Who's going to do it?

This is prompted by the California train thing, it has the dubious distinction of being the slowest train and the most expensive per mile. What is the theoretically fastest way you could get from LA to San Francisco. This system I have in mind, how would you like something that can never crash, is immune to weather, it goes 3 or 4 times faster than the bullet train… it goes an average speed of twice what an aircraft would do. You would go from downtown LA to downtown San Francisco in under 30 minutes. It would cost you much less than an air ticket than any other mode of transport. I think we could actually make it self-powering if you put solar panels on it, you generate more power than you would consume in the system. There's a way to store the power so it would run 24/7 without using batteries. Yes, this is possible, absolutely.

If we could just invent Star Trek style "Beam Me Up" the world would be a better place.

Or was this article being serious? Seems science fictiony.

Elon didn't invent it, because they are actually considering something similar from NY to London: http://current.com/technology/89042567_plans-for-a-4-000mph-underwater-train-from-new-york-to-london.htm

As for being beamed up, they actually have a discovery in that too: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/mag-portals.html

Unfortunately, it's a one-way trip to the surface of the sun. Once we get the bugs ironed out, I will sign you up :)

This is fascinating -- I'm actually enthused about going on these high-speed trains.

I hope they get completed in the next decade or two.

this isn't new

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