Virgin Hyperloop by becoming the first company to successfully transport humans in a magnetically levitating pod, through a tube at over 160 kilometers per hour.- The test took place at Virgin
Hyperloop ’s DevLoop test track in the Nevada desert. - The first two passengers were the compay’s CTO, Josh Geigel, and Director of Passenger Experience Sara Luchian.
This makes Virgin Hyperloop the only company on the planet to have successfully tested this technology so far. And the company’s CTO, Josh Geigel, and Director of Passenger Experience Sara Luchian are officially the first two people to have experienced the new form of ultra-fast transportation.
“This is not like some crazy, newfangled science fiction invention,” Luchian told $4 in an interview several days before the test. “This is something that reminds me of a place that I’ve been and I’ve used many times, that I would feel comfortable putting grandma in and sending her on a visit somewhere.”
Humans on the hyperloop
The test took place at Virgin Hyperloop’s DevLoop test track in the Nevada desert. It’s 500 meters long and 3.3 meters in diameter. Before Geigel and Luchian’s trip, the company claims it conducted over 400 tests on the track before even considering putting humans in the tube.
“If it’s not safe enough for me, it’s not safe enough for anyone,” said Geigel.
Making history, both of them strapped themselves into the hyperloop pod, the pod was lowered onto the tracks, which then accelerated to 160 kmph and came to halt within the span of 15 seconds.
“It’ll be a bit short. We’ll get up to probably about 100 miles an hour, a little over, and we’ll accelerate, decelerate, and it’ll be smooth. We’re not astronauts, we’re just there — we’re sitting in it," Geigel explained ahead of the test.
However, this the hyperloop is meant to go even faster. The fastest record that the company has set till date, for trials that didn't involve humans, was 386 kmph.
The pod itself, the XP-2 Pegasus, is a scaled down version of the 28-seater that the company hopes to eventually roll out.
What is hyperloop?
Hyperloop is a new way of transportation. The aim is to make it faster than conventional methods but without being a burden on the environment.
Founded in 2014, Virgin Hyperloop based Elon Musk’s premise of levitating pods carrying humans through tubes at over 1,000 kmph. Musk’s ‘alpha paper’ dubbs hyperloop as the ‘fifth mode of transportation’
It proposes to carry both people and cargo at ulta-fast speeds but without any direct emissions. Which is significant, considering the number of cars, trucks and even planes are set to double by 2040.
Virgin Hyperloop, in specific, plans for passengers to book these trips on demand so that there is no wait time or delays.
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