Elon Musk’s entrepreneurial endeavours are quite well known to us all, and the SpaceX and Tesla projects prove his mettle as a visionary, who wishes to leave this planet of ours in a better condition that he found it in.

His latest dream project promises to change the way we perceive transportation itself. First introduced as a “fifth mode of transportation, on” in 2012, Hyperloop could very well prove to be a game changer in the world of travelling. It is, as of now, a concept which promises to whisk commuters through a tube, at speeds in excess of 700 mph. The idea has increasingly developed with inventors and has found backing from investors too. When the plan does take concrete form, commuters can cover the distance from Edinburgh to London in mere 50 minutes.

However, what exactly is this project, Hyperloop?

Hyperloop is a proposed mode of transportation, which proposes to facilitate commuters by launching pods or containers through tunnels, that has been pumped to near-vacuum. Just as pucks travel across an air hockey table, similarly the pods would float using either magnetic levitation technology or air caster ‘skies’. With extremely low friction in the tunnel, the pods are hypothesized to travel at speeds reaching 760 mph. An electric motor would be used to launch the pods before it levitates in the tunnel and subsequently the pods can then glide at high speeds in a low-pressure environment. Tunnels would be built for the Hyperloop either above or below ground, but with just a 3m diameter they would take up a smaller ground print than traditional road and rail.

However, is this a new ground-breaking idea? In fact, the idea of travelling in vacuum tubes has been floating for around 100 years. But the genesis of the current idea for Hyperloop can be traced back to Elon Musk, the entrepreneur behind PayPal, Tesla and, SpaceX, in 2012.

At an event in California, Musk proposed the idea of a system of transport immune to weather, travelling at a speed twice more than an aeroplane and having low power consumption. He later described this technology as an intersecting point between railgun, a Concorde and, an air hockey table. In a paper released in 2013, written by Musk, he states that high-speed rail was too expensive and too slow. On the other hand, for a distance of 900 miles, the Hyperloop tunnel would be not only faster but more efficient in transporting both, people and transport.

Hyperloop’s design was made open source from the get-go and moreover Musk’s own commercial re-usable rocket venture, SpaceX would provide input in not only researching but also funding the idea. However, the manufacturing of the first Hyperloops will fall in the hands of private investors and entrepreneurs.

Now the question arises, who will actually develop the first Hyperloop? There have been many companies vying for the tag of being the creators of the first commercial Hyperloops and even more, competitions are taking place to develop the technology that completes the journey of this project into a reality. Running since 2015, there have been more than thousand entries to the design competition held by SpaceX, for teams to build and test pods which can be successfully used for Hyperloop. As of now the main contenders in the competition are Hyperloop Transportation Technologies and Hyperloop One.

Yet each and everyone wonders whether this idea will really see the light of the day? It may seem a bit far-fetched, but it seems Elon Musk has the Midas touch, as ventures backed by him have been successful so far. In 2017, Hyperloop One began some of its first tests on the new technology, firing its pod down a 500m track in Nevada which saw the module reach 70mph in 5.3 seconds.

If the developers can keep up with their schedule, you might be sitting on the Hyperloop sooner than you think.