Today, Elon Musk officially unveiled the alpha design for Hyperloop, a futuristic transport system that enables passengers to travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco under 30 minutes. Passengers would be aseated in aluminum pods that travel up to 800mph, following California’s Interstate 5 highway. Continue reading for more pictures and information.
The crafts would travel over air bearings, which Musk described as “the same basic principle as an air hockey table, which would allow them to travel at supersonic speeds with extremely low friction.
For acceleration, the Hyperloop would use a linear accelerator – essentially the railgun promised in Musk’s initial descriptions of the system, accelerating the pod through a traveling electromagnetic pulse. As the pod nears its destination, the process will be reversed, slowing the pod through the same electromagnets and absorbing the kinetic energy back into the system.
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