Much like the pun in the headline, the bright idea of transporting people using some kind of vacuum-like tube is neither new nor imaginative. There was Robert Goddard, considered the "father of modern rocket propulsion", who claimed in 1909 that his vacuum system could suck passengers from Boston to New York at 1,200mph. And then there were Soviet plans for an amphibious monorail - mooted in 1934 - in which two long pods would start their journey attached to a metal track before flying off the end and slipping into the water like a two-fingered Kit Kat dropped into some tea. More recently, the Evacuated Tube Transport Technologies (ET3) system, patented in 1999, has visions of a 4,000mph trip from Beijing to New York. They say they have attracted many investors, but as yet there is no working prototype. So ever since inventor and entrepreneur Elon Musk hit the world's media with his plans for the Hyperloop, a healthy dose of scepticism has been in the air. "This is by no means a new idea," says Rod Muttram, formerly of Bombardier Transportation and Railtrack. "It has been previously suggested as a possible transatlantic transport system. The only novel feature I see is the proposal to put the tubes above existing roads." Read more http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23681266
