ELI5: Future Travel

This is the second installment of the ELI5 series. Here, I basically explain you new technology and other stuff in simple stuff. In this article, we're going to discuss ​the Future of Transportation: The ideas and will they ever work?

The Hyperloop

The Hyperloop is a tube that would carry passengers in capsules that sit on a cushion of air, like the puck on an air hockey table. The capsule would get a push from powerful electromagnets, and then it would shoot through the tube with almost no friction. The tube could have stations like a subway, so people could get on and off at any time. The capsules would travel between 950 and 1,200 kph. That’s faster than most passenger jets fly. The people who dreamed up the Hyperloop say it could travel between Toronto and Montreal (or Calgary and Saskatoon) – about 600 km – in 35 minutes. Driving a car between these 2 cities takes about 5 ½hours today.

Will it ever work?

Maybe. No one has built a model, but this year engineers tested the new design with computers. They said the idea would work if they made some changes to the shape of the capsule. Some people believe the Hyperloop could be built within 7 to 10 years, but it would cost about $6 billion!

Flying Car

A flying car with folding wings and 2 propellers that allow it to take off like a helicopter has been designed by a company called Terrafugia. You wouldn’t need to be a pilot, because the computers would do all the flying for you! The vehicle would be able to land on almost any flat area – no airport required. Then you could drive it home and park it in your garage. On the road, the car would travel at normal speeds, but it would fly at about 320 kph. It would be able to fly as much as 800 km before stopping for fuel. That’s about the distance between Toronto and Québec City.

Will it ever work?

Terrafugia already built a flying car in 2009. (It was really more like a plane than a car, since you needed to be a licensed pilot to fly it.) The company says their new model should be ready in 3 to 10 years. Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) technology is what allows this type of car to exist, as the majority of homes do not have a runway. Of course, laws for safety and user licenses aren’t in place yet. But if you have $1.3 million, you can order one today.

Teleporter

A teleporter would move people at the speed of light: about 300,000 km per second. It would take only a fraction of a second to send someone all the way around the world. A trip to the Moon would take about 1.3 seconds, and you could get to Mars in less than 20 minutes! The characters in Star Trek could beam themselves from one place to another using a device they called a transporter. It turned a person’s body into energy, sent the energy to another location, and then rebuilt the body again. What if we could build a real transporter?

Will it ever work?

Not with people. Scientists have teleported particles of light, but no one has ever done it with anything that has mass. Someday it might be possible to teleport a few molecules, but probably nothing large. Teleporting isn’t really moving an object from one place to another: it’s more like destroying it and then rebuilding it somewhere else. Most people won’t want to travel that way!

If you haven't read the first article in this series, you can read it here: ELI5 - Exoplanets.