Safety requirements for Hyperloop transportation systems: Applying NASA human spaceflight safety practices

Abstract

Hyperloop transportation systems represent an emerging technological frontier with the potential to revolutionize both passenger and freight transportation through high-speed rail transit. However, as is common with nascent technologies, there is no consensus on the best approach to design and operate these systems safely or on the appropriate level of safety integration. Consequently, industry stakeholders find themselves lacking clear regulatory guidance for this rapidly advancing field. Drawing from the wealth of safety expertise developed by NASA over the past several decades in the realm of space exploration, it becomes evident that this robust safety methodology can effectively address safety concerns within the Hyperloop concept. Moreover, it can lay the foundation for a potential certification process that regulatory agencies can adopt. Within this investigation, the safety case approach is applied to scrutinize the Hyperloop system, comparing it to the first published industry standard for Hyperloop systems. By employing this approach, space exploration experience from program development and successful operation as well as from lessons learned from anomaly investigations is leveraged to identify numerous hazards that are not properly addressed from the published standard. This underscores the need for a more comprehensive safety framework to ensure the secure development and operation of Hyperloop transportation systems.