Hyperloop Technologies is one company that is bringing that vision to life here from Los Angeles.
Note that Hyperloop is the name of the technology, which is open source, and there are several companies working on Hyperloop technologies and implementation including Hyperloop Technologies, featured here, not to be confused with Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (a crowdsourced company), and there are others too. Wikipedia states, “Hyperloop technology has been explicitly open-sourced by Musk and SpaceX, and others have been encouraged to take the ideas and further develop them.”
You know those vacuum tubes the banks use to move your deposit from your car to the teller? Imagine you and several dozen of your closest friends in a tube like that travelling at over 1,200 kilometers per hour. If the original vision is enacted, it will take about 45 minutes to move from Los Angeles to New York. It’s the starting and stopping that takes time.
Hyperloop Technologies, one company that is making all of this a reality, is located in Los Angeles and continues to grow. What sounds like a bizarre visionary science fiction dream is quickly becoming a reality.
The concept is simple to conceive and monumental to execute. A tube running from one destination to another would have a pod that moves through a tube that has very little air in it. How the pod moves is a bit of mystery to me today, but many of the best engineers in the world are working on it.
SpaceX and Hyperloop Technologies are using contests to find the most innovative Hyperloop ideas. Along with spending millions in R&D they are offering massive awards for the most useful ideas that solve problems. For example, this competition for pod design.
Here’s what I think is most important about the Hyperloop overall:
-Elon Musk, Rob Lloyd, Shervin Pishevar, Brogan BamBrogan, and the team at Hyperloop Technologies, like Preston Tucker and Howard Hughes, are working on an innovative way to change transportation between cities. Like these legendary geniuses, they are taking an idea that already exists and improving it. Microsoft, Apple, and Walmart all did the same thing and have changed life on earth.
-Once this project is completed it will revolutionize our world. It will be another step in the move towards a future dreamt of by Isaac Asimov, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and Philip K. Dick, Thomas Edison, Watson and Crick, Albert Einstein. It is this thinking that got us to the moon, that is on its way to making people live for 200 years, and that made global communication instantaneous.
-It doesn’t matter if this project succeeds or not. That might seem strange, but the entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley recognize that failures are as important as successes.
“I have not failed 10,000 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 10,000 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.” - Thomas Edison.
-It might be apocryphal, but Henry Ford is alleged to have said,
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
Whether he actually said it or not, it is a great quote. Faster horses might be nice, but a flying train is what the world really needs. The beauty is a visionary mind had put this out there and other visionaries are running with it.
I am excited to see the Hyperloop become a reality. I expect it will run Los Angeles to Las Vegas first, then LA to San Francisco. Then imagine San Francisco to New York. Then maybe New York to London. While some say Europe will be first.
Brian Capossela, president of Cap Equity Locations and Cap Equity Realty, Los Angeles, shares:
“Situated in a once seedy part of downtown Los Angeles, Elon Musk’s Hyperloop implementation headquarters, Hyperloop Technologies. We have been playing an active role in LA’s Silicon Beach real estate and entertainment movement. It is way beyond tech meets digital media between…
Brian Capossela’s past client at Spirent Communications , Rob Lloyd (former President of Cisco Systems), announced last night (2/25/2016) that Hyperloop will be doing a Beta trial to solve the shipping challenges at the Port of Los Angeles. Imagine Hyperloop facilitating moving cargo from ships to an offshore island just beyond our ports. Worldwide challenges of gridlock and supply chain management will be transformed.”
Michele the Trainer (MTT), staff writer for Interesting Engineering. Engineering/freelance project manager, freelance chief, global program director, entrepreneur, keynote and motivational public speaker, podcast producer, podcast host, published author, blogger, innovative brainstormer, sought after reality barometer and successful business owner whose enthusiasm for wellness has also created further accomplishments as a fitness/health/wellness/life coaching expert. Michele is a concise and approachable communicator with a proven ability to work well internationally.