First Passenger Journey Test Completed Through Virgin Hyperloop
Travel Pods in Vacuum Space Will Be Able To Travel 45 Miles within Four Minutes with More Than 100 mph Speed
The Virgin hyperloop has had a successful trial for the first time with human passengers, located in the desert of Nevada. The virgin hyperloop is basically a futuristic concept for transportation, in which pods are used for seating inside a long vacuum tube that allows fast convey for long-distance travel at high speeds without interruption. The first trial run took place on November 8, on Sunday afternoon, in a location just outside the city of Las Vegas.
First concept and development
In the recent test trial conducted in Nevada by two human passengers inside the virgin hyperloop, both being the employees at the company, they were able to travel the length of the 500-meter test track in the time duration of just 15 seconds, as the pod was able to reach the maximum speed of 107mph inside the airless tube.
However, the speed observed during the test trial conducted is only a fraction amount of what the ambition of the Virgin hyperloop is. The company is looking forward to increasing the transportation speed of the pod to 1,000 km/h, which would help save time for long-distance travel.
The concept for the virgin hyperloop was based on the proposal given by the founder of SpaceX and Tesla, Elon Musk, and later took several years in development to form it into a reality. Some critics previously described the concept of fast land transport as science fiction. The virgin hyperloop is based on the previously developed working on magnetic levitation, which has already provided the world with the fastest moving trains.
This concept is further innovated by moving travel pods in vacuum spaces, which would further enhance the speed.
The world record has been set by the Maglev train for being the fastest moving land transport when a Japanese model of the locomotive train was able to reach the maximum velocity of 374mph during a test run in the year 2015 near the Mouth Fuji.
The Virgin Hyperloop is an independent private firm that was founded in the year 2014. The company has received a large investment in 2017 from the Virgin group. This American-based transport technological firm has been previously known as Hyperloop One and Virgin Hyperloop One.
In 2018, during an interview with the boss of Virgin Hyperloop One, who had since left the company, stated that in theory, the high-speed achievement by the travel pods would be able to transport passengers from Gatwick airport to Heathrow airport located on the opposite side of London with at least 45 miles distance between them, in the time duration of just four minutes.
Travel experience
The Virgin hyperloop is the first concept provided regarding high-speed land travel for long-distance, and the Virgin group has become the first firm to ever develop high-speed pods with actual human passengers seated inside. The developing company’s director of customer experience, Sara Luchian, who was one of the passengers to have a live experience of the virgin hyperloop, described her first experience as thrilling both physically and psychologically.
Along with the director of the customer experience, the other individual able to obtain first-hand experience of the virgin hyperloop was the chief technology officer of the firm, Josh Giegel. During the test trial, both individuals wore simple jeans and fleeces, rather than wearing complete flight suits while on board.
According to Sara Luchian, the 15 seconds short journey through the 500 m tube was an overall smooth experience and was not like sitting on a roller coaster. However, the rapid acceleration of the virgin hyperloop pod was zippier than it would later be for long-distance travel.
Both the passengers did not experience any discomfort of nausea during the ride. Ms. Luchian also said that the speed of their pod was hampered due to the short length of the track available and the acceleration required.