Hyperloop One, one of the leading startups working to bring the next-gen hyperloop transportation system from concept to reality, just shared footage of its first full-scale test in a vacuum environment.
The test marks an important milestone in the development of the futuristic transportation system that can, in theory, carry travelers from Los Angeles to San Francisco in under 30 minutes.
Hyperloop One says it’s the first time anyone has conducted a fully-realized test of the system, which was first outlined by Elon Musk back in 2013.
“By achieving full vacuum, we essentially invented our own sky in a tube, as if you’re flying at 200,000 feet in the air,” said Hyperloop One co-founder Shervin Pishevar boldly in a releaseannouncing the test. “For the first time in over 100 years, a new mode of transportation has been introduced.”
The trial run, which was staged on the DevLoop test track in the desert outside Las Vegas, saw the test vehicle use the company’s magnetic levitation (or mag-lev) propulsion system to reach a speed of 70 mph, hitting almost 2 Gs of acceleration.
The test boiled down to just a few seconds of footage — the full run lasted for 5.3 seconds — as the test vehicle shot down the track within the tube, coasting along the track.
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HOW WILL HYPERLOOP WORK?
A Hyperloop system could change the way we travel around the world, says Bjarke Ingels, the founder of BIG – a design firm working on the project:
“Collective commuting with individual freedom at near supersonic speed: we are heading for a future where our mental map of the city is completely reconfigured, as our habitual understanding of distance and proximity – time and space – is warped by this new form of travel.”
The Hyperloop will likely be a bunch of small pods (rather than one large train) and will be on demand, leaving when you want to leave, and going directly to your chosen station.
The infrastructure will be made up of large tubes that run between destinations, and the pods will hover in these (they’d levitate rather than be on tracks).
The environment within the main tube will be controlled so that there will only be a very small amount of air, creating a suction of sorts, so that the pods move from one end to the other (very, very quickly – kind of like a parcel in a postal shoot).
The plan shows that Hyperloop One intends to connect the two emirates, which are 150km apart. The map reveals that they are looking into connecting Dubai Airport, the Burj Khalifa, Dubai Marina, Al Maktoum Airport, Abu Dhabi Airport and the centre of Abu Dhabi (with offshoots to the major ports too):
While Hyperloop One is the most established Hyperloop company, it doesn’t actually own the rights over the technology: famous inventor Elon Musk first proposed the idea back in 2013, and then made his research public so that others could pursue developing the concept.
This means the Hyperloop technology is open source and is currently being pursued by a number of companies and individuals.
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