Hyperloop
-- posted March 2017 --
Hyperloop is a concept for a future transportation system, proposed by Elon Musk. It consists of a large long tube through which capsules will travel with high speed, transporting passengers or goods. The initial design of the Hyperloop released in 2013 proposed to use a steel tube with a diameter of 8 to 11 feet. The design suggests the transporting pod vehicles to travel by either gliding on air cushions in a partial vacuum, or by using magnetic levitation, or another low friction transportation means. The aim is to enable fast and energy-efficient travel, unconstrained by the local weather conditions, and free from collision risk. For instance, the initial design imagines travel from LA to San Francisco (350 miles) to take about 35 minutes at an average speed of 600 mph.
To evaluate the feasibility of the Hyperloop concept, SpaceX organized a prize competition on a subscale test track tube with one-mile length and 6 feet diameter. The competition took place in January this year in Hawthorne, California. Twenty-seven teams participated offering a variety of capsule prototype designs. Only three of the teams successfully completed all nine required tests. The overall winner was the team by Delft University from the Netherlands. The award for the fastest pod vehicle went to the Technical University of Munich, Germany, whose vehicle hit the maximum speed of 58 mph.
SpaceX announced a second Hyperloop pod competition for mid-2017, where a single criterion for winning the award will be the maximum speed achieved without a crash at the end of the travel.
Among the criticisms for such transportation system are the feeling of uneasiness when traveling with high speed in a small capsule inside a closed steel tube, potentially high levels of noise and vibration, challenging technical solutions to passenger evacuation in the case of a malfunction or accident, and the overall high cost of construction, development, and operation of the system.
The following 6:11 minutes video describes the Hyperloop concept:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5fOWB6SNqs
