Hyperloop could revolutionize transport – The Blade
APEX, Nev. — The most striking aspect of the testing facility for the potentially revolutionary, multibillion dollar Virgin Hyperloop One in the Mojave Desert is that it is made up of a series of Big Top Fabric Structures, a super-size version of a backyard party tent.
But the 40-acre site 29 miles outside of Las Vegas has everything engineers need to test the high-speed pod that runs inside a low-pressure tube: a 500-meter test track, which is about 1,600 feet; a mission control area about the size of a two-car garage, with 20 computer monitors and two large display screens; temperatures that can range from 10 to 127 degrees, sometimes with monsoon-type wind and rain, and several dozen tube sections about 11 feet in diameter, about 50 feet long and weighing about 58,000 pounds strewn about the site for crews to experiment with.
A break room with two large refrigeration coolers to store beverages — hydration is a big deal in the desert — a solar-powered guard station, and a picturesque mountain backdrop round out the site where Hyperloop’s engineers say transportation history is being made. It’s the type of history that in the middle of the next decade could have Pittsburghers traveling to Chicago in as little as 48 minutes almost whenever they want.