Construction of a Hyperloop Prototype has Started in Las Vegas
After years of development, Elon Musk's Hyperloop idea is finally coming to life. Many companies and institutions have been trying to make this idea a reality for years, and the pieces are starting to come together. Construction of DevLoop (development Hyperloop) has been started by a start-up company in Las Vegas to test the idea. The prototype will stretch 1.8 miles in the desert in North Las Vegas in Nevada and will be one of the first full-scale tests of the Hyperloop.
The idea for Hyperloop was introduced in 2013 by Elon Musk. Engineers from Tesla and SpaceX have been working on the transportation system since. The original idea was to create a tube that stretched about 350 miles from Las Vegas to the San Fransisco Bay Area. The tube would be able to transport cargo or people through the tube with an average velocity of 600 mph and a maximum velocity of 760 mph in about 35 minutes, half the time it takes a plane to travel that distance. Musk hopes that these tubes can be used to travel long distances in a fraction of the time around the world.
The idea for Hyperloop is fairly simple. A giant tube (or tubes) will be constructed that moves capsules through it. The environment inside the tube will be almost airless to create a vacuum effect. Airplanes are able to travel so fast because at high altitudes there is very little pressure resulting in less resistance. Similarly, the Hyperloop will use this low pressure environment to limit friction and increase speed dramatically. Magnets on the inner walls of the tube will create a magnetic field that levitates the capsule and propels it in the desired direction, once again decreasing friction with no contact to the floor and increasing speed using magnetic fields.
There are still problems engineers must overcome to make Hyperloop safe. The force of acceleration may be very hard to handle, a break in the vacuum could lead to major acceleration with no way of stopping, and earthquakes and other natural disasters could cause a little "bump" that could be life-threatening. Nevertheless, many are hard at work to solving these problems, and the DevLoop prototype is one more step to achieving the future of travel.
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