Pune born Tanay Manjrekar has made history, as he has become the first Indian ever to ride inside a Hyperloop. Hyperloop is futuristic mode of transport. A power electronics specialist at Virgin Hyperloop, Manjrekar was member of the team that developed the hypersonic transport.
The Pune-born engineer was strapped inside a hyperloop pod deep in the Nevada desert and became one of the first few people ever to test out the futuristic mode of transport.
In the test ride, it only took 15 seconds for the pod to accelerate to 170 kmph, covering 400 metres.
Talking to Deccan Herald, he said, "The HyperLoop pod accelerated to 0.9Gs in 6.4 seconds before decelerating and stopping. The ride was very smooth. It was the most memorable 15 seconds of my life."
He added, "A lot of hard work and dedicated teamwork had gone into it. I was very excited to take the ride. Being a passenger, you don’t need to look like an astronaut. A passenger should not even feel the acceleration."
Hyperloop can attain hyper-sonic speeds of 600-700 kmph. Slated to be a global first, the Hyperloop concept aims to allow hypersonic transport via a pod moving inside a vacuum tube.
Richard Branson’s Virgin Hyperloop has completed the world’s first passenger ride on a hyperloop pod. Virgin Hyperloop executives – Josh Giegel, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, and Sara Luchian, Director of Passenger Experience, were the first people to ride on the superpod.