Hyperloop 
Alan Boyle, Science Editor
NBC News
2 hours ago
@BrentCouchman
Billionaire Elon Musk says he won't reveal his "alpha" version of the Hyperloop concept for high-speed travel until Aug. 12, but a couple of weeks ago, he said a plan laid out by John Gardi is the "closest I've seen anyone guess so far." This graphic by Brent Couchman is based on Gardi's "guess." For a larger version, go to http://bit.ly/hyper-graphic
Transportation policy experts are as anxious as anyone else to get the details about brainy billionaire Elon Musk's "Hyperloop" high-speed transit concept on Monday. But their enthusiasm is tempered by the fiscal and political realities that have held back high-speed rail and other transportation innovation for 50 years.
Even Musk admits that building the Hyperloop is too big of a challenge for him to take on right now.
Musk, who heads the?SpaceX rocket venture as well as the?Tesla electric-car company, says what he has in mind isn't a rail system. He calls the Hyperloop a "fifth mode" of transportation, distinct from planes, trains, automobiles and boats.
"It would work better than a high-speed rail, or a plane, between the right city pairs, like San Francisco and L.A., or New York-Boston,"?he told CNBC. A trip from S.F. to L.A. would take about a half-hour, which suggests an average speed in excess of 600 mph (900 kilometers per hour). Musk guessed that the system could be built for a tenth of the cost-per-mile associated with California's proposed?$68 billion high-speed rail system, which won't be nearly as high speed as Japan's. During May's?D11 Conference, he said the Hyperloop would be a "cross between a Concorde, a rail gun and an air hockey table."
Such grand projects have foundered in the United States, due to the expense of building new infrastructure and negotiating the rights of way, particularly in the country's urban centers. If America still relies on a rail transportation system that has more in common with the 19th century than the 21st century, it's not because the technology has been lacking. High-speed rail travel, in the form of Japan's Shinkansen system and France's TGV network, is closing in on its 50th anniversary.
Emil Frankel, a former transportation official who is now a visiting scholar at the Bipartisan Policy Center, says the vision of criss-crossing America with bullet trains just isn't realistic anymore.
"I just can't imagine that in a time when we have these huge annual deficits," he told NBC News. "It seems far better to make improvements in our existing systems. One would like our trains to travel faster than they did in the 19th century, and many of them don't."
What does Hyperloop look like?
Musk's Hyperloop hints sparked a lively guessing game among the entrepreneur's fans, who drew up "Futurama"-esque schemes to shoot capsules through elevated tubes, or push maglev cars through vacuum-sealed tunnels. The guessing game's current leader is a self-described "tinker" named John Gardi, who tweeted out a chart for a turbine-driven pneumatic system that uses magnetic linear accelerators to rev up the Hyperloop's vehicles.
"Your guess is the closest I've seen anyone guess so far," Musk told Gardi in a Twitter update.
With that encouragement, Gardi went on to write a detailed construction plan for his Hyperloop concept, published this week on the Motherboard blog. Gardi told NBC News that he wasn't responding to requests for interviews, and preferred to use his Motherboard posting and Twitter account as the vehicles for discussion.
Hyperloop oops? 'I shot myself in the foot'
Meanwhile, Musk's plan is still under wraps. He's expected to reveal the "alpha" version of his concept in a blog posting on Monday, and call attention to it in a Twitter announcement. He's also expected to take questions after the big reveal. But during a conference call to discuss Tesla Motors' earnings, Musk almost made it sound as if he regretted sparking the Hyperloop hype.
"I think I kinda shot myself in the foot by ever mentioning the Hyperloop, because I'm too strung out," he told investors Wednesday. "Obviously I have to focus on core Tesla business, and SpaceX business, and that's more than enough."
He said he'd have to leave it to others to execute the Hyperloop concept as an open-source project, although he might pursue the idea more actively if no one picked up on it during the next few years.
Hyperloop help: 'New ideas are good'
Whether it's the Hyperloop or high-speed rail, America needs something to beef up its transportation infrastructure, says Art Guzzetti, vice president of policy for the American Public Transportation Association. "We can't do it with airlines alone," he told NBC News.
The air vs. rail comparison seems to be an issue of perennial?debate, but the fact that the benefits and drawbacks continue to be debated suggests that there's room for another approach to regional transportation. Maybe the Hyperloop is that approach.
"New ideas are always coming up," Guzzetti said. "I'm someone who is very interested in all of this stuff. New ideas are good."
However, Guzzetti says new ideas shouldn't be used as an excuse for holding up the high-speed rail initiatives that are already chugging along.
"Transportation is a huge issue for the economy," he said. "We're behind on our investments, and it would certainly be a mistake to cause any delay just because new ideas are coming. There is progress. It's not always visible, but now we're building up a little bit of momentum. We're always open to new ideas, but you don't want to hold up on the progress we're already making on projects that are so clearly needed."
Update for 11 a.m. ET Aug. 8: It's worth noting that a pneumatic transit system isn't exactly a new idea. The concept was tested in New York in the 1870s, in the form of demonstration subway line designed by Scientific American's Alfred Ely Beach. "While frequently mentioned as an important early development in New York City's transit history, it was merely a curiosity," NYCSubway.org says in its history of early rapid transit in New York. "It is unclear that such a system could have been practical on a large scale. Smaller tube systems are used in buildings for mail delivery, but a rail-car sized system has never been developed. The perfection of electric multiple-unit traction and electric locomotives came about so quickly after this experiment that it wasn't deemed worthwhile to even try an expanded pneumatic system."
Update for 12:45 p.m. Aug. 8: Musk dropped some more hints about the Hyperloop during a Google+ Hangout on entrepreneurship, co-starring British billionaire Richard Branson:
- Vehicles would travel "effectively faster than the speed of sound," Musk said. He noted that in order to get from San Francisco to Los Angeles in a half-hour, the average speed would have to be about 700 mph (1,127 kilometers per hour).
- The Hyperloop concept "does involve a tube, but not a vacuum tube ... not frictionless, but very low friction."
- The system is optimized to link pairs of cities that are less than 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) away from each other. "Once you get to the 1,000-mile range, you should just take a supersonic plane," Musk said.
More about Elon Musk's far-out ideas:
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the?NBC News Science Facebook page, following?@b0yle on Twitter and adding?+Alan Boyle to your Google+ circles. To keep up with NBCNews.com's stories about science and space, sign up for the?Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out?"The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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