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"Vacuum tube", aside from being a complete misnomer that's more usually applied to 'pneumatic tube', betrays the concept in one particular area:

It's a battery-powered hovercraft inside of a soft vacuum tube (soft vacuum being within reasonable reach of cheap pumps), with boost segments to get it up to speed.

Usually, vacuum concepts rely purely magnetic levitation & propulsion. The fact that it's an air cushion vehicle in a soft vacuum IS the novel concept here.




mapt, this. Maybe I should do the math, but I can't imagine magnetic levitation (not propulsion) running off on-board batteries.




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