text: is it possible to bore a hole through the earth to china? think about it.  we could travel from new york to shanghai for free!  imagine using gravity to simply fall halfway there.  (free)  then, at the center of the earth, there could be a giant bungee cord waiting to yank us up against gravity for the second half of the trip! (also free) i like the question.  some of the respondents seem rather hostile and unimaginitive, the kind of people who said the earth is flat, or "you will never go to the moon."    no human being knows what is at the core of the earth.  until you drill down through, you will never know.  yes, there is magma, but it could be a magma shell, not all the way through the core.  the argument will never cease until it is done.    with current technology, we know of no way to build a tunnel through a molten rock environment.  or perhaps there is a way, but it is very expensive.  so if someone has an idea on how to protect the tunnel with a forcefield or something weird, then it could be done.  maybe someday our technology will allow us to have better heat shielding.  if the space shuttle can come blazing through space at over 25,000 miles per hour and land on earth without becoming a burnt marshmallow, there must be at least some ideas of how to insulate a tunnel bore.