Elon Musk Chooses Texas For 5 Mile Hyperloop Research Site

Now that the Detroit Auto Show is moving into the public showing phase, Tesla founder Elon Musk can focus on another project: the Hyperloop. In a series of tweets, he said he plans to build a five-mile test track in Texas to allow companies and student teams to use for testing.

In fact, the serial entrepreneur tweeted he’d like track to play host to a student competition similar to Formula SAE, where student teams form fictional companies and then design, build and test a Formula One-style race car.

The concept of the hyperloop is akin to what you’d see at bank drive-through lanes: put the container with your deposit into a tube and then a huge blast of compressed air moves it along into the bank.

Musk has described it as a cross between Concorde, a railgun and an air hockey table. Passengers sit in cars that are fired down the tube which had had most of its air removed. A system of magnets would accelerate and brake the capsules, and also keep them from touching the sides of the tube.

atc98092 - 1/16/2015 8:46:20 PM

+1 Boost

I don't see how 5 miles is long enough to accomplish must in the way of testing. Sure, the mag-lev can be tweaked, as well as ingress-egress, but there's no way to test any kind of acceleration in that short of a distance.

The speeds this system is designed for would probably take 10 miles or more to reach top speed, and then slowing to a stop would take as much. You can't subject the passengers to very much g-force, so there's no way to utilize the potential acceleration this might be capable of. Of course, unmanned tests could remove that limitation.

MDarringer - 1/16/2015 8:54:19 PM

-1 Boost

And the confidence swindle continues...

ParadoX - 1/17/2015 12:25:47 PM

+3 Boost

Tesla has been successful, SpaceX has been a success, this seems feasible technologically. I applaud the fact that Elon Musk is developing futuristic technologies. Somebody has to do it!