A long line of tethered vacuum balloons could support a 'glideline', a cable carrying transport cars for freight or people.
INDICATIONS
Glidelines could be over land or sea, eg Perth-Sydney or Perth-Jakarta. Sea tethers could be to position-controlled buoys or anchors.
Glideline cars could be powered from solar energy collected from the balloons and/or power cables attached to the cables.
Freight cars would be automatically controlled with lower safety requirements than for manned vehicles.
Glideline cars might use linear electric motors for traction.
A maglev (magnetic levitation) approach would be possible.
Construction costs of glidelines would be much lower than for road or rail systems.
Glidelines could be anchored over difficult terrains, eg mountain ranges, jungles, icefields etc, possibly without ground contact by construction workers.
Development of devices and control software is possible here, with new approaches open to patenting or trade-secreting.
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