ZAROK

/u/drock_davis thanks for the question.

Yes we are still going with ArxPax hoverboard tech. We looked at multiple ways to do it. Initially it was air bearing vs magnetic levitation, we had a big meeting looking at pros and cons and had a popular and educated vote. Magnetic levitation won because the levitation height was much better (5mm vs sub-mm), it was much less dependent on the flatness tolerances, etc.

Now as of Arx Pax hover engines vs other magnetic levitation, altough arx pax engines are definitely more heavy, energyvore and more moving part, you can do a bunch of stuff: you can hover while NOT moving so you dont have to go through a transition period, you can gimbal the engines to either reduce the magnetic drag (yes that's a thing) or provide thrust/breaking, you can adjust your levitation height on the go by adapting the RPM of the engines and if you have a conductive floor, you can even have the pod levitating around outside of the hypertube ;-) They are actually pretty robust and never had a failure so far.

Is it riskier? Yes. Do you have to adapt the track in order of it to work? No. We have been working in close collaboration with them to make sure the system work. It is definitely a more complex system but we think it is something worth investigating!

As Starcrafte mentionned, rloop showed that it's possible to have hundreds of people working over the internet on complex engineering problem. With that in mind we might see what other problem we can tackle. But one thing at a time ;)

Tom, lead engineer here. Economics or paleontology, depending on the mood.

If we assume no friction in the wheels bearings, then yes. The jet engines are "pushing against the air", not on the ground. For lift, you need speed versus air, so this is totally independant of the land speed. You can also see some small airplanes being able to land almost no speed versus the ground when there is a very high front wind.

No comments ;-)