SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition
Major newsflash, SpaceX shows the Front Range of Colorado in latest information on the Hyperloop! Also, SpaceX will help build a wee test track!
Announcing the @SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition http://t.co/ZQHjHtkuAj https://t.co/AtCkkRnjHt
— Hyperloop (@Hyperloop) June 15, 2015
SpaceX/Tesla will also do a reference pod to be shown after the @Hyperloop competition. Bonus for all racing teams that exceed reference. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 15, 2015
To be clear, SpaceX is supporting a student design competition for STEM, not trying to build Hyperloop itself. Other cos are doing latter.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 15, 2015
THE OFFICIAL SPACEX HYPERLOOP POD COMPETITION
Since we first unveiled the idea for a new high-speed ground transport system called theHyperloop back in 2013, there has been a tremendous amount of interest in the concept. We are excited that a handful of private companies have chosen to pursue this effort.Neither SpaceX nor Elon Musk is affiliated with any Hyperloop companies. While we are not developing a commercial Hyperloop ourselves, we are interested in helping to accelerate development of a functional Hyperloop prototype.For this reason, SpaceX is announcing an open competition, geared towards university students and independent engineering teams, to design and build the best Hyperloop pod. To support this competition, SpaceX will construct a one-mile test track adjacent to our Hawthorne, California headquarters. Teams will be able to test their human-scale pods during a competition weekend at the track, currently targeted for June 2016. The knowledge gained here will continue to be open-sourced.
Break a pod!
The New York Times has more information:
SpaceX, Mr. Musk’s rocket launch company, has announced a competition to design passenger vehicles for the Hyperloop, a proposed high-speed ground transport system.
The competition is intended to appeal to both university students and independent engineering teams, according to SpaceX documents provided to The New York Times.
SpaceX also plans to construct a one-mile test track adjacent to its headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif., which will be used as a testing and competition area for contestants, with a planned start date of June 2016.
Major Financing Funneling Into Hyperloop Development Companies
Seems like California and Texas are beating Colorado in development of Hyperloop technologies and routes. Below is the earth shaking news as reported by Bruce Upbin of Forbes:
Hyperloop Is Real: Meet The Startups Selling Supersonic Travel
From startup to the speed of sound: Hyperloop Technologies CTO Brogan BamBrogan and Co-Chairman Shervin Pishevar
The majestic Senate majority leader suite in the U.S. Capitol was still Harry Reid’s in September when he eagerly scooched his leather chair across the Oriental rug to gaze at something that, he was told, would change transportation forever.Hyperloop Transportation Technologies CEO Dirk Ahlborn
Hyperloop Transportation Technologies CEO Dirk AhlbornA rendering of an undersea hyperloop tube. Hyperloop Tech is mulling the idea of a Pacific up the California coast (or even all the way to China).
A rendering of an undersea hyperloop tube. Hyperloop Tech is mulling the idea of a Pacific up the California coast (or even all the way to China).
Hyperloop Test Track to be Built in… Texas
Major new development from Elon Musk!
Will be building a Hyperloop test track for companies and student teams to test out their pods. Most likely in Texas.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 15, 2015
Also thinking of having an annual student Hyperloop pod racer competition, like Formula SAE http://t.co/HV9BLCoMb8
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 15, 2015
But why Texas, not Colorado?!?!
Car infrastructure or new Colorado Hyperloop?
Questions of whether we should build a Colorado Hyperloop shouldn’t be a zero sum game.
If you don’t know what zero sum means in game theory, look at this video by President Clinton.
So lets imagine a future different from the past. Cars will forever be around. Rail will always be around. Hyperloop will be new, but it will show our interdependence on the other forms of transportation. A hyperloop will reveal that we are interdependent to each other as well.
Colorado relates to this important higher level of thinking because CDOT will be embarking on some major infrastructure projects that will affect people. The 9News report below shows that interdependence of other transportation links are important, but more so are the people and lives that these projects change.
