Elon The Boring Company - Tunnel 2

[TrevorMonty]

So this afternoon, Heathrow to the BnB, 16 mile distance, but over an hour and a half by Tube.  Walk a bunch of tunnels to catch the Picadili line (lugging luggage of course) then 30 minutes to Earl's court, super crowded car, magnificent views of graffiti and piss, change over (more stairs), wait, another line for 20 minutes (less crowded but wet and muddy), then a 15 minute walk across the neighborhood since they can't route the tube to every house now can they.

That's not a solution.  I hate California rush hour as much as the next guy, and recognize the environmental impact, but public transport systems suck, even the good ones, and I don't care if steel wheels are more efficient than tires, this is just no way to live.

TBC is the only viable idea out there to give you the benefits of cars, but avoid the infrastructure limitations of roads.

... But yes, Mars. 

Some criticism towards the Las Vegas project is that it uses human drivers and fully.captive cars, but what it does rely on is cheap tunnel boring.  Which is exactly what's important for Mars.

The capability of a fully electric, self starting boring machine on Mars is so far beyond normal mission plans.

Even a 1 mile tunnel, just the first mile..

Swapping road for tunnel doesn't make car any better at transporting people. Using 1500-2000kg 5mx2m steel box on wheels to move 1-2 people is still a very inefficient use  of energy and valuable urban land.

Still can't bet humble bike for efficient personal transport and its modern successors ebikes and escooters.

[chopsticks]

And since London infrastructure has come up...

The diameter of the Las Vegas tunnels is about 12 ft inner diameter. The smallest London Underground tubes are this size or smaller. So if you can dig cheap tunnels this size, you can dig cheap (albeit small) underground rail systems this size.

Thus what really matters is not 'will people moving systems in individual cars' succeed, its 'can you dig cheap tunnels'? Because prior experience is that tunnelling is very much not cheap. Change that, and you can do a lot of different things.

Meh, not as much as they would lead you to believe. The majority of the cost when building underground metros is the stations. The expensive part isn't so much the tunnels themselves but how you interface that with the surface. And from what I understand, TBC wants stations everywhere and a lot of these stations wouldn't be space efficient at all since they want the cars to drive out onto the surface. That's a terrible land usage in a city. Not to mention all of the engineering and analysis needed for where they want to put the tunnels. For them to do what they say they want to do, and for all of the people stanning for TBC, they will essentially have to recreate the surface streets underground. Does that sound at all workable?

And for smaller tunnels being cheaper - from what I understand that hasn't really been the case historically. It sounds good on paper but it incurs other costs elsewhere. Remember that stations are the expensive part. I believe that some metros in more recent times have opted for large diameter tunnels and then stack the tracks, this also allows for cheaper stations to be built.

[meekGee]

So this afternoon, Heathrow to the BnB, 16 mile distance, but over an hour and a half by Tube.  Walk a bunch of tunnels to catch the Picadili line (lugging luggage of course) then 30 minutes to Earl's court, super crowded car, magnificent views of graffiti and piss, change over (more stairs), wait, another line for 20 minutes (less crowded but wet and muddy), then a 15 minute walk across the neighborhood since they can't route the tube to every house now can they.

That's not a solution.  I hate California rush hour as much as the next guy, and recognize the environmental impact, but public transport systems suck, even the good ones, and I don't care if steel wheels are more efficient than tires, this is just no way to live.

TBC is the only viable idea out there to give you the benefits of cars, but avoid the infrastructure limitations of roads.

... But yes, Mars. 

Some criticism towards the Las Vegas project is that it uses human drivers and fully.captive cars, but what it does rely on is cheap tunnel boring.  Which is exactly what's important for Mars.

The capability of a fully electric, self starting boring machine on Mars is so far beyond normal mission plans.

Even a 1 mile tunnel, just the first mile..

