Remember when the coolest mode of transportation you could imagine was the plutonium-fueled DeLorean from Back to the Future? Well kids, now meet the Hyperloop. The first sketch of the much-buzzed about new high-speed transit system was unveiled yesterday by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, and she is a beauty. Elevated, solar-powered, and traveling nearly as fast as a speeding bullet, the Hyperloop may be as close as any of us get to actual teleportation in our lifetime.

"You want a transport system that is roughly twice as fast as the next best alternative, that costs less, that is safer, that is not subject to weather and is more convenient". Mr. Musk’s idea seems so simple, yet we seem no nearer to the hover boards or flying cars that the movies of our youth indicated were on the horizon. The Hyperloop, however, could be a giant leap forward in the way the world views public transportation. Comprised of sleek pods traveling within nearly airless, low-pressure tubes, it is proposed that passengers (and possibly even vehicles) could go from Los Angeles to San Francisco in only 30 minutes, travelling at up to 800 miles per hour. The tubes would transport passengers via a series of magnets controlling the acceleration and braking of the capsules, which Musk hopes could transport as many as 28 people per pod. Ideally, Musk proposes you could have roughly 70 pods between Los Angeles and San Francisco, leaving every 30 seconds, and even likened the commute to “a ride on Space Mountain at Disneyland”.

Aside from my own obvious delight at the idea of hurtling down an airless tube in a super sweet pod, travel aboard the Hyperloop does sound pleasant. Since it lacks the lateral acceleration of say, the subway, or the air needed to cause the turbulence associated with flying, motion sickness would be practically non-existent. Not to mention the convenience of the trip – no time spent on take-off or landing, and no grueling airport check-in and gate navigation. As for the price? Musk proposes that the Hyperloop could transport travelers across California faster than a bullet train at only a fraction of the cost. There has been ample speculation on what the actual total cost would be to build this high-speed transit tube of the future, but have faith that this is an area where Elon Musk knows his stuff. A co-founder of PayPal, Musk used the money he made selling the company to EBay to build Tesla Motors, a company which finally brought a distinguishable level of success to the electric car with the highest-performing and highest-rated all-electric car on the market. In 2002 he reached even farther with SpaceX, a company he founded to “revolutionize space technology”. A virtual “space travel for hire”, SpaceX designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft, and is the only company of its nature to work with the International Space Station.

The design for the Hyperloop is only in its theoretical phase and as of yet remains untested. However, judging by the amount of fanatic interest Elon’s open-source design plan has generated in the last 24 hours, I’d say it’s a safe bet to say that some of us may look forward to a ride in the Hyperloop by the end of our lifetimes.