The reason why we must avoid the racist highways/transit projects that divided our cities for years goes back to what Clinton was saying in the above video. We have to believe in interdependence and we have to believe that we will be better off when we work together. Below is the report related article from the 9News article:
We need a higher level of feeling and thinking. The Colorado Hyperloop would enable people to go along the whole front range, fast, unfettered and at very low cost for the masses. This would relate to another Elon Musk possible project:
@Shmizer1 unfettered certainly and at very low cost
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 11, 2014
This post was provoked by a NYTimes, Mark Bittman op-ed section below:
Elon Musk Discusses Hyperloop at MIT

The MIT AeroAstro Centennial Symposium was where Elon Musk answered a question on the Hyperloop. The question was prompted by Elliot Owen, who built a working model of the hyperloop tube and pods (that can be seen below). The question can be seen in the link below, at the 01:02:00 mark:
http://webcast.amps.ms.mit.edu/fall2014/AeroAstro/index-Fri-PM.html
Here are some key points answered by Elon;
- He was asked by on whether temperature of the Hyperloop tube would be too high. Elon responded that the diameter of the hyperloop tube would be twice the diameter of the hyperloop pod, to allow air to flow around the pod. You dont want a tight fit.
- Inner part of the hyperloop tube must be smooth. So you might even have to run a grinder in the inside of the tube to smooth it out.
- The air-ski’s are spring when the pod is moving through the tube.
- Expansion of the tube, due to thermal differences, must happen at the terminals. Each pylon must also be allowed to stretch, and you can’t hard constrain it at the pylons.
So much more in the interview and questions, so just watch the whole interview. Below are Elliot Owen’s working model of the hyperloop & presentation.
High-Speed Rail Needs A Hyperloop and Less Baggage in America

High-speed rail has been in the news in that its not working. The New York Times states:
Fairly obvious, but we all know why high speed transport will eventually happen:
The only thing lacking right now is American political will. But The Denver Post picks up with a press pool report from Senator Bennet:
Seems like everyone is touting the relief that Rail/Hyperloop will bring. But don’t forget Buses!
Holding mobile townhall aboard @rfta bus today on the way to airport – what a great way to travel pic.twitter.com/Bc3yHLdZrF
— Michael Bennet (@SenBennetCO) August 5, 2014
But when it does happen will we have the necessary know how to build it? According to a NPR article on the Construction Industry Missing Key Tool: Skilled Workers, NPR explains:
…
The hyperloop can be different. Automation and robotics can be designed to install prefabricated modular units of the hyperloop.
According to Melonee Wise, the manual laborer of the future has only one arm and stands just three feet, two inches tall. Such are the vital statistics of UBR1, a $35,000 mobile robot unveiled today by Wise’s startup company Unbounded Robotics. Though robots have long been a part of manufacturing, they have traditionally worked in isolation. But in recent years, thanks to advances in hardware and software, new kinds of robot have begun to appear among human workers in factories and warehouses.
Lets end with a quote and substitute the Mars stuff for a hyperloop:
“To explore and settle Mars in the decades ahead isn’t inevitable, but its entirely possible.” @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/4MhRzrmY08 — SpaceUp Boston (@SpaceUPBoston) August 6, 2014
What Costs More than the Colorado Hyperloop? Lots of things!
First, Colorado Hyperloop has a new Facebook Page! It can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/coloradohyperloop
There is a great tumblr on what costs more than space exploration. The writers of the blog first pick a subject:
It’s impossible to say exactly how big the economic impact of the 2014 California Drought will be, but what is certain that it will be really, really expensive.
Then they compaire it to some type of space exploration:
Approximately eight days from now, the Global Precipitation Measurement Core Observatory (GPM, for short) will launch on board an H-IIA rocket from Tanegashima Space Center in Japan.
With that they contrast the difference of the two costs and how space exploration can minimize the cost of the chosen subject. I believe it is pretty effective.
However, since the hyperloop isn’t built yet, it is pretty hard to compare prices. But here is a comparison that can be found here by Brad Plumer:
And here’s the best part: Musk claims a Hyperloop would be ridiculously cheap, with tubes from San Francisco to Los Angeles costing just $6 billion or $7.5 billion (depending on whether the pods could transport cars). That’s just one-tenth the cost of California’s tumultuous high-speed rail project.
…
What’s more, even if the price tag did end up 200 percent higher than what Musk is promising, that might be still a bargain.
This is more just a general note of caution. Early cost estimates for big new transportation projects are almost always wrong — and, at least if history is anything to go by, that’s not something that better technology will necessarily solve.
Richard Branson insists he will be aboard first Virgin Galactic space flight
Richard Branson insists he will be aboard first Virgin Galactic space flight
Just like the first Hyperloop ride, I would probably be very nervous, Richard Branson and Elon Musk would probably go on that too.
