There is now a budding Hyperloop race after Elon Musk broached the idea in 57 pages white paper in August 2013. Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT), one of the groups vying to build the first of such a railway system, announced Thursday an important partnership with industry leaders along with a significant increase in its personnel.
The move is part of the company's target to break grounds and construct a test track beginning May 2016. This is a more concrete timetable than what was provided by Elon Musk's SpaceX, which also committed to build its own next year. A third group, which is composed of former SpaceX engineers, could also join the fray, according to Gizmodo.
HTT's announcement involved partnerships with AECOM, a global construction firm, Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum, a Pittsburgh-based manufacturer, and Hodgetts & Fung, an architectural firm. Each of these companies is expected to play important roles in the construction of the railway system. Oerlikon, for instance, makes vacuum technologies that are required to make the Hyperloop function.
"We contribute in delivering our extensive expertise, as well as the necessary calculations and technology to create and maintain the partial vacuum that is needed to reach such high speeds," Dr. Martin Fuellenbach, CEO of Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum, said in the HTT press statement.
The statement also revealed that HTT has expanded its personnel to more than 400 people, who will build an 8-kilometer track in Quay Valley, Calif.. These experts are contributing work within a crowdsourcing model, where their effort is in exchange for stock options, according to Wired.
While the Hyperloop is technically Musk's brainchild, he actually encouraged others to make it happen and said that he had no plans of patenting the idea, HNGN previously reported. The new transportation technology, which will shuttle passengers in low pressure tubes at the speed of sound, will supposedly become that "fifth mode" of transportation, trouncing planes, trains, vehicles and boats in both speed and function.
