Surely friction is an issue at much faster speeds? I guess the fastest trains go 400+ KPH, with the fastest being maglev. I assume, though can't tell from the a

Surely friction is an issue at much faster speeds? I guess the fastest trains go 400+ KPH, with the fastest being maglev. I assume, though can't tell from the article, that the space elevator has physical contact with the cable, and I can't think of how one could reproduce maglev tech when going vertically. So, there's surely a safe speed limit built into the materials being used? It's probably faster than the speed they're starting out with, but I kinda assume it can't be fast enough to shorten the trip to hours from days. As an aside, moving people is probably not the most profitable use of the thing for the foreseeable future, as cool as that sounds. Getting a satellite into orbit for a tenth the cost is revolutionary (though they mention the cost compared to the shuttle, which is much more expensive than rocket transport...so they may be cherry-picking numbers to make this seem more revolutionary than it is). Anyway, I can't think of how they could accelerate much beyond the fastest non-maglev train speeds without tearing apart the cable and car, but I may be underestimating the strength of carbon nanotubes, and whatever other component materials they're using. Perhaps there's a materials nerd here who knows.