Inventor Elon Musk eyes plans for high-speed travel

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- It's fantastic, futuristic and maybe even feasible. Billionaire Elon Musk is looking to break the mold by proposing a new form of transportation.

Decades from now, the original sketches of this futuristic idea may be highly collectable. It all depends on whether the revolutionary transportation system they depict becomes reality.

"He has a fiscal ability, the insight and the tenacity to accomplish seemingly impossible tasks," said Rod Diridon of the Mineta Transportation Institute.

Monday, Musk proposed a mode of transportation called the Hyperloop to connect cities.

Aluminum pods would travel on small cushions of compressed air through tubes above ground, in a near vacuum, powered by electrical motors, solar panels and kinetic energy.

The pods would travel at hundreds, even thousands of miles per hour.

"It would actually feel a lot like being in an airplane. So it's, there'd be initial acceleration and once you're traveling at speed, you wouldn't notice the speed at all," said Musk.

It was Musk who developed PayPal, transitioned space flight to the commercial sector and, with his engineers, developed the Tesla electric car.

"What fascinating to me about Elon, is that he is typical of this new generation of hyper-entrepreneurs," said futurist Paul Saffo.

Musk said today that his system cannot be derailed and pods could leave every 30 seconds. He also plans to build a demonstration project. He did not say where.

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