This is Startram, a proposed launch system that would use magnetic levitation trains, a 1000-mile tunnel, and a superconducting cable to reach low Earth orbit. Amazingly, we already have the technology to do it...at far less than the cost of rockets.
Gizmag has a great overviewof how Startram would work, but the basic idea is simple enough. Because maglev trains hover above their tracks and thus…