New Space Tax Breaks Model for Hyperloop
The Colorado Business Journal’s Ed Sealover reports that aerospace industries are pushing for more tax breaks. The aptly titled “Colorado spacecraft tax break gets stratospheric support” reports a bit of the lobbying effort by a couple of companies mainly spearheaded by the “Metro Denver Economic Development Corp”. Ed writes:
California, Florida and Texas all have similar tax breaks to HB 1178, sponsored by House Speaker Mark Ferrandino, D-Denver and House Minority Leader Brian DelGrosso, R-Loveland — and are ahead of Colorado in their ability to store satellites and attract aerospace companies, several people testified.
…legislators spanning the spectrum from liberal to conservative all got behind the attempt to boost an industry that has been targeted by state and Denver-area leaders.
However, The Denver Post’s Kristen Painter reports on a very interesting political landscape:
The national aerospace landscape is shifting dramatically as a result of a number of factors, including federal budget constraints, which the state’s aerospace cluster has relied on heavily.
Colorado — which has long rested on its educated workforce, academic and research institutions, high quality of life and relatively low cost of living — is at risk of losing its place of aerospace dominance.
The state punches above its weight, employing the third-most aerospace-related workers, behind California and Florida but ahead of Texas and Arizona. Colorado is the only top-five aerospace state without a sales-and-use-tax exemption.
Kristen brings up a very important point. The Aerospace industry is already heavily subsidized and historically funded via federal government. Lean startups like the Colorado Hyperloop can’t act like a Space corp because there isn’t enough money. Thats why SpaceX has to radically cut R&D and launch costs just to even be in business. The hyperloop will need to follow the lean SpaceX model.
So with a proven space industry, and competition from other states that are incentivising New Space, Colorado seemingly needs to get in the “game.”
The bill includes the tax exemption for anything “QUALIFIED PROPERTY FOR USE IN SPACE FLIGHT”… now imagine if everything that says “Space” below could be changed for “Hyperloop”. I wonder if it could still get support:
(I) A SPACE VEHICLE AND ANY COMPONENT THEREOF;
13 (II) TANGIBLE PERSONAL PROPERTY TO BE PLACED OR USED
14 ABOARD A SPACE VEHICLE, REGARDLESS OF WHETHER SUCH PERSONAL
15 PROPERTY IS TO BE ULTIMATELY RETURNED TO THE STATE FOR
16 SUBSEQUENT USE, STORAGE, OR OTHER CONSUMPTION; AND
17 (III) FUEL OF A QUALITY THAT IS NOT ADAPTABLE FOR USE IN AN
18 ORDINARY MOTOR VEHICLE AND THAT IS PRODUCED, SOLD, AND USED
19 EXCLUSIVELY FOR SPACE FLIGHT.
20 (b) “SPACE FLIGHT” MEANS ANY FLIGHT DESIGNED FOR
21 SUBORBITAL, ORBITAL, OR INTERPLANETARY TRAVEL BY A SPACE VEHICLE.
22 (c) “SPACE VEHICLE” MEANS ANY TANGIBLE PERSONAL PROPERTY
23 THAT HAS SPACE FLIGHT CAPABILITY AND IS INTENDED FOR SPACE FLIGHT
24 AND INCLUDES, BUT IS NOT LIMITED TO, AN ORBITAL SPACE FACILITY,
25 SPACE PROPULSION SYSTEM, SATELLITE, OR SPACE STATION OF ANY KIND.
26 (3) THE TAX EXEMPTION ESTABLISHED BY THIS SECTION MAY NOT
27 BE DENIED TO A TAXPAYER BECAUSE OF A FAILURE, POSTPONEMENT,
-3- HB14-11781 DESTRUCTION, OR CANCELLATION OF A LAUNCH OF A SPACE VEHICLE.
Wouldnt it be nice to have the lobbying firepower of something like this for the hyperloop?
The Hyperloop lobbying strategy should probably model off of this effort.
Also, it’s kinda ironic that the bill has the following:
SECTION 4. Safety clause. The general assembly hereby finds,
4 determines, and declares that this act is necessary for the immediate
5 preservation of the public peace, health, and safety.
Spaceflight is a very dangerous! Surely the Hyperloop is necessary for the preservation of public peace, health and safety too!