Elon Musk's Hyperloop design is seeing progress thanks to a group of UCLA students who have begun to put his plans in motion.

The design is a tube above or below ground that would accelerate vehicles upwards of 700 miles per hour on a cushion of low air pressure to avoid the unpleasant effects of gravity at that speed.

The team of students is funded by JumpStartFund, a crowd-sourcing website.

JumpStartFund CEO Dirk Ahlborn said the team is looking for the best routes but due to the obstacles of modern civilization, it won't be a completely smooth ride.

"We would love to see LA to San Francisco, but our primary goal is to build the Hyperloop," he said.

They are also looking in Europe and Asia and toying with the idea of mini-Hyperloops as public transportation for cities.

The capsules would be "bubbles" stacked on top of each other going opposite directions on air compressors so as to maintain the low pressure.

"I have almost no doubt that once we are finished, once we know how we are going to build and it makes economical sense, that we will get the funds," Ahlborn said.

The cost is projected to cost $6-10 billion for a 400-mile stretch of Hyperloop.

The project is a big one so several companies have signed on to partner in the project and operate under the name Hyperloop Transportation Technologies Inc.

"We feel that we're at the feasibility phase," said Dr. Marco Villa, one of the chief organizers. "We have proof that this could be done. But we have to get to 'how it can be done,' start tackling the big questions."

Musk was laughed at when he proposed the idea but now a very real transportation system may be coming to cities across the globe.

"The Hyperloop (or something similar) is, in my opinion, the right solution for the specific case of high-traffic city pairs that are less than about 1500 km or 900 miles apart," Musk said when he announced the design. "It would be great to have an alternative to flying or driving, but obviously only if it is actually better than flying or driving."

Ahlborn believes a final product can be built within the decade.