Where Are the Terraspan 4000mph Vacuum Tube Trains?

 The transport technology is fundamentally based on the pneumatic tubes that once shot telegrams around buildings. I’m sure you’ve seen them on TV and in movies. You put a canister in the tube and it goes shooting off to its destination. This was a future view we had at one point for human transport and we still see in sci-fi programming today.

The real world application of this idea to transporting people around is two-fold: first, you need a vacuum tube. This eliminates all the air in the transport tube and, thus, all of the air resistance. This is easily one of the biggest forces that is preventing us from going faster, as demonstrated by our cars, trains, and planes. The second part of it would make use of existing magnetic levitation (mag-lev) technology, virtually eliminating all friction. Combined, Terraspan’s theoretical vacuum tube train could reach speeds of up to 4,000 mph. Better still, the tubes would double as a superconducting power lines, making for an transcontinent power grid that could redistribute power across the country.