Elon Musk’s Hyperloops

A mock-up image of a Hyperloop.

On October 3rd a Hyperloop between St. Louis and Kansas city was announced. The proposed Hyperloop could get you between the two cities in 30 minutes, where a trip by plane would take 55 mins and a trip by car would be 3 ½ hours. You might be asking what is a Hyperloop?

A Hyperloop is a train levitating on magnets traveling through a vacuum at high speeds. This plan was originally suggested by Elon Musk. Elon Musk is a billionaire who made his fortune through web companies like Paypal. He’s now the CEO of companies such as SolarCity, Tesla, and SpaceX. Tesla makes self driving electric cars, a exciting field with the technology of the future. SpaceX is the first private space company and has the first landable rocket. SpaceX is also planning to send people to mars in the 2020’s.

Even with Elon Musk’s stellar track record, many still remain doubtful that Elon’s plans will work. Although, Elon Musk recently announced that he had verbal permission to build a Hyperloop between D.C and New York. Musk also announced that they had brought a pod up to 200 mph in the test track. While that is nowhere near the goal of 700 mph, it's a good start. The project is going well but there are still many hurdles to face and only time will tell if they can jump them.

Story by Franklin Bester-Sproul

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