Swapping road for tunnel doesn't make car any better at transporting people. Using 1500-2000kg 5mx2m steel box on wheels to move 1-2 people is still a very inefficient use  of energy and valuable urban land.

Still can't bet humble bike for efficient personal transport and its modern successors ebikes and escooters.

Sure, but that's a narrow metric.

If everything else was the same, and it was just a bucket brigade exercise in moving the most people for least energy, or the most people per tunnel diameter, then rail will probably win.

But that's missing the bigger question, of how usable the system is, and in which environment, and when compared to which alternatives.

That's where the arguments are.  That TBC can provide integration with a much sparser suburbia, and provide better quality of ride, and support more modes of transportation - things that the narrow metrics miss.

Optimization of subsystems, or of narrow meteics, don't lead to better systems.

[TrevorMonty]

In some cases a car may seem like quicker way to get from A-B it not always best use of a persons time. There is a considerable expense to owning and operating a car. To cover those additional cost people have to work longer. Do some research into car ownership cost and you maybe shocked how many hours you work a week to pay for it.

[meekGee]

In some cases a car may seem like quicker way to get from A-B it not always best use of a persons time. There is a considerable expense to owning and operating a car. To cover those additional cost people have to work longer. Do some research into car ownership cost and you maybe shocked how many hours you work a week to pay for it.

Correct, which means it cuts both ways.  Don't argue for cars while using narrow metrics either.

The advantages of TBC are holistically, in how it can integrate with real lifestyles that are not fully urban or high density.

I never heard anyone saying that TBC will carry the day on cost per passenger-mile.

[Asteroza]

I suppose the argument could be made Boring Company tunnels with Tesla robotaxi's are the mundane singularity version of utopian pod PRT systems. Does it reach the "good enough" line, particularly in light of retrofit costs onto existing infrastructure?

Plus, if FSD gets to a usable stage, why the focus on classical cars as FSD robotaxis? If it fits and has FSD, why not other vehicle patterns? We've seen plenty of renders for bus-like systems and car loading skates, but why not so much of the reverse, like those hypercompact two seater EV's various companies have played around with (such as the Toyota i-Road and the GM PUMA).

[OTV Booster]

And since London infrastructure has come up...

The diameter of the Las Vegas tunnels is about 12 ft inner diameter. The smallest London Underground tubes are this size or smaller. So if you can dig cheap tunnels this size, you can dig cheap (albeit small) underground rail systems this size.

Thus what really matters is not 'will people moving systems in individual cars' succeed, its 'can you dig cheap tunnels'? Because prior experience is that tunnelling is very much not cheap. Change that, and you can do a lot of different things.

Meh, not as much as they would lead you to believe. The majority of the cost when building underground metros is the stations. The expensive part isn't so much the tunnels themselves but how you interface that with the surface. And from what I understand, TBC wants stations everywhere and a lot of these stations wouldn't be space efficient at all since they want the cars to drive out onto the surface. That's a terrible land usage in a city. Not to mention all of the engineering and analysis needed for where they want to put the tunnels. For them to do what they say they want to do, and for all of the people stanning for TBC, they will essentially have to recreate the surface streets underground. Does that sound at all workable?

And for smaller tunnels being cheaper - from what I understand that hasn't really been the case historically. It sounds good on paper but it incurs other costs elsewhere. Remember that stations are the expensive part. I believe that some metros in more recent times have opted for large diameter tunnels and then stack the tracks, this also allows for cheaper stations to be built.

Yup, stations are expensive. The Convention Center has three but AIUI the casinos will not. For the LVCC short haul pilot project terminals make sense. For an idealized, fully developed tunnel system limited to fully autonomous vehicles a terminal is not needed. In the meantime we're seeing a hybrid mix.


On the question of space efficiency of a near empty car, compare it to an empty or near empty bus. Been there, done that. If a bus route has low ridership during certain hours, eventually they trim back the number of runs and the potential onesy-twosy passengers are SOL. With autonomous cars, (let's ignore tunnels to keep the issues clear cut) this doesn't happen.


