Hyperloop Getting Help From Major Players To Make Tube Travel A Reality

Hyperloop, an alternative mode of transportation that focuses on taking the air out of an enormous tube and propelling what is essentially a hovercraft through it at 800 mils per hour, has been making headlines recently as many believe that it is a viable alternative to train transportation and will help shrink the world significantly.

"The feasibility is done. What we're working on now is moving toward conceptual design," said Patricia Galloway of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies Inc., a new company that she is spearheading. According to Fox News, the company has come out of secrecy to reveal what might not be a prototype for the futuristic form of transportation but more of an outline of what it will take to get from concept to reality.

If Hyperloop is successful, Hyperloop may someday replace the train and plane as the main form of transportation for getting around the world.

"It's similar to what the Concorde did for air transport," she told FoxNews.com, "This will revolutionize how we transport people from city to city."

Hyperloop, as detailed in an August white paper, the transportation concept by SpaceX and Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk is essentially a giant silver bullet shot down a massive tube at 800 miles per hour. This was called Hyperloop, it would entail sleek pods that travel within low-pressure tubes that are nearly completely devoid of air. The pods would hover on a cushion of air floating above thin skis of a custom metal alloy. The air is then sucked in through a front intake on the pod and would be compressed and ejected beneath to levitate it above the metal sleeve lining the tube.

Galloway is the first woman president of the American Society of Civil Engineers and a former member of the U.S. National Science Board. She has a big history of work on giant game-changing feats. She worked recently on a $6 billion project to expand the Panama Canal.

The project will be co-led by Marco Villa, former director of mission operations for SpaceX, who helped Musk jump-start the world's first and most successfully private spaceflight company.