Elon Musk just unleashed an idea that will destroy commute times in California. It’s called the Hyperloop, and it will connect San Francisco to LA via a steel tube, some magnets and pneumatic suction. For about $20, you can sit down in a cabin that has been likened to an airplane cabin, strap in and then rocket at up to 761 miles per hour towards your destination.
Sketches of the Hyperloop. Sciency!
What would have taken about five hours to drive, just got cut down to 30 minutes. Which means that all of those people who live in the outskirts of LA, sitting in that notorious, road rage inducing traffic, now have other options. Move. Far away if necessary.
This is what $2.7 billion Looks Like!
Elon Musk. This guy made Paypal. Then Tesla Motors. Then, because he was bored, he developed SpaceX, so that he could go up into orbit and see all the shit he owns from space. He’s worth $2.7 billion. That’s more money than 35.064 Oprah Winfreys, or about five and a half Jay Z’s. DAMN (All you Oprah minions know that she is actually worth $2.9 billion.)If this were the Matrix, he would he would be the architect. So, it is worth taking seriously.
It even has the nerve to be practical. The passenger capsules will be launched forward by solar powered electric conductors, and then coast on beds air. And it will only cost $6 billion to build. Compare that to California’s current idea, a high speed rail line that will cost about $70 billion to build. Or about 26 Elon Musks. (GASP!)
But… does this remind anyone else of Blaine the Mono, from Stephen King’s Dark Tower III, the Wastelands? Blaine was fast too. Fast enough to blow apart a mutant deer that wandered into it’s sonic wake. And although Blaine passed through a hellish, Dali-esque wasteland, it connected two cities that were on the verge of insanity, Lud (patterned on New York City), and… Topeka Kansas, which I’m sure is a mighty fine place.
Blaine the Mono… The Future of the Hyperloop
While the Hyperloop isn’t sentient, it’s only just a matter of time. This is, after all, Elon Musk. The other day, when my phone crashed, I brushed it across a picture of Musk and it reset itself. When the first AI emerges, it will look on Musk’s countenance and whisper, “Daddy?”
Will this happen? It’s definitely a strong Maybe. Though Musk has suggested that he isn’t going to follow up on this himself – it’s more of a gift than an enterprise – he has turned it over to a world full of open source geniuses. Someone will hammer it out. And, even if California passes on it, some other city will certainly look into it. The economics are just too strong.
The long awaited New York/Topeka line might be just around the corner. All aboard!