Sarah Son
In a call with Engadet prior to the test, representatives from Virgin Hyperloop told us that a great deal of attention has been paid to safety, given the level of possibility of provoking travel. Both walked out of the tube and showed different exit points and procedures so that should things fail, they could get out of the capsule. Hyperloop said the pair would be in constant contact with the company’s control desk throughout the test.
The pair traveled in a new, second-generation hyperloop pod, codenamed XP-2, “gas gas pod”. The XP-2 was built to comfortably seat and support two passengers. Both seats have a five-point harness, which you can find in a race car, but that’s the only change used for testing. This is because the pod was created to mirror the actual hyperloop trip in as many ways as possible, and the idea of real things is done like a subway ride rather than a rocket.
Thomas Yim / Virgin Hyperloop
To maintain a comfortable experience for acceleration and braking, the speed of the capsule in this test was limited to 107 miles per hour. That’s less than half of the top speed of the pod in the tube, which went off at a speed of 240 miles per hour during tests in late 2017. The length of this tube is mostly down: not as long as to reach 500 meters The kind of speed the company promises to reach. The second hyperloop facility is likely to show more speed when built in West Virginia.
“This is our lunar landing,” a company representative told Angadet. Demonstrating that the pod is safe for human consumption is a major milestone in its journey. It could also encourage more investors and regulators to go on board to assist Bankroll at a later stage in its development.
