Elon Musk is certainly full of great ideas, especially when it comes to transportation, and while he said he had no plans to use his own Hyperloop idea, he might be changing his mind. Also we may be starting to see just how this brainy billionaire’s seemingly random ideas will come together, especially SpaceX, the Hyperloop and the Boring Company he has been tweeting about recently.
And did Musk give us a glimpse of his tunnel under Los Angeles?
Minecraft pic.twitter.com/lU1YzJjLOZ
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 4, 2017
Elon Musk might combine SpaceX with the Hyperloop…
Musk initially published a white paper on the Hyperloop in 2013; it’s essentially a high-speed transit system consisting of pods and giant pneumatic tubes. He said then that he didn’t have time to develop it, what with his work at Tesla and SpaceX and involvement with SolarCity.
It didn’t take long for someone else to pick up the tech, and Hyperloop One is already constructing one in the United Arab Emirates and has plans to build others in other markets. In fact, Indian officials say they’re just waiting on regulatory approvals to start building one there. There have been proposals submitted for five passages in India.
But Elon Musk may not be entirely ceding the idea over to other companies, as his company SpaceX is already on the path of combining with the Hyperloop idea via a competition it held last month. Even though neither SpaceX nor Musk himself are currently involved with the transit system now, they wanted to help build excitement for it through the Hyperloop Pod Competition. Tech startups went head to head with colleges and universities, Redditors and even high schools in the competition.
SpaceX has stayed pretty much out of the focus throughout the competition, instead focusing it on the competitors and innovations that have come from it. So there is no direct link between the Hyperloop and SpaceX, other than Musk and the competition, but Twitter users have invented one in relation to last week’s tweeted photo. A few commented on his tweets suggesting that the transit system would be perfect for use on Mars.
@DavidLeeOrr @elonmusk Not random. Needed for Mars colonization.
— Knobby (@TonyRoma1992) February 4, 2017
@DavidLeeOrr @elonmusk Not random at all. This tech can be deeply developed here with direct application to Mars.
— Orpheus (@OrpheusofExIsle) February 4, 2017
Given the billionaire’s obsession with getting to the Red Planet, they could be on to something.
…And The Boring Company
And what if he could also use the tunnels he wants to build under Los Angeles to build his Hyperloop in? Last year when Musk first tweeted about the tunnels, most people wrote his comments off as just random ramblings and jokes. Then this year, he tweeted again about his tunnel idea and assigned a name to it: The Boring Company. He said he would start the tunnel in his office at SpaceX across from his desk and then just keep boring his way through until he created an easier path for traffic to reduce the headaches related to driving on the city’s busy freeways.
He tweeted again last week with a photo he tagged “Minecraft” (embedded above), and people were quick to conclude that it must be the start of his LA tunnels.
