Full-Scale Track For Hyperloop Could Be Built Next Year
A full-scale track that would be used by the revolutionary transit system - Hyperloop - could be built by next year. Initially it will only run five miles around central California and it wont attain the promised speed of 800 mph.
"The idea is to build a five-mile track in Quay Valley, a planned community (itself a grandiose idea) that will be built from scratch on 7,500 acres of land around Interstate 5, midway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Construction of the hyperloop will be paid for with $100 million Hyperloop Transportation Technologies expects to raise through a direct public offering in the third quarter of this year," Wired reports.
Hyperloop is a conceptual high-speed transportation system, put forward by SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk. If the idea is converted into reality, passengers would traverse the 354-mile (570 km) route at an average speed of around 598 mph (962 km/h), with a top speed of 760 mph (1,220 km/h).
"It's not a test track," CEO Dirk Ahlborn said. Anyone can buy a ticket and climb aboard, but they won't see anything approaching 800 mph. Getting up to that mark requires about 100 miles of track, Ahlborn says, and "speed is not really what we want to test here." "This is a very natural step," Ahlborn added.
