The World We Live In: Futuristic Traveling Tube

Could the Futuristic Traveling Tube Become a Reality?

by ReadWorks

Could the Futuristic Traveling Tube Become a Reality?

by ReadWorks

Imagine a tube that people could use to travel. First, they would get inside a small pod. Then, their pod would shoot through the tube. They would get to the place they wanted to go quickly.

This tube sounds like something in a science fiction movie. But, it may soon become real.

An inventor named Elon Musk is designing the traveling tube. Before, he worked on electric cars and personal space flight. He has called the tube a fifth kind of transportation. “We have planes, trains, automobiles, and boats,” he said. “What if there was a fifth mode? I have a name for it…the Hyperloop.”

Musk came up with the idea for the Hyperloop while thinking about the train that goes between Los Angeles and San Francisco. It is one of the slowest trains in the country. The Hyperloop would make traveling between big cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco faster. “You would go from downtown L. A. to downtown San Francisco in under 30 minutes,” Musk said.

According to Musk, the Hyperloop would be three or four times faster than a high-speed train. It would also be about twice as fast as a plane.

The Hyperloop would have other benefits as well. “This system I have in mind…can never crash,” Musk said. Weather would have no effect on it. Plus it would be cheap. Musk said it would cost less than “any other mode of transport.”

People using the Hyperloop would shoot around in pods. Each pod would be about six feet across. The pods would move through tubes above the ground or under water.

The Hyperloop could run all the time. It would let people travel whenever they wanted. They could just show up at a Hyperloop station and be sent on their way.

Musk also thinks the Hyperloop could get all the energy it needs from the sun. That would make it better for the environment than cars, planes, and trains.

The Hyperloop might someday be able to take people from one side of the United States to the other in less than an hour. That would make it faster than any other mode of transportation. Eventually, it might be able to take people around the world.

Musk is not the first person to try designing a tube for people to travel through. The idea has been around for some time, and not just in science fiction! People in China and other countries have been working on technology like the Hyperloop. If a traveling tube is built, it could change the way we travel forever.