In the month of August, 2013, Elon Musk introduced a new idea that could potentially revolutionize the future greatly. Elon Musk’s hyperloop idea would involve engineering a two-and-a-half ton pod that would be able run through a massive steel tube which would cover long distances. Once inside the tube, the pod would be able to reach incredible speeds of up to 760 mph. At these speeds, the hyperloop would be capable of traveling from Los Angeles to San Francisco in a little less than a half hour. The people and economies of those places where a Hyperloop would be built and/or run through would be drastically impacted. The idea of the hyperloop has been around since the late 1700s when inventor George Medhurst created a long, narrow tube that was able to transports goods and parcels using air pressure (Garfield). After that, more scientists attempted to transport goods, and people through pressurised tubes known as pneumatic tubes. Later on when Elon Musk introduced the hyperloop with a strong visual explained in a fifty seven page paper, people were able to paint a picture of what the hyperloop should look like, work like, and how it would impact our near future. Elon Musk's …show more content…
One Chinese company is planning to make a faster version of Elon Musk's Hyperloop that should reach speeds up to an estimated 2,485 miles per hour (Huang). This is a significant difference in speed compared to Elon Musk’s safer sounding 760 mph. Virgin Hyperloop One run by CEO Rob Lloyd, is another company that is striving to build a Hyperloop. Unlike the other companies, Virgin Hyperloop is focusing less on transporting humans, and more on transporting cargo. The company recently found a new chairman, Richard Branson, who is the founder of numerous other Virgin companies including airlines Virgin Atlantic and Virgin