Elon Musk’s vision of a Hyperloop transport system that carries passengers in pressurized tubes at near-supersonic speeds is set to be demonstrated in a public test later today.
The Paypal founder and boss of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, outlined his futuristic idea in 2013 as a way of carrying passengers from Los Angeles to San Francisco in under 35 minutes.
He challenged innovators to bring the dream to life and Hyperloop Technologies, one of the startups that picked up the gauntlet, is hosting a ’sneak preview of the future of transportation technology’.
It will be showcased in a two-day event billed as involving a demonstration at a test site outside Las Vegas.
A series of tweets fired from the Twitter account @HyperloopTech teased ’big announcements you don’t want to miss’ and included a video snippet of construction in the desert.
A caption in the video clip heralded a ’milestone event’ that would be live-tweeted from Las Vegas beginning at Tuesday 5pm PDT (Wednesday 1am BST).
Late last year, Hyperloop chief executive Rob Lloyd said in an online post that the team was working toward a ’Kitty Hawk’ moment in 2016.
The post came with word of an agreement to use an industrial park in the city of North Las Vegas to conduct a Propulsion Open Air Test of the blazingly-fast rail system.
Lloyd described it at the time as a very important step on the way to realizing the full potential of Hyperloop Tech.
South Africa-born Musk has become one of America’s best-known innovators, having launched a payments company, electric carmaker Tesla Motors, SpaceX and SolarCity, which makes solar panels for homes and businesses.
He also operates his own foundation focusing on education, clean energy and children’s health.
In an article for Time, Musk told that his goal was to be ’involved in things that are going to make a significant difference to the future of humanity.’