Now, reports Fox News, the reins for the open-source plans have been taken by Patricia Galloway, who heads up Hyperloop Transportation Technologies Inc--a company aiming to put Musk's plans into reality. Together with former SpaceX mission operations director Marco Villa, Galloway wants to revolutionize ground transport in the same way Concorde did for air transport.
Hyperloop Transportation Technologies has already moved from feasibility studies, independently analyzed by ANSYS, to conceptual design. The company aims to have an updated whitepaper ready by March, detailing how a prototype would be built--and from there, an actual prototype could arrive before the end of 2014.
Galloway certainly has the engineering chops to drive such a project forward--she's previously worked on a Panama Canal expansion project, floodgates protecting the Italian city of Venice, and a $30 billion project to expand London's rail network.
That almost makes Hyperloop sound easy. Musk's brainchild uses long, slim pods to whisk passengers along at up to 800 mph on nothing but a cushion of air--drawn in through the front and propelled from the back of each pod. The network would have lower costs than California's proposed high-speed rail system, as the route would follow existing freeways on a pylon system. That also cuts down the cost of acquiring new land.
Musk himself won't play any part in Hyperloop, says Fox News--a spokeswoman for SpaceX confirming that he wishes the team well, but doesn't endorse the project. Now we just have to wait and see whether his vision will become reality.
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