Another strength of autonomous cars under computer dispatch is the potential for ad hoc ride share. A group of passengers doing the same point to point run can do that now but there is currently no cab service that I am aware of that will make stops along the way for unrelated pickups and drop offs. This has the potential to increase passenger density per mile driven.


None of what I've written depends on tunnels. They're an open question. My conjecture is that like most things, every situation is different, and where it would work and where it won't requires learning. Las Vegas seems to be a good place to start. It's a new city and the physical infrastructure is literally shallow. An archeologist would not find layer upon layer. It's hellish place to bike or walk during the hot season, and much of the traffic is out of towners that have no interest in learning the local bus routes.


A big problem facing TBC, probably a major reason they haven't been able to get traction elsewhere, is that it's still an unknown and no city leader wants to stick their neck out on an inherently expensive and untried system. Politics being what it is, would not treat an elected official gently if there were even the perception that megabucks had been squandered on pie in the sky. If TBC does a good job on the larger Las Vegas loop this could change.


As for your assertion that people need to get away from cars, I half agree with you, but only half. Let's save that for another time.

[raketa]

Chris, the original post was started by me yeras ago, but you took it over. This is not right in my opinion

[CMac]

I'm in a city in China where, unusually for here, there isn't a good rail system. Roads are the only mode. There are a phenomenal number of e-scooters. ICE scooters are banned. Maybe 70% (WAG) of transport is by scooter. I could envisage autonomous scooters able to travel in shoals, with individuals splitting and joining along the way. This is what they do now with human drivers. If they could get in tunnels, they would, enthusiastically. You could imagine a lift with 20 scooters going down to join the flow.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Ok, that really is enough posts on the World’s transport systems. NSF isn’t an urban planning or mass transit system forum.

This thread covers TBC’s tunnelling tech, progress and potential off-world use. If we can’t keep to that then the thread will just be permanently locked.

[meekGee]

Ok, that really is enough posts on the World’s transport systems. NSF isn’t an urban planning or mass transit system forum.

This thread covers TBC’s tunnelling tech, progress and potential off-world use. If we can’t keep to that then the thread will just be permanently locked.

Agreed.  Mea Culpa.

[Greg Hullender]

I didn't read the original thread, but the top of a new thread is probably a great place to ask "dumb" questions, so please be kind. :-)

Is the Boring Company really relevant to Mars or the moon at all? Don't these drilling machines consume huge amounts of water? I'd think a tunnel-boring machine for use on the moon or Mars would be a totally different technology.

Also, exactly how much tunneling is needed in either place over, say, the next 100 years? Is there really a use case for a tunnel other than to build a habitat that's protected from radiation? Wouldn't it be simpler and cheaper just to bury the habitat in a meter or two of regolith? Even if you had to design a Martian/Lunar bulldozer, it'd seem that'd be a whole lot cheaper than a tunnel boring machine.

[meekGee]

I didn't read the original thread, but the top of a new thread is probably a great place to ask "dumb" questions, so please be kind. :-)

Is the Boring Company really relevant to Mars or the moon at all? Don't these drilling machines consume huge amounts of water? I'd think a tunnel-boring machine for use on the moon or Mars would be a totally different technology.

Also, exactly how much tunneling is needed in either place over, say, the next 100 years? Is there really a use case for a tunnel other than to build a habitat that's protected from radiation? Wouldn't it be simpler and cheaper just to bury the habitat in a meter or two of regolith? Even if you had to design a Martian/Lunar bulldozer, it'd seem that'd be a whole lot cheaper than a tunnel boring machine.

Some of us think they're very relevant.

Burying a habitat requires you to bring it.

Tunneling is the ultimate ISRU habitat construction technique.

The moon might be too dry, I'm not sure, but the moon is not the goal - Mars is.

