SpaceX Is Building a Hyperloop Test Track Near Los Angeles (techcrunch.com)

An anonymous reader writes from a report via TechCrunch: SpaceX appears to be hard at work building its Hyperloop test track through Hawthorne, a city in southwestern Los Angeles County, California. TechCrunch reports: "SpaceX is hosting a Hyperloop Pod Design Competition for student and engineering teams, and 23 winners were selected earlier this year to build their pod prototypes and race them on the test track, a 1-mile tube capable of achieving 99.8 percent vacuum. Said track was photographed by reddit user 42finder this week (via Electrek). Pod testing would be a big step for Hyperloop technology. The two main companies competing to build the first operational Hyperloop systems, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies and Hyperloop One, have yet to create pod tests. HyperloopOne has begun construction on its own test track in the Nevada desert, of course, but the SpaceX project looks considerably further along. Back when SpaceX first announced the competition, the timing of the final round which includes the actual test of final prototype pods was set for Summer 2016, but in July SpaceX announced that would slip to January of next year."

Comments

Re:A vehicle travelling at thousands of mph ....

[Anonymous Coward]

A giant tinfoil bird, built to within a hair breadth of strength requirements, cruising in air too rarefied and cold to breath, tens of thousands of feet above the ocean with a couple of glorified leafblowers for engines.

Thanks but I'll stick to walking to go long distance.

Re:Is this Hyperloop or "Hyperloop"?

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

You really think that shipping people at supersonic speeds in a ground-based platform of vacuum tubes is ever going to happen? Given the engineering "issues" (lol, to put it mildly) and the delicious soft-target nature of this thing, I can tell you that it's 100% pie-in-the-sky.

Oh sure, they'll fuck around with it and burn through millions if not billions of sucker-bucks, but in reality it's never going to materialize.

See for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Cool idea for sure, but it's never going to happen.