Hyperloop One: Where do we go from here?

In the time it took for me to realize that the grit I was chewing on was Nevada desert dust, Hyperloop One’s open air propulsion system test was done. 

It had taken far more time for company co-founder and executive chairman Shervin Pishevar to recite a favorite Teddy Roosevelt passage before the test than it had for the aluminum sled to speed up to 115 mph and then abruptly stop in a thrilling spray of sand. Even the three-second countdown that echoed from the grandstand speakers took longer.

Underwhelming? Sure. We’d traveled far from civilization, away from the cacophonous light show that is Las Vegas, past faceless, low-slung factories and unironic freight trains and through miles of beige landscape broken up by tufts of gray/green brush and prickly cacti to see this test. Frustration and, yes, even anger flickered behind my eyes. Yet the crowd around me was elated.  Read more...