A California startup that wants to make Elon Musk's Hyperloop a reality believes the futuristic transportation system can be built safely, affordably, and used to connect cities across the United States.

All of this could happen within a decade, according to Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT).

A little over a year after launching a Kickstarter campaign for initial funding, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies on Friday released a 76-page report documenting its research into construction costs, technical specs, safety concerns, route selection, and other problems that will have to be solved to build a working Hyperloop.

The upshot is that the company's brain trust believes there are no unsolvable technical barriers to building a Hyperloop but remains concerned about convincing people it should be built, HTT co-founder and CEO Dirk Ahlborn told Mashable.

Indeed, at first blush, the Hyperloop seems like the stuff of science fiction rather than a practical, achievable project.

In August 2013, Musk, the co-founder of SpaceX and Tesla, proposed an ultra-high speed, tube-based transportation system using capsules propelled by electric compressor fans which he dubbed a Hyperloop. Passengers would travel at speeds approaching 800 miles per hour, making a trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles in just 30 minutes. Building that inaugural Hyperloop would cost just $6 billion, or significantly less than the high-speed rail project currently underway to connect the two California cities.

HTT Hyperloop Station/Credit: HTT

About six weeks after Musk revealed his Hyperloop idea, the crowd-funded project that would become Hyperloop Transportation Technologies was launched. The company, which had recruited Dr. Marco Villa, former director of mission operations at SpaceX, and Dr. Patricia Galloway, first woman president of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), incorporated in October 2013.

In the 15 months since kicking off their project, Ahlborn and his team have been busy figuring out how to build a Hyperloop that would be safe, cost-effective, and attract enough paying passengers to justify its construction. Contributors to the company's research included Ansys, a computer-aided systems modeling and simulation firm which has done its own independent study on the feasibility of the Hyperloop project.

Low prices, safe travels First, the good news for would-be Hyperloop travelers. HTT's "Official Crowdstorm" report posits that the price of a roundtrip ticket on the Hyperloop between San Francisco and Los Angeles should be kept to around $40-$60.

Keeping fares that low while achieving a return on investment for building and operating the transport system would require some clever assembly techniques and smart decision-making in selecting materials and design parameters. The report details several options for building the Hyperloop's tubes, capsules, and pylons in the most efficient, cost-effective way possible. One novel suggestion for "laying tube" along a Hyperloop route involves deploying a super-sized version of machines currently used to output small quantities of braided carbon fiber.

Here's a glance at what a potential national Hyperloop network would look like, according to HTT:

HTT Hyperloop U.S. Network/Credit: HTT

Though Musk initially argued that the SF-LA route could be built for just $6 billion, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies is now saying that $7 billion would be its low-end estimate, with construction potentially costing up to $16 billion.

The HTT report also suggests that working Hyperloop capsules wouldn't ever approach the speed of sound, instead topping out at 470 miles per hour.

That's still plenty fast and another big issue for builders of a Hyperloop is safety. HTT noted that a system capable of rapid pressurization adjustments would have to be devised to offset traumatic and potentially deadly decompression of the interior of a Hyperloop capsule in the event of a capsule decelerating rapidly.

"A possible method to make an emergency brake procedure in a fast and reliable way might be to use the Kantrowitz effect," the report states. "If air from the outside is allowed to come into the tube and equalize the pressure with the exterior, the capsule will suddenly have to go through and push a lot of air. At 300 [meters-per-second] the capsule will start compressing the air in front of it, working as a syringe head. If the pressure is allowed to rise above the sea level (for example closing some of the valves that initially opened to let the air in) the deceleration could possibly be more powerful. If the capsule´s area is not wide enough compared to the tube´s area, some spoilers could be deployed to help block the air in front of it."

Other areas of debate include some pretty fundamental decisions, such as whether to use magnetic levitation technology in the Hyperloop.

The HTT team also expressed concern over passenger comfort in the Hyperloop. Though modern travelers are used to being cooped up in airplanes for hours at a time, the researchers indicated that claustrophobia could be an issue for passengers in a small, windowless Hyperloop capsule making relatively short trips. This might be offset by simulating windows to the world outside with OLED television screens lining the walls, or some other means.

Oh, and fair warning to Hyperloop enthusiaststhere's a good chance there won't be bathrooms in the capsules because leaving your seat at any time during a trip will be "problematic" due to acceleration forces. According to the HTT report, you'll probably have to hold it in or use an emergency commode incorporated into your seat.

Sounds messy.

Check out the full Official Crowdstorm report from HTT here. If nothing else, there's plenty to think about.