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posted by martyb on Wednesday July 24 2019, @02:12AM   Printer-friendly

Elon Musk's vision for a futuristic form of transport has achieved a new milestone after a Hyperloop test pod hit a new top speed of 288mph (463kph) before it exploded.

At the 2019 edition of the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition, student teams launch their prototype pods through a 1.2 km vacuum tube beside the SpaceX headquarters in California.

Unfortunately for the winning team, their pod exploded shortly after reaching the top speed.

"We are happy to announce that we have reached a top speed of 463 km/h today," the team announced on Twitter.

"Although we lost some parts on the way, we were able to successful [sic] finish our run and are proud to be the winners of the 2019 SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition."

[...] After announcing the new speed record on Twitter, Mr Musk revealed that the 2020 edition of the Hyperloop competition will take place in a 10km vacuum tunnel "with a curve".

A longer test track should presumably lead to much faster speeds, while the curve will mean teams will have to prepare a pod that can cope with real-world routes.

Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/elon-musk-hyperloop-top-speed-record-virgin-hyperlooptt-a9015381.html


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday July 24 2019, @02:11PM (1 child)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday July 24 2019, @02:11PM (#870670) Journal

    i think the hyperloop is cool, but i'll put in a plug for slow travel. When you take the fast route, you miss most of the world. You come to think the world consists of a handful of places that increasingly look and feel alike. But then you don't get to see the rest of the many layers of history and meaning that govern reality. Ultimately it intensifies the feeling of alienation that people have already noticed in the context of social media.

    For example, we read brief passages in history books about Japanese-Americans being put into internment camps in WWII, but it doesn't really sink in because nobody knows where those places are--no interstate, airplane, or hyperloop goes, or ever will go, there. It's not until you stand at Manzanar in eastern California, on the doorstep of Death Valley, that the enormity dawns on you.

    Those are the moments you miss when you go too fast instead of the scenic route. Technologists prejudicially prefer the fast route because it requires tech, but it reduces the set of possible experiences to a pastiche of a handful of ones that are far less interesting than the whole.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
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  • (Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday July 24 2019, @06:29PM

    by ElizabethGreene (6748) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday July 24 2019, @06:29PM (#870804) Journal

    I love slow travel, specifically the little numbered state routes that predate the highway system. Specific case in point, I live one turn off of highway 41 in Tennessee, and I've worked one turn off of that same highway in both Wisconsin and Georgia. Driving it through the Chattanooga mountains in the fall is a 10/10 life experience. I've only driven about 20% of it, but one of my retirement goals is to see both ends of it.

    That said, sometimes the journey is less important than the destination, and I'm not going to complain about an alternative to air travel. That entire industry is in a chokehold of politics and big company tomfoolery that makes systemic improvements unlikely. If a train can get me there in the same amount of time as a plane* then I'm very interested.

    * That is the full amount of time including the 45 minute drive to the airport, 20 minutes waiting for the parking shuttle, 10 minutes on the shuttle, 30 minutes of security, 45 minutes boarding, an 10 minutes taxiing to the runway, a mile walk across an airport, 45 minutes of waiting and boarding, 10 minutes sitting in a queue to take off, 10 minutes waiting for a tug to drag the plane to a gate, another mile walk across the airport and out to the rideshare pickup. Ironically I don't mind the time spent actually flying. It's the between part that kills it.