News: a company has been set up to work on and deliver Elon Musk's high-speed Hyperloop transport system, which uses magnets and fans to propel passenger capsules through a network of pipes.
Crowdfunding platform JumpStartFund has launched a new company dedicated to creating a final working prototype of the Hyperloop within ten years, and says it will take the system abroad if politics and red-tape get in the way of it being built in America.
JustStartFund's CEO Dirk Ahlborn said construction of the first prototype would begin in 2015, with the final working system to be in place "within the decade".
The concept was originally developed by Elon Musk, billionaire and founder of Paypal, electric-car firm Tesla Motors and space technology company SpaceX, as "the fifth mode of transportation".
Using magnets and fans to propel capsules floating on a cushion of air through a long pipe-like structure, Musk said his Hyperloop could be capable of speeds in excess of 700 miles per hour, potentially cutting travel times between Los Angeles and San Francisco to just 30 minutes.
Sitting in the capsules, passengers would be blasted through the 1.35-metre-wide tubes at speeds faster than commercial aeroplanes on routes designed to be as straight as possible so as to avoid the detrimental effects of high g-forces.
When the design was unveiled, Musk said studies had shown that the Hyperloop would be "both fast and inexpensive for people and goods". But critics were sceptical about the system's proposed route from Los Angeles to San Francisco.
Ahlborn says that his company's "primary goal is to build the Hyperloop", even if that means it isn't built in America as Elon Musk intended, and believes he the concept will attract significant funding once it has been proven to work.
Ahlborn told Wired: "I have no doubt that once we are finished, once we know how we are going to build and it makes economic sense, that we will get the funds."
Other ventures published on Dezeen by billionaire inventor and philanthropist Elon Musk include his car company's autonomous vehicle and his gesture-controlled software for designing 3D-printed rocket parts.