South African-born tech entrepreneur Elon Musk dreams of a future where people will be travelling to their destinations at almost 1 200km/h in what he had dubbed the Hyperloop. But what started out as a couple of sketches is now moving along into the actual planning phase.
Hyperloop is passenger transportation train that makes use of a low pressure tube mounted on stilts above the ground. Moving away from conventional seating arrangements, Hyperloop will have passengers sit in aluminium pods.
In a couple of tweets Musk detailed that a Hyperloop test track will more than likely be built somewhere in Texas. But this is not the first time that Musk has set up shop in The Lone Star state.
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
Tesla’s Gigafactory once considered building it massive plant there, and Musk’s rocket division SpaceX will be operating from Brownsville. Probably taking a leaf from Star Wars, Musk even hinted that there could be pod racing competition, very much the same as the Formula SAE Series.
Also thinking of having an annual student Hyperloop pod racer competition, like Formula SAE http://t.co/HV9BLCoMb8
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 15, 2015
Who wouldn’t want to see that? Musk’s ultimate goal is to build a fully-functioning Hyperloop in California, which will allow passengers to travel from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 30 minutes.
[Image – Elon Musk]
