The Hyperloop: Musk and the Open Source Train

On Friday, the most interesting idea in transportation is a machine that does not exist, and the man who invented it does not plan to build it. Elon Musk published the design for the Hyperloop this week, a system of capsules riding in low-pressure tubes at speeds above seven hundred miles per hour, and he gave the design away to the world as open source. The paper is the August 2013 story, and the story is the lesson: the most powerful way to change the world is to give the world the blueprint.

The Hyperloop is the subject of this article: what Musk proposed, why he proposed it, how the system would work, and what the open source decision says about the way big ideas become real. The white paper was released on Monday, August 12, and the reaction has been running ever since. This is the story of the Hyperloop, and the story is about the moment the future of transport became a document anyone could read.

1. The Paper

The paper was called "Hyperloop Alpha," and the name said everything: this was the first version, the alpha, the beginning of the design rather than the end. The document ran to fifty-eight pages, and it was published on the websites of Musk's two companies, Tesla and SpaceX, on Monday. The paper described the system in engineering detail: the tubes, the capsules, the propulsion, the economics, the safety. The paper was the idea made concrete, and the concreteness was the point.

The paper was also a dare. Musk did not ask for permission, and he did not wait for a government study, and he did not hire consultants. He designed the system himself, with the help of his engineers, and he published it for anyone to build. The paper was the answer to the question that every skeptic had asked: if the Hyperloop is so great, where is the design? The design was on the internet, and the internet was the audience.

2. The Vision

The vision behind the Hyperloop was the fifth mode of transport, and the naming was the ambition. Mankind had the train, the plane, the car, and the boat, and Musk argued that the world needed something new: a system fast enough to compete with short flights, cheap enough to compete with driving, and clean enough to matter in the age of climate change. The Hyperloop was designed for the distance of about three hundred and fifty miles, the distance where planes are too slow and trains are too slow and cars are too slow.

The vision was also a reaction to a specific failure: the California high speed rail project. The state was planning a rail line from Los Angeles to San Francisco, and the cost estimate had climbed to around sixty-eight billion dollars, and the project was moving at the speed of government. Musk argued that the Hyperloop could do the same trip in about thirty-five minutes for a fraction of the cost. The vision was the alternative, and the alternative was the argument.

3. The Design

The design was the substance of the paper, and the substance was serious engineering. The Hyperloop would use a tube with most of the air pumped out, a low-pressure environment that removed most of the drag that slows ordinary vehicles. The capsules would carry about twenty-eight passengers each, and they would ride on a cushion of air created by compressors, a system that Musk called an air bearing. Linear induction motors would accelerate the capsules, and the trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco would take about thirty-five minutes.

The design addressed the questions that skeptics would ask. The low pressure meant the capsules would face little resistance, and the air bearings meant no wheels to wear out, and the solar panels on the roof of the tube could make the system energy self-sufficient. The design even handled the safety questions: the capsules would be pressurized like airplane cabins, and the tube could be evacuated in sections if something went wrong. The design was the answer, and the answer was the paper.

4. The Price

The price was the part of the paper that made people pay attention, and the price was the disruption. Musk estimated the passenger version of the Hyperloop would cost about six billion dollars to build, a fraction of the sixty-eight billion dollar estimate for the California rail project. The tickets, he suggested, could cost about twenty dollars for the one-way trip, less than the price of a bus ticket for a journey that would take a fraction of the time.

The price was the argument against the status quo. The high speed rail project had become a symbol of cost overruns and political compromise, and the Hyperloop was the engineering answer to the political problem. Musk did not need to build the system to make the point: the paper showed that a cheaper, faster alternative existed on paper, and the existence of the alternative changed the conversation. The price was the challenge, and the challenge was the point.

5. The Open Source

The most surprising part of the announcement was the decision to give the design away, and the decision was the strategy. Musk said he was too busy with Tesla and SpaceX to build the Hyperloop himself, and instead of letting the idea die, he published it as open source. Anyone could take the design, improve it, and build it, and the only requirement was that the world get the benefit. The decision was the opposite of the usual corporate instinct to protect intellectual property.

The open source decision was also a lesson in how big ideas become real. Musk understood that the idea was bigger than one company, and that the fastest way to make it real was to invite the whole world to work on it. The paper asked for feedback, and the feedback was the beginning of the development. The engineers, the dreamers, and the entrepreneurs who read the paper would carry the idea forward. The open source was the gift, and the gift was the strategy.

6. The Reaction

The reaction to the paper was a mix of excitement and skepticism, and the mix was healthy. The dreamers saw the future: a world where cities were thirty-five minutes apart, where the hyperloop replaced the short flight, where transportation was clean and fast and cheap. The skeptics saw the problems: the cost estimates were optimistic, the air bearings were unproven, the regulatory challenges were enormous, and the paper was a design, not a working system. Both sides were right, and the rightness of both was the story.

The reaction also showed the power of the Musk brand. The same paper from an unknown engineer would have been ignored, and the paper from the man who had built SpaceX and Tesla was read around the world. The credibility was earned through years of doing the impossible, and the credibility made the idea possible. The reaction was the conversation, and the conversation was the beginning.

7. The Lesson

The lesson of the Hyperloop was about the power of publishing the future, and the power was the open source. Musk could have kept the design secret, and the design would have died with his attention; instead, he gave it to the world, and the world could carry it forward without him. The lesson was that the ideas that change the world are the ideas that are shared, and that the sharing is not a loss but a multiplication.

The lesson was also about the role of the alpha version. The paper did not pretend to be the final answer; it was the beginning, the first version, the invitation to improve. The engineers who criticized the details were doing exactly what the paper asked, and the criticism was the development. The lesson was that the best way to start a revolution is to publish the first draft and let the world write the rest. The lesson was the open source, and the open source was the future.

8. The Future

The future of the Hyperloop was uncertain, and the uncertainty was the honest part of the story. The paper was a design, and the distance from a design to a working system is the distance of years and billions of dollars. The skeptics were right that the details would need to be solved, and the dreamers were right that the idea deserved the attempt. The future would be written by the people who read the paper and decided to try.

The future was also the lesson in the making. The man who said he would not build the Hyperloop had planted the seed, and the seed was the paper that anyone could read. The company that built rockets and the company that built electric cars had given the world a third project, and the third project belonged to everyone. The Hyperloop is the August 2013 story, and the story is the lesson: the most powerful way to change the world is to give the world the blueprint. The blueprint is published, and the future is open. The engineers who read the paper this week are the beginning of the story, and the beginning is the point. The idea that was shared cannot be unshared, and the sharing is the permanence. The paper may never become a working system, and the paper has already changed the way the world thinks about transport, and the changing is the victory.

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