Taipei, Taiwan – Imagine boarding a train that glides above the ground at supersonic speeds.
Speeding through an airless tube using powerful electro-magnets, passengers could travel from San Francisco to Los Angeles, London to Paris, or Basra to Baghdad in less than an hour.
The train would be potentially greener than existing modes of transportation, too, using electricity that could be drawn from renewable energy sources.
While it may sound like the stuff of science fiction, scientists and engineers in multiple countries are working on making the concept of the so-called hyperloop a reality.
Hyperloop proponents, who include tech billionaire Elon Musk, have announced a series of recent breakthroughs in progressing the technology, whose development has been plagued by commercial setbacks and doubts about its feasibility.
“Now we’re getting closer to making it a reality,” Jonas Kristiansen Nøland, an associate professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology who researches zero-emission propulsion systems, told media.
Last week, Netherlands-based hyperloop company Hardt announced its first successful test run of a vehicle at its European Hyperloop Centre in Veendam.
Hardt said its test vehicle traversed the first 90 metres (295 ft) of the 420-metre (1378-ft) long facility at about 30 kilometres per hour (19 miles per hour), and that it hopes to reach 100km/h (62 miles/h) in its next test scheduled for later this year.
In August, China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC), a Chinese state-run enterprise, reported that it had successfully propelled a prototype bullet train through a 2km (1.2-miles) long low-vacuum tube with “controlled navigation, stable suspension and safe stopping.”
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