Elon Musk's Hyperloop One just cracked a big challenge: creating low-cost bendy tubes
Hyperloop One, a company working to make business magnate Elon Musk's magnetic tube travel dream a reality, has been making significant progress in the last few weeks, including a cost-softening "tube deformer." Could the pipe dream become pipe reality?
A Hyperloop is a theoretical high-speed transportation system in which capsules containing cargo -- and eventually passengers -- would be placed in reduced-pressure tubes and launched at almost 800mph. The speed would significantly reduce traveling time between US cities. Los Angeles to San Francisco (usually 5 hours), for example, would take a mere 36 minutes in the Hyperloop.
In just the past few weeks, Hyperloop One announced its first public test on a track in the Nevada desert, followed by a prototype pod and a new "tube deformer" revealed onInstagram on June 8.
During the test, conducted on May 11, 2016, Hyperloop claimed the sled propelled along the track reached a speed of almost 400mph along a very short distance. The prototype pod,unveiled shortly after the test run, on May 14, was constructed by MIT after winning a competition headed by Musk to find a design that could withstand traveling at almost the speed of sound.
The "tube deformer" may not sound as exciting as a pod at 400mph, but the machine offers a solution to a very practical question: cost. The company explains on Instagram that "[the tube deformer] enables us to reshape the tube ends so we can more easily weld them together." This goes some way towards addressing one of the major cost criticisms of the project by reducing construction and maintenance times.
Hyperloop One hopes that routes may even be operational as soon as 2019 for freight, with passenger tubes to be in use by 2021, according to an interview published by Engadget.