elon Musk
September 13, 2023 · Original source
Musk has burned through public relations staffers with comical efficiency. He tends to take on a lot of the communications work himself, writing news releases and contacting the press as he sees fit. Quite often, Musk does not let his communications staff in on his agenda. Ahead of the Hyperloop announcement, for example, his representatives were sending me e-mails to find out the time and date for the press conference. On other occasions, reporters have received an alert about a teleconference with Musk just minutes before it started. This was not a function of the PR people being incompetent in getting word of the event out. The truth was that Musk had only let them know about his plans a couple of minutes in advance, and they were scrambling to catch up to his whims. When Musk does delegate work to the communications staff, they’re expected to jump in without missing a beat and to execute at the highest level. Some of this staff, operating under this mix of pressure and surprise, only lasted between a few weeks and a few months. A few others have hung on for a couple of years before burning out or being fired.
Highlights From The Comments On Elon Musk
September 18, 2023 · Original source
I've worked along former SpaceXers and hung out with current ones (mostly in outdoors sports). If you work in the industry, especially in LA, you run into them. I was also interviewed by Brogan at Hyperloop a while back (super nice guy). The SpaceX hiring bar for technical talent is super high and I wouldn't exaggerate to say the average SpaceX engineer is twice as talented and hardworking as the average Boeing guy. Also, pretty arrogant in my experience (versus Googlers I've met tend to be humble even if they went to Stanford). I think this really started from the top of the company and he couldn't have built this pyramid of insane talent if he didn't have an informed, critical understanding of mechanical engineering.
The same goes for the hyperloop. How do you travel long distances on the red planet? Are you going to have airplanes? There are no fossil fuels, and the atmosphere is thin. A few years back, Musk said he thinks it's technically possible to build electric planes with very long ranges (on Earth), but he's not interested in the project. Probably because it's not practical for Mars. Meanwhile, a hyperloop would be technically much easier to maintain in the Mars atmosphere, and would probably be better than planes for long-distance travel.
I don’t know about Hyperloop. The book made it sound like he originally proposed it because he was angry about California’s less-ambitious high-speed rail plans and didn’t take it too seriously. It was only after everyone else took it seriously that he gave it a second thought.