In the Netherlands, there’s a big white tube next to some train tracks that could change how we travel. This tube is part of the new European Hyperloop Center that’s opening for testing a super-fast way of moving people and stuff around.
The hyperloop idea, which Elon Musk talked about before, is about sending pods floating on magnets fast—like 700 kilometers per hour fast—through tubes with hardly any air in them. People who like this idea say it’s better and quicker than planes, trains, or trucks, especially for short trips.
But even though Musk said hyperloop could zip you from Los Angeles to San Francisco in half an hour, it’s been slow to turn from cool drawings to something real. The director of the center, Sascha Lamme, thinks by 2030 there might be a small hyperloop track carrying passengers for short distances in places like Italy or India.
Not everyone thinks hyperloop is going to work, though. A professor named Robert Noland thinks the money could be better spent on improving the roads and bridges we already have. He says building hyperloop tracks is just too expensive.
But Lamme says the doubters should come and see the center. They’ve built a long test tube, and he thinks they can get the costs down to be on par with or cheaper than high-speed trains over the next ten years.
The tube they’ve built for testing is made of big sections and has a pump that takes out the air to let the hyperloop pod zip through without much air to slow it down.
Next month, they’re going to start testing a pod from a Dutch company that’s leading the way in hyperloop tech. The center got money from private investors, the local and national government, and the EU to make this happen.
One cool thing about their test tube is it has a “switch” that splits the tube in two, just like roads have exits. This switch is key for making a whole network where hyperloop pods could go to lots of different places.
Tests will keep going on, and now they just need governments to agree to build actual hyperloop tracks and more money to make bigger and better test tracks to show everyone how it can work.
