Traveling at its absolute peak, that’s what Project “Hyperloop” is keen on doing. Imagine traveling from San Franciso to Los Angeles in just under 30 minutes. Isn’t that any commuter’s dream? The concept of the Hyperloop was introduced roughly two years ago when Elon Musk came up with a 60-page white paper for his dream transportation-unit. But what is the Hyperloop concept anyway?
The Hyperloop is basically a solar-powered, supersonic, levitating train. The transportation modules are encased inside a voided tube and the Maglev technology (already in use in high speed trains in Japan and China) is used to power and propel the modules. The encased, voided tunnels present with no air, and by having no friction, the train’s speed is drastically increased.
The Tesla Motors CEO stated in front of an audience in Texas yesterday that the state is the prime candidate for hosting the initial testing facility for the Hyperloop project. Elon Musk said for the Texas Tribune: “In order to kind of help things along, we’re going to create a Hyperloop test track, … Something that’s maybe on the order of a 5-mile loop.” That is some news indeed for Texas. Imagine to be remembered as the state where the Hyperloop was pioneered, quite the honor. The announcement for the Hyperloop testing grounds was made in the context in which Musk asked Texas lawmakers to permit Tesla to sell its cars directly to customers, instead of being sold through dealerships.
When Elon Musk drafted the Hyperloop project he stated that he had little time to deal with it, but invited other people to pitch in on the project if they desired. Many did so, roughly 100 in total. Enter Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT), the company that took the project up. The scheme they used to get things going is quite interesting. HTT started using the JumpStartFund, a crowdsourcing and crowfunding model, where the workers are not actually paid until the project turns out profit.
Many would think this as an aberration, but it is not so. The workers involved do not actually work for the company, but instead they hold jobs throughout the country in companies like Yahoo, Boeing, NASA, Space X, Airbus etc. The trick is that the ones involved in Project Hyperloop will lend the extra brain capacity they can spare in order to contribute to the design of the train modules. And that is not the end of it… the employees on the Hyperloop project had to apply for the job, unlike most crowdfunding services where the employer takes what he gets. Having the possibility to select applicants ensured Hyperloop Transportation Technologies a pool of highly skilled and talented workers. Also the reserve pool of the project is quite healthy in case employees get drafted away to other projects, which might be the case since they receive no payment during their work time.
We are looking at a revolution in transportation, a total shift towards new horizons. If Hyperloop Transportation Technologies will pull this off the world will have them to thank for making Science Fiction reality. We have our eyes set on the future, a brighter and cleaner one. Big props to Elon Musk for his generosity towards man-kind.