Musk’s Hyperloop Vision Gains Heavy Hitters

News came out this week that the Hyperloop Jump Start Fund project, which is a venture-sourcing platform and launched in late August, has named two, new co-project leaders, Patricia Galloway and Marco Villa.

These co-project leaders bring much needed gravitas to the Hyperloop project that, if financed, could transform transportation and create a new industry hub in California. Move over Silicon Valley.

Patricia Galloway was the first president of American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and worked on a $6 billion project to expand the Panama Canal, according Fox News. Also, Galloway was part of the Venice, Italy floodgates project.

The Hyperloop technology, as documented in Elon Musk’s white paper, propels a transport capsule at speeds of 800 mph, and is intended for travel between three to four hours.

The other project leaders is Marco Villa, former director of mission operations for SpaceX—Musk’s other compay—and is credited for launching the first private spaceflight company. Villa’s background is rocket science, a nice fit for obvious reasons.

Other players involved in the early-stages of this project are (via Fox News):

The company also announced support from a variety of other business: on board are manufacturing and design company GloCal Network Corporation (GLOCAL) and UCLA Architecture and Urban Design’s graduate program SUPRASTUDIO, which will work on urban planning and design. There’s also ANSYS, which has run an independent analysis to verify the overall feasibility.