The concept of Hyperloop might sound a bit too forward-looking for now, as well as dangerous, but it is the opinion of Elon Musk that a track system can and should be built already.
Elon Musk is a Canadian-American entrepreneur, inventor, engineer and investor who was born in South Africa. He founded SpaceX, co-founded PayPal, and happens to be the CEO and chief product architect of Tesla Motors, as well as chairman of SolarCity.
His most recent attempt at bringing forward a world-changing invention unfortunately ended in partial failure, as the SpaceX Rocket ended up destroyed after crashing in the Atlantic instead of landing on a barge safely. It did make it to the International Space Station though.
Musk doesn't seem to be in any way deterred, however, and is pushing forward with other projects while investigators figure out what went wrong with the thing. Currently, building a Hyperloop appears to figure prominently in his plans.
What is a Hyperloop?
A Hyperloop is a transport system that can carry passengers across very great distances very quickly, faster than airplanes in fact.
The speed of the capsules inside a Hyperloop track would reach 800 mph (miles per hour), which corresponds to just under 1300 kph (kilometers per hour).
That's a 480 kph improvement over commercial passenger jets if you can believe it. You would think that some time would still have to pass before man can build something of the sort.
That is not the case, however, according to Musk. In fact, he claims that a cross-country Hyperloop system would cost 25% of what it takes to build a highway. Not only that, but the materials needed to build it would be a twentieth of those used in a high-speed rail line.
Moreover, the price of a trip from New York to Los Angeles would cost a hundred bucks or so, meaning seventy Euro give or take. Nearly half of the “cheap” offers for a plane ride from what we've found.
Unfortunately, no Hyperloop will be built in the near future. Musk still wants to go forward with the concept, however, and he has a plan.
A test track will be built in Texas
Musk's company will set up a test Hyperloop of five miles / 8 kilometers, based on the idea he teased 18 months ago. He is even thinking of allowing students to submit capsule plans and have races to discover the best one.
Unfortunately, we don't have a time frame for this. Still, it will happen in our lifetimes, so we can find some comfort in that at least.
Will be building a Hyperloop test track for companies and student teams to test out their pods. Most likely in Texas.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 15, 2015
Also thinking of having an annual student Hyperloop pod racer competition, like Formula SAE http://t.co/HV9BLCoMb8
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 15, 2015
Updated January 21, 2015: Amended the matter of the Atlantic crash.