Billionaire Elon Musk has proposed he could transform transatlantic travel by building a £16 billion hypersonic underwater tunnel.
The idea of a ” Transatlantic Tunnel” has existed for a while. But developments in technology mean it may one day be possible.
Tech mogul Musk has championed vacuum tube technology. He once proposed sending capsules through a vacuum environment to reduce air resistance, the Mirror reports.
A flight from the UK to New York currently takes around eight hours. Trains powered by conventional technology running underneath the ocean would not be able to make the journey fast enough to justify the cost of construction.
The distance between the two global cities is more than 3,000 miles, and it would take years to build. The cost could be anything up to £15.5tn.
But Musk and others say vacuum tube technology could hold the key and make the concept viable. The multi-billionaire introduced the concept in a white paper in 2013, and has also been a proponent of the field, organising student competitions and founding The Boring Company, focused on tunnelling technology.
It would work by creating a vacuum within the tunnel and using pressurised vehicles.
Trains would not face any air resistance within the tunnel. In theory, they could reach far higher speeds than conventional trains. Capsules darting along the structure could theoretically reach speeds of more than 3,000 mph. If that was to happen then a journey between the two great cities would barely take an hour.
This design is sometimes called a “hyperloop”. It might seem like the stuff of fantasy sci-fi but the age of hyperloop technology might be closer than we think, reports Newsweek.
Trials of the technology are underway in India and China, with plans to integrate it into their high-speed rail systems nationwide.
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