AZLoop at ASU: How about mass transit at 750 mph?
A large group of students at Arizona State University has been spending every Friday night trying to figure out how to get to from Phoenix to San Diego — in about half an hour.
Through a SpaceX competition, they’re working on a new form of proposed mass transit called “Hyperloop” that promises to hit speeds of up to 750 mph.
“Picture a plane without wings, called a pod, that resides in a steel tube,” said AZLoop team captain and project lead Lynne Nethken. “The idea is to bring down the pressure in the tube, near vacuum, significantly eliminating the atmospheric drag, allowing it to go much faster.”
The AZLoop team — more than 100 students from ASU (including Thunderbird School of Global Management), Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and Northern Arizona University — meets at ASU’s Polytechnic campus in Mesa in the hopes of creating a high-speed corridor across the Southwest. The students come from a range of majors that include mechanical engineering, robotics, physics, astrobiology, marketing and business management.
ASU has encouraged the effort by providing dedicated lab space and funding to purchase materials for prototyping. AZLoop has received grants through the Poly Undergraduate Student Government’s Student Fee Allocation Board, and the Print and Imaging Lab worked up a gratis banner and business cards.
https://asunow.asu.edu/20170221-arizona-impact-azloop-asu-how-about-mass-transit-750-mph
