May 12, 2016
By Marko della Cava
Las Vegas – The co-founders (click here) of a start-up aiming to upend earthbound transportation say they've had their Kitty Hawk moment.
Hyperloop One successfully demonstrated Wednesday one key part of how it plans to send people and cargo racing through cushioned tubes at nearly the speed of sound. This transportation alternative, its backers claim, could reduce the journey between Los Angeles and San Francisco to just 30 minutes.
“We are standing on hallowed ground for us,” said Shervin Pishevar, cofounder of Los Angeles-based Hyperloop One, which is among a few companies focused on the hyperloop technology.
What the gaggle of investors and journalists saw from metal risers planted in the desert north of Las Vegas was a lot more rudimentary than artists' rendering of the future, however.
Instead it was more a proof of concept, much like those first airborne moments shared by the Wright Brothers in their airplane.
A bare-metal sled — not a tube — rocketed down a track, with the sled elevated slightly by magnetic levitation technology. It accelerated at 2 g-force before hitting a patch of sand 100 yards down the line....
By Marko della Cava
Las Vegas – The co-founders (click here) of a start-up aiming to upend earthbound transportation say they've had their Kitty Hawk moment.
Hyperloop One successfully demonstrated Wednesday one key part of how it plans to send people and cargo racing through cushioned tubes at nearly the speed of sound. This transportation alternative, its backers claim, could reduce the journey between Los Angeles and San Francisco to just 30 minutes.
“We are standing on hallowed ground for us,” said Shervin Pishevar, cofounder of Los Angeles-based Hyperloop One, which is among a few companies focused on the hyperloop technology.
What the gaggle of investors and journalists saw from metal risers planted in the desert north of Las Vegas was a lot more rudimentary than artists' rendering of the future, however.
Instead it was more a proof of concept, much like those first airborne moments shared by the Wright Brothers in their airplane.
A bare-metal sled — not a tube — rocketed down a track, with the sled elevated slightly by magnetic levitation technology. It accelerated at 2 g-force before hitting a patch of sand 100 yards down the line....
