Social Good Engineering Magazine: GineersNow Social Innovation GineersNow Engineering Magazine Issue No. 001 | Page 12

SpaceX’s Hyperloop
Pod Competition
Travelling in vacuum tubes may sound
like science fiction. It is very futuristic
and a head start towards building smart
cities and high tech suburbs. Really, it
is just something you can just watch in
movies.

But now, it’s getting real.

From a 57-page concept
paper proposed by SpaceX and Tesla
Motors CEO Elon Musk in 2013, com-
panies are now invested to construct
and demonstrate a test run of the
Hyperloop this 2016. The Hyper-
loop Transportation Technologies
recently announced its signed
agreements to partner with
Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum and
Aecom, an engineering design
firm. All companies will share its
expertise in engineering design
and construction in exchange for stock
options in the company. The teams
will consist of engineers and scientists
from NASA, Boeing, SpaceX and Tesla
moonlighting in the said Hyperloop
project.

As per the project, the
company aims to create a transpor-
tation system running faster than the
speed of light at a potential of 760 mph.
HTT bought a land field last year in
Quay Valley for the construction of
the Hyperloop. It aims to connect the
HTT’s test track to the nearby solar
powered concept city being built in
King’s County in California as its main
transportation system. The test track
will be 5 miles long and will take 8 min-
utes travel time to the concept city. The
release date will be at the end of 2016.

Also, this year, SpaceX an-
nounced its pod prototype Hyperloop
competition opened to engineering
students and other research entities
to be tested on a 1-mile track near its
headquarters in Hawthorne, California.
The target testing will be held in sum-
mer this year. According to their web-
site, though their aim is not to develop a
commercial Hyperloop for themselves,
SpaceX are interested in assisting and
accelerating the development of a
functional Hyperloop prototype.

Another Hyperloop com-
pany, called Hyperloop Technologies, is
also setting its own tracks for testing in
the California desert.

Seriously, the tube transpo is
really happening.
Photo Credit:
Blog Automobile
Hyperloop Passenger Capsule Subsystem Notional Locations (Photo Source: Pinterest)
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