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Tech

Elon Musk Promises Hyperloop, the "Fifth Mode" of Transportation, Isn't Vaporware

It must be really fun to have his job.

When Elon Musk got tired of waiting for NASA to go to Mars, he said fuck it, and set out to do it himself. Now he’s doing the same thing with high-speed transportation.

I’m referring of course to the "Hyperloop," Musk’s grand vision for a brand new, supersonic mode of transportation that could zip you from Los Angeles to San Francisco in a half hour. At 380 miles apart, that's a speed of 1,200 miles per hour—twice as fast as a commercial airplane.

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Musk first publicly mulled the idea in July of last year in an interview with Pando Daily, and teased it again yesterday at the AllThingsD D11 conference. "We have planes, trains, automobiles and boats," Musk said last year (curiously leaving out space ships). "What if there was a fifth mode?"

At this point, no one knows what that mode is. Musk might not even know. But he’s certain it’s possible, which means he must have an idea of how. He’s dropped precious few hints, leaving science nerds to speculate wildly. Teleportation? Portkey? Last July, he promised a paper describing the technology, which has yet to appear.

Will publish something on the Hyperloop in about four weeks. Will forgo patents on the idea and just open source it. Not a vac tunnel btw.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 15, 2012

When asked last year if the Hyperloop was like the Jetson’s tunnel, Musk replied, “Yeah, something like that.” Now he's fueled the fire by describing the Hyperloop as "a cross between a Concorde, a rail gun, and an air hockey table." So what do you get when you cross a supersonic airplane, an electromagnetic launcher, and some air?

The internet’s leading theory is that it’s got to be some kind of pressurized tube (akin to old-school mailroom shoots), filled with air (so, not a vacuum), that uses maglev technology (magnets instead of wheels) to propel a container of humans through a tube or tunnel, perhaps in a constant loop between the two cities. Oh, and there are solar panels, because of course. There’s no end of this guy’s audacity.

Musk said the Hyperloop could store enough energy to run 24/7 without batteries. That type of inertia implies a lot of mass moving around, which venture capitalist Jacques Mattheij theorizes could be the people themselves. He writes in a highly cited blog post about the Hyperloop, "The air is pressurized by the combined motive force of all the carriages. The more carriages in the loop, the lower the energy budget per carriage. Carriages would be electrically propelled, mostly seal the tunnel walls and use maglev principles or something similar to reach their speed."

Engineers have been dreaming about high-speed "vactrains" for years, like the proposed Swissmetro rail that never came to pass, or this one they're working on in China. However Musk said the Hyperloop will not be kept in a vacuum—there will be air. So whatever he's got up his sleeve really could be revolutionary if he can pull it off.

I really hope he can; like so many others I've been lusting for a better way to travel between LA and SF. Folks have been talking about high-speed rail in California since the 80s, and now the one finally in the works is getting stuck in all kinds of bureaucratic mud. Musk gave the bullet train the delightful insult of “having the dubious distinction of being the slowest train and the most expensive per mile.” Surely he can do better. He thinks so: He says the Hyperloop by contrast, would be three to four times faster, cost less than any current travel option, and never crash. Really dude?

More details are coming at the end of June, hopefully with an official announcement that the project is underway. Until then, breathe easy: Musk said building this is absolutely possible. It must be really fun to have his job.