Blue Ribbon Panel on Hyperloop Releases Report
Missouri’s Special Blue Ribbon Panel on Hyperloop (BRPH) released its final report during a news conference on the Francis Quadrangle Oct. 28. Missouri House Speaker Elijah Haahr created the panel in March following a feasibility study completed by engineering firms Black & Veatch and Olsson. The panel, comprised of public and private leaders across Missouri, was tasked with providing recommendations on how to make hyperloop a reality in Missouri.
College of Engineering Dean Elizabeth Loboa, a member of the Blue Ribbon panel, served as emcee of the news conference and noted that Missouri often has led the nation in transportation innovations.
“Missouri awarded the nation’s first contract to build an Interstate Highway – what we now know as I-44,” Loboa said. “Missouri also played a key role in the early stages of the U.S. space program when St. Louis’s McDonnell Douglas Aircraft company built the Mercury space capsules for NASA. Project Mercury—the first U.S. manned space mission—began in 1958, just two years after we awarded the first interstate highway contract. And Missouri is poised once again to lead the nation in transportation.”