Virgin Hyperloop Successfully Performed The First Human Travel Test

Virgin Hyperloop on Sunday successfully tested human travel in its high-speed levitating transport system for the first time ever.

The hyperloop pod transported two passengers — two of the company’s executives — in a nearly airless tube, reaching speeds of 107 mph (160 km/h) in 6.25 seconds.

The pod took 15 seconds to travel down Virgin’s DevLoop 500-metre test track in the desert outside Las Vegas, Nevada, where the company has previously run more than 400 tests without passengers.

The futuristic transportation uses magnetic levitation to lift the pod above the track and push it forward in a vacuum tube.

Virgin Hyperloop plans to build a network of vacuum tubes and levitating pods that can hurtle passengers at speeds of 600 mph.

A trip between New York and Washington in the final version of the hyperloop pod as planned would last just 30 minutes — twice as fast as a commercial jet flight and four times faster than a high-speed train, according to Reuters.