科技狂人构造“超环路”

    抛开媒体炒作谈超环路（Hyperloop）是不可能的，这是特斯拉公司（Tesla）和Space X公司创始人兼首席执行官埃隆•穆斯克提出的前卫超高速交通系统。它是真的，如今有太多的新闻报道一直在谈超环路。而从本质上说，它只不过是一项被披露出来的计划，而且很有可能永远无法变成现实。不过，如果将重点放在媒体炒作上，可能就忽略了任何雄心壮志背后所蕴藏的力量，尤其这个雄心壮志是来自一位运营两家成功公司的人——一家公司的业务是向国际空间站（ISS）运送货物（运送对象很快会拓展到人），另一家公司制造了有史以来最畅销的电动跑车。

    埃伦•穆斯克公布了在钢制管道内使用铝制吊舱运载乘客的计划：人们将乘坐吊舱在双管猎枪一样的管道内以800英里的时速旅行。周一下午，穆斯克在接受《彭博商业周刊》（Bloomberg Businessweek）采访时表示，他还设想了一种运载汽车的吊舱：“只需要把车开上去，然后吊舱就会启程。”

    今年5月，穆斯克首次提到了超环路。当时，他将之形容为“协和飞机、磁轨炮以及空气曲棍球桌的结合体”。协和飞机的比喻似乎尤为贴切。这种超音速商用客机在1969年、也就是人类登月的那一年开始运载乘客。协和飞机只建造了20架，它们饱受系统故障的困扰，2003年——也就是在“9•11”事件造成乘客人数锐减以及2000年发生协和飞机坠毁事件之后——协和飞机停止了商业飞行。然而，想一想，那些在莱特兄弟首次成功飞行之前出生的乘客能够突破音障，在不到三小时内跨越大西洋，这是多么惊人的事情。

    去年的《财富》头脑风暴技术大会期间，风险资本家/好奇顽童彼得•泰尔将谷歌（Google）的埃里克•施密特以及所有胸无大志的人斥为懒惰的无梦者。他认为，那样我们会在重大技术飞跃中开历史的倒车。泰尔多次提到了协和飞机（这让人难为情，但这里应该不是特指，就是说全体协和飞机）。起初这个话题很有趣，然后变得奇怪和令人不安。协和飞机是否属于某种巨大的成就？它并不是一个非常出色的商业项目，它一直亏损，但乘坐协和飞机的消费者稀松平常就突破了音障。比之人们乘坐时速800英里的吊舱在旧金山和洛杉矶之间往返，更加奇怪的事情早已发生。（财富中文网）

    译者：王灿均  

    It is impossible to spell Hyperloop—Tesla (TSLA) and Space X founder and CEO Elon Musk's incredibly fast and extremely out-there transportation system—without hype. And it's true. There have been many, many, many news stories today about what, essentially, is nothing more than a revealed plan that may very well never see the light of day. But to focus on the hype misses the power behind any hugely ambitious idea. And, in particular, hugely ambitious ideas from a guy running two successful companies, one that delivers cargo (and soon, people) to the International Space Station and another that makes the best selling electric sports car of all time.

    So Elon Musk has released plans to transport people in aluminum pods in steel tubs: a double barrel shotgun where we travel in the shells, at 800 miles per hour. He told Bloomberg Businessweek this afternoon that he also envisions pod filled with cars: "You just drive on, and the pod departs."

    In May, when Musk first mentioned the Hyperloop, he described it as a "cross between a Concorde, a railgun, and an air hockey table." The comparison to Concorde seems especially apt. The supersonic commercial airliner began carrying passengers in 1969—the same year as the first lunar landing. Only 20 were built, they were riddled with system failures, and in 2003—after a sharp decline in passengers post-9/11 and a Concorde crash in 2000—the program was scrapped. Still, it's a staggering thing to consider that some of those passengers breaking the sound barrier and crossing the Atlantic in less than three hours had been born before the first flight at Kitty Hawk.

    Last year, at Fortune Brainstorm tech, venture capitalist/enfant terrible Peter Thiel took Eric Schmidt, Google, and basically anyone not dreaming-up hugely ambitious projects to task for being lazy non-dreamers. He thought we'd moved backwards, actually, in the scope of grand technological leaps. And Thiel kept mentioning Concorde. (It's awkward, but the styling is supposed to be without a definite article. Just: Concorde.) At first it was funny, then it was strange and uncomfortable. Was Concorde some huge achievement? It wasn't a good business, it broke all the time, but paying customers pretty routinely cracked the sound barrier. Stranger things have happened than a double barreled shotgun shooting folks between San Francisco and Los Angeles at 800 miles per hour.