Elon Musk's hyperloop transportation system comes closer to reality

Elon Musk's super-fast travel option, named the Hyperloop, could soon be available, it has been reported. Hyperloop Transportation Technologies was a company formed to design and eventually builds the fanciful transportation system envisioned by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

When Elon Musk unveiled his idea for the Hyperloop in August of 2013, no one seemed sure what the next step would be. The Tesla Motors and SpaceX CEO dropped a 57-page alpha white paper on them, noting he didn't really have the time to build a revolutionary transit system that would shoot pods full of people around the country in above-ground tubes at 800 mph.

Fortunately for futurists and people who enjoy picking apart complicated plans, an El Segundo, California-based startup has taken Musk up on his challenge to develop and build the Hyperloop. JumpStartFund combines elements of crowdfunding and crowd-sourcing, bringing money and ideas in from all over the place, to take ambitious ideas and move them toward reality.

CEO Dirk Ahlborn doesn't expect to have the technical feasibility study finished until mid-2015, but he decided to show off what his team has done so far to coincide with the midterm break of the design group at UCLA.

So far, the team has made progress in three main areas: the capsules, the stations, and the route.