Pressure in outer space is more like 1E-11 Pa, at the Kármán line 100km above sea level we still have only 1 Pa.
> The forces on the vacuum chamber are still immense,
100 kg/m*m isn't immense in my book.
> The only difference is that the turbomolecular pump based engine is not theoretically impossible.
No one is talking turbomolecular pump here, these are used below 10mPa. For 100 Pa an ordinary displacement pump will do.
Yeah, ISTM most floors in commercial buildings that serve crowds could probably handle that. (Not to say that such floors are airtight, but the basic engineering of supporting an average American man on every square yard of a particular surface is quite feasible.) It would be even easier for a self-reinforcing structure like a tube.
The video seems to assume that in the Hyperloop tube there is a "space like" vacuum while in reality the Hyperloop is planned to have a pressure of 100 Pa in the tube.
> To speed things further, air would be pumped from hyperloop tubes down to 100 pascals, or one-thousandth of the air pressure at sea level, reducing wind resistance. The remaining air would be compressed and fed through skis that run the length of the undercarriage to levitate the train. [2]
The tube will have to withstand a pressure of about 1000 Pa which is about 100 kg/m*m. Doesn't sound so wild. Obviously the pressure will not be constant along the tube and it's not clear where the 100 Pa apply. In front of the capsule, behind the capsule, far from the capsule? Maybe for most of the tube the pressure will be much higher?
[1] I could only watch it without sound and closed captions. Maybe I missed something? Also it's funny how Youtube sometimes transcribes Hyperloop as hyperbole:-)
[2] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/tech/hyperloop-and-high-sp...