Elon Musk, the incredibly successful South-African born CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX, has a handful of projects, one of which includes the development of a Hyperloop transit system capable of transporting people at near Mach 1 speeds (at 800 miles per hour).
The Hyperloop transit system would be capable of traveling from Los Angeles to San Francisco (approx. 385 miles) in slightly less than half an hour.
In a recent tweet Musk said that it could be a while before his Hyperloop dream becomes a reality. However he has already said that he will be opening a test track (likely in Texas) and has invited people to “test out their pods”.
On Thursday Musk posted a tweet saying that he will be “building a Hyperloop test track” and allow “companies and student teams” to test their prototype pods before the transit system’s launch.
He said that he is “also thinking of having an annual student Hyperloop pod racer competition, like Formula SAE”.
John Hansman, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT told Technology Review:
“It’s far-fetched … It would be enormously expensive. And I think there are a huge number of technical challenges with the vehicle. My questions aren’t could you do it, but could you do it in a way that makes sense from an energy efficiency standpoint and makes sense from an economic standpoint.”
Considering that Musk has been actively using Twitter to spread word of the latest developments, it should not be much longer before he posts more information on the Hyperloop transit project.