Hyperloop: the future of transportation

Hyperloop is one of the most awaited futuristic projects. It’s a high-speed train (it could reach up to 1,200 km/h) that would navigate inside a vacuum tube using magnetic levitation, reducing in a matter of minutes a journey that currently take hours. The problem with high-speed trains is the handling of friction and air resistance when they run at very high speeds and this is where the idea of travelling in a vacuum tube comes in. The trade-offs are the high costs and a less pleasant experience for travellers: small, windowless capsules in a closed, sealed environment over many kilometres. Here is a 2015 talk where Dirk Ahlborn (Hyperloop CEO) explains the concept and the vision.
The original sketch came from Elon Musk, who through SpaceX published in August 2013 a white paper with further technical detail of his initial ideas. After this publication he launched an open challenge so that anyone could take this idea and try to make it real. It was the beginning of the race to make the Hyperloop’s dream come true, with several companies that managed to hire engineers and raise capital to kickstart it. One of the first was Virgin Hyperloop One, based in Los Angeles, with significant financial support, hundreds of employees and a testing area in the Nevada desert. They have already managed to test a first capsule running at almost 400 km/h and recently announced some great news for Spain: Virgin has decided to install in Málaga the Hyperloop One prototype development centre for 2020 together with Adif.
The second initiative that emerged with some weight was Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) which has a team of engineers working in companies such as Boing, NASA or SpaceX (among others) and in their spare time are solving challenges to make Hyperloop a reality. Although it seems somewhat informal, they already have projects in Central Europe, South Korea and India. Something similar, though smaller, is the rLoop community, a community of people based in Reddit.
Another interesting initiative is TransPod. In 2016 they launched a new design of the original draft, a vehicle that could reach speeds of 1000 km/h with an infrastructure capable of being powered by solar energy. They are currently working to have a commercial vehicle in 2020 and the first regulated lines operating by 2025. They are thinking of Montreal or Toronto as pioneering cities, where they are based.
The last one I would like to highlight is the first dissident of the original Hyperloop concept. Brogan BamBrogan, a former SpaceX engineer who helped launch Hyperloop One, created Arrivo, where they plan to eliminate the vacuum tube. Zeleros, founded in Valencia (Spain) in November 2016 and awarded with the “Best Concept Design” and “Best Propulsion/Compression Subsystem” awards by SpaceX, also deserves special mention.
It’s worth noting that due to the great reception the idea received, Elon Musk took up the microphone again in the past years to launch a series of engineering competitions for students, using a smaller tube he built at SpaceX headquarters. At the end of 2017 he confirmed that he wanted to build his own Hyperloop, using the tunnels of his other company, The Boring Company.
This race for the “hyper-space” has only just begun and we will soon see the first real applications. You can already see concept videos of how it could be implemented in cities like Dubai in 2020 and every day new progress are published. Exciting, isn’t it?
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