Hyperloop
is an experimental, ground transportation system that’s designed to reach
speeds faster than 700 mph. Experimental prototypes would hold passengers and
freight in a twenty foot capsule that floats inside a partially vacuumed tube. Passengers and freight will travel both above ground and underground.
Magnets work to levitate capsules that get pushed
through the tube by high-pressured air. The capsules have accelerated to
several hundred miles per hour within seconds during experiments conducted over
short distances.
Two major corporations, both located in California,
are working to get a functioning Hyperloop system working sometime by 2021.
Hyperloop One is a Los Angeles, CA, company that sprung from an idea publicized
by Elon Musk, a top official for Spacex, Tesla Inc. and Paypal. Musk was a concept coordinator for the
Hyperloop project when he presented the idea to a national conference in August
2013. He decided not to participate personally in the project.
Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) is a
second company that’s developing the transportation system designed to approach
the speed of sound. HTT started in November 2013 and runs its operation in
Culver City, CA.
The idea of using air pressure to move objects through
a tube is nothing new. Major department stores used a similar method of sending
paperwork through elaborate vacuum tubes connected to all floors of the
buildings.
Drive-in windows at banks show the concept of
Hyperloop transportation. Customers put their bank requests into a capsule that
travels through a vacuum tube to an employee several feet away. A vacuum system
sends the completed bank transaction inside the capsule back to the bank customer
who doesn’t have to leave the car.
Building a Hyperloop system involves putting thousands
of miles of tubes above and below ground. These tubes would be approximately
nine feet in diameter and would house capsules that would hold about 12 people
or a few tons of freight. Both HTT and Hyperloop One plan to build inner-city
and suburban systems.
India’s government has an agreement with HTT to build
one of the super speed systems between New Delhi and Mumbai. The Hyperloop
engineers claim the travel time between the two major cities in India would be
reduced to 70 minutes instead of the current train trip of 18 hours.
Other countries have expressed interest in getting
Hyperloop systems inside their borders. The Czech Republic, and the United Arab
Emerits invited HTT to build prototype systems for them. Speed estimates
include cruising speeds of 650 mph to top speeds faster than the speed of sound
at an incredible 800 mph.
Hyperloop engineers claim that the capsules would run
completely silent inside the outer tubes. An electrical motor would provide the
acceleration and stopping methods of the pods that are designed to float inside
the outer shells.
Beach Pneumatic Transit |
A prototype for an underground transit system ran
underneath New York City from 1870 to 1873. The Beach Pneumatic Transit carrier
put passengers into a railroad-type vehicle that moved by an air propulsion
method similar to the Hyperloop. Up to 22 people were moved underneath Broadway
for about one city block when the vehicle stopped and reversed direction to
carry passengers back to the start of the tunnel.
Passengers paid 25 cents to ride the transit car one
city block and back. More than $7,000 was collected annually during the first
two years of the prototype’s operation. It was more a curiosity than a
practical way of transporting passengers, but the experiment proved the
validity of using air pressure to move people from one spot to another worked.
Alfred Ely Beach was the developer and chief inventor
of the transit system. He spent $350,000 of his own money to finance the
experiment. That equals $8.75 million in today’s dollars. Beach wanted to
increase the tunnel distance to five miles in the second phase of the transit
operation. However, public interest in the tunnel diminished during the third
year, and city government officials refused to raise tax money to fund the
project.
Developers of Hyperloop One and HTT keep speculating
that they will get a working system operational sometime before 2021. Their
optimism is farfetched since the basic ground work is in the infancy stage.
Officials have estimated costs would be somewhere from
200 million to 400 million per mile to construct the first Hyperloop. That’s
not more than a wild guess. The backers for Hyperloop One and HTT will have to
be wealthy nations to make the superfast transportation systems a reality.
Transportation of freight, goods and products is the
future of the Hyperloop. Passenger costs will be so expensive that only wealthy
citizens will travel at the supersonic speeds. That was found to be true during
the short-lived SST super airplanes that traveled at the speed of sound decades
ago.
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