Speaker 1: Elon Musk says that he got a verbal agreement from
Speaker 1: the White House that would allow him to build an
Speaker 1: ultra fast underground transportation system between Washington, d C. And
Speaker 1: New York City. But is the hyperloof just height? I'm
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland, and this is tech Stuff Daily. Back in
Speaker 1: two thousand thirteen, Elon Musk published a white paper in
Speaker 1: which he proposed an alternative to the high speed rail
Speaker 1: system the government of California had just approved. Must found
Speaker 1: the approved system to be underwhelming, to say the least.
Speaker 1: He claimed it was one of the most expensive high
Speaker 1: speed systems on a per mile basis, while simultaneously being
Speaker 1: one of the slowest in the world. In his view,
Speaker 1: it was both too expensive and not effective. There had
Speaker 1: to be a better way. Musk's idea of a better
Speaker 1: way was a concept he called the hyper loop. Imagine
Speaker 1: an enclosed steel tube mounted on pylons. The tube forms
Speaker 1: a loop between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Inside the tube,
Speaker 1: passenger capsules carry twenty eight people at a time from
Speaker 1: one city to another, completing the journey in about half
Speaker 1: an hour. Compare that travel time to alternatives to drive
Speaker 1: your car between the two cities would take about five
Speaker 1: and a half hours. A flight would be a bit
Speaker 1: more than an hour, and a trip on this approved
Speaker 1: high speed rail system that California had been talking about
Speaker 1: would be two hours thirty eight minutes for cities that
Speaker 1: are about nine hundred miles apart or less. Musk says
Speaker 1: his design makes the most sense both from an economic
Speaker 1: standpoint and logistics approach. Any further apart than that, and
Speaker 1: Musk says supersonic air travel is likely more efficient, So
Speaker 1: you might not hop on a hyper loop train to
Speaker 1: go from Atlanta to San Diego, but you could go
Speaker 1: from Atlanta to St. Paul, Minnesota. Musk's design involved a
Speaker 1: special system of air bearings, sort of like what you'd
Speaker 1: find on an air hockey table, except in this case,
Speaker 1: the air blows down from the capsule, allowing the capsule
Speaker 1: to hover above the tube floor. A linear electric motor
Speaker 1: would provide the acceleration, allowing the capsule to travel faster
Speaker 1: than seven miles per hour at top speed. Air pumps
Speaker 1: would keep the air pressure inside the tube blow It
Speaker 1: wouldn't be a total vacuum, but it would reduce air
Speaker 1: density inside the tube to cut down on air resistance.
Speaker 1: A pump mounted to the front of each capsule would
Speaker 1: allow the pods to pull air in from in front
Speaker 1: of them and pump them into a compressor, which then
Speaker 1: would be used to power the air bearings. It was
Speaker 1: an interesting system. Since Musk's proposal, a few different companies
Speaker 1: have formed to try and bring it to reality. These
Speaker 1: companies take a slightly different approach in their designs, leaning
Speaker 1: more heavily on magnetic levitation and is shoeing the air
Speaker 1: bearings approach. Several cities around the world have signed preliminary
Speaker 1: agreements with these companies to build hyperloop transportation systems between them.
Speaker 1: Musk himself initially said that he was too busy to
Speaker 1: get into the hyper loop game directly and instead made
Speaker 1: his proposal an open source project. But these days Musk
Speaker 1: seems eager to give it a shot. He founded the
Speaker 1: Boring Company. It's an organization with one goal digging tunnels
Speaker 1: to create transportation systems. That brings us to this verbal
Speaker 1: agreement from the White House. Must wants to tunnel from
Speaker 1: DC to New York City and install a hyper loop
Speaker 1: transportation system to cut travel time down to half an hour.
Speaker 1: There are many other barriers in the way, of that goal.
Speaker 1: Some of them are technological, boring machines are pretty slow.
Speaker 1: Some are legislative, as there are plenty of other levels
Speaker 1: of government that would have to sign off on such
Speaker 1: a major project. But if he can do it, the
Speaker 1: outcome would be dramatic. Such a transportation system could transform
Speaker 1: how people live and work. Imagine living in one city
Speaker 1: and commuting to another hundreds of miles away, depending upon
Speaker 1: property values. You could save a lot of money that way.
Speaker 1: Why live in Brooklyn, where the cost of living is high.
Speaker 1: If you could have a home outside of Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: For much less and just commute in every day. It
Speaker 1: remains to be seen if the hyper loop projects will
Speaker 1: live up to all the expectation. Ideally, they will create economic,
Speaker 1: environmentally friendly alternatives to other means of transportation. They could
Speaker 1: transform our cities so that we start to see similar
Speaker 1: populations in cities that are hundreds of miles apart because
Speaker 1: of their ability to travel between them. Or it could
Speaker 1: all just end up falling short of where we hope
Speaker 1: they can go. To learn more about the history of
Speaker 1: the hyper loop concept and how it works, check out
Speaker 1: the tech Stuff podcast. In every episode, we dive into
Speaker 1: the stories and inner workings of technology. Whether it's particle
Speaker 1: accelerators or air conditioners, you're bound to learn something. Episodes
Speaker 1: published every Wednesday and Friday. That's all from me for now,
Speaker 1: See you next time. Won