hyperloop

If the 100 engineers working on the Hyperloop get their way, the hyperloop will be a reality in 10 years. (Image: HTT/JumpStartFund)

Remember the Hyperloop? That grand transportation proposal made way back in 2013 by a man who makes grand transportation proposals for a living – this one as a way to travel at 800 mph inside a tube above the ground?

In case anyone wrote off Elon Musk’s vision as a pipe dream, it’s being taken very seriously. A loosely assembled team of 100 highly qualified engineers is on the case to make the Hyperloop a reality, supported by a cadre of college students. And they say they expect their first prototype sometime in 2015.

Wired recently caught up with Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, a crowdfunded subsidiary of JumpStartFund, that’s dedicated to making the Hyperloop operational, possibly in 10 years.

hyperloop

How the hyperloop would pass through San Francisco, though many obstacles remain. (Image: HTT/JumpStartFund)

It’s not a real company, per se – the employees all have day jobs elsewhere and they work over email – but they’re organized and they say they’ve made major progress in some areas: capsule design, route, and how the stations would operate.

Also, the group says Musk’s cost estimate of $6 billion to $10 billion for a 400-mile stretch of hyperloop is looking accurate. “I have almost no doubt that once we are finished, once we know how we are going to build and it makes economical sense, that we will get the funds,” JumpStartFund CEO Dirk Ahlborn told Wired.

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hyperloop

(Image: HTT/JumpStartFund)

Regarding the route, the initial plans may or may not involve San Francisco to Los Angeles as Musk initially suggested. There are considerable logistical questions to consider, such as local politics and crossing bodies of water. But the UCLA students working on the plans imaging a crisscrossing set of routes across the U.S., and elsewhere in the world, Wired reported.

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The design of the cylindrical capsules looks as swanky and sleek as expected, with large windows. Passengers would enter the capsule, which then attaches to an outer shell as it’s loaded onto the tube.

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hyperloop

(Image: HTT/JumpStartFund)

And as always with travel, there are different classes of capsules in mind: economy and business, plus freight capsules.

While the team seems set on the design of the tubes, how exactly to move them is still a question. Wired reports they’re considering everything from a compressor to create a pocket of air under the capsule, to magnetic levitation.

The stations sound positively futuristic. Passengers would hand off their luggage to a Kiva robot, then step on a moving walkway for a security screening with an overhead metal detector.

For those concerned with the comfort of the tubes, HTT wants to keep them as straight as possible to avoid nausea-inducing g-forces. Said the CEO Ahlborn to Wired, “I don’t think it’s a barf ride.”

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