| No, it's not. There's also the Vactrain concept. Several variants were pursued from 1914 on, with Robert Salter of RAND writing a couple of proposals in the 1970s. The idea's not new, has been seriously explored previously, and has been rejected or failed on technical, cost, political, practical, and economic grounds. Some forms of local or highly-dedicated application, possibly. But for general use, no. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vactrain Salter, Robert M. (August 1972), The Very High Speed Transit System, RAND Corporation https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P4874.html Salter, Robert M. (February 1978), Trans-Planetary Subway Systems: A Burgeoning Capability, RAND Corporation https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P6092.html And, despite Musk's ability to prove me wrong, I'll stick with this projection for now. |
1. Announce Hyperloop to the world
2. Let someone else build it with tubes
3. Go to Mars
4. Use everything people have built - and went bankrupt - in the thin atmosphere on Mars with success without expensive tubes.
Now the SpaceX plans, the Mars plans and Hyperloop come together.