If you can get your machine underground and install an airlock behind it, you can keep drilling under full pressure.  That's just miles ahead of any other construction technique.  (Miles, get it?)

[OTV Booster]

I didn't read the original thread, but the top of a new thread is probably a great place to ask "dumb" questions, so please be kind. :-)

Is the Boring Company really relevant to Mars or the moon at all? Don't these drilling machines consume huge amounts of water? I'd think a tunnel-boring machine for use on the moon or Mars would be a totally different technology.

Also, exactly how much tunneling is needed in either place over, say, the next 100 years? Is there really a use case for a tunnel other than to build a habitat that's protected from radiation? Wouldn't it be simpler and cheaper just to bury the habitat in a meter or two of regolith? Even if you had to design a Martian/Lunar bulldozer, it'd seem that'd be a whole lot cheaper than a tunnel boring machine.

Some of us think they're very relevant.

Burying a habitat requires you to bring it.

Tunneling is the ultimate ISRU habitat construction technique.

The moon might be too dry, I'm not sure, but the moon is not the goal - Mars is.

If you can get your machine underground and install an airlock behind it, you can keep drilling under full pressure.  That's just miles ahead of any other construction technique.  (Miles, get it?)

To pressurize the tunnel while boring, the walls would have to be pressure sealed behind the cutting head. Not impossible. But how is the fresh cut sealed while it's being made?


Also, it's easy enough to say that the mass of regolith outside the bore hole would counter the interior pressure and prevent a blowout. This might be true if the regolith is uniform but what if you hit an ice pocket or some other surprise that Mars will most likely offer up? The unpressurized tunnels on earth are in compression and the masonry cladding is fine with this. A pressurized Mars bore would be in (hopefully) uniform compression from regolith minus the internal pressure.


I can think of a couple tentative solutions for the tension issue and can think of some reasons they may not be adequate. I can not  see how to get around the unsealed cutting face.


Takeaway: boring while pressurized will probably be a lot more trouble than cut and fill. If they can come up with an unpressurized water substitute to cool the cutting bits and carry away the grit, it could work, but not for the relatively small amount of hab they will need for the first few synods. Too much investment for too little return.

[meekGee]

I didn't read the original thread, but the top of a new thread is probably a great place to ask "dumb" questions, so please be kind. :-)

Is the Boring Company really relevant to Mars or the moon at all? Don't these drilling machines consume huge amounts of water? I'd think a tunnel-boring machine for use on the moon or Mars would be a totally different technology.

Also, exactly how much tunneling is needed in either place over, say, the next 100 years? Is there really a use case for a tunnel other than to build a habitat that's protected from radiation? Wouldn't it be simpler and cheaper just to bury the habitat in a meter or two of regolith? Even if you had to design a Martian/Lunar bulldozer, it'd seem that'd be a whole lot cheaper than a tunnel boring machine.

Some of us think they're very relevant.

Burying a habitat requires you to bring it.

Tunneling is the ultimate ISRU habitat construction technique.

The moon might be too dry, I'm not sure, but the moon is not the goal - Mars is.

If you can get your machine underground and install an airlock behind it, you can keep drilling under full pressure.  That's just miles ahead of any other construction technique.  (Miles, get it?)

To pressurize the tunnel while boring, the walls would have to be pressure sealed behind the cutting head. Not impossible. But how is the fresh cut sealed while it's being made?


Also, it's easy enough to say that the mass of regolith outside the bore hole would counter the interior pressure and prevent a blowout. This might be true if the regolith is uniform but what if you hit an ice pocket or some other surprise that Mars will most likely offer up? The unpressurized tunnels on earth are in compression and the masonry cladding is fine with this. A pressurized Mars bore would be in (hopefully) uniform compression from regolith minus the internal pressure.


I can think of a couple tentative solutions for the tension issue and can think of some reasons they may not be adequate. I can not  see how to get around the unsealed cutting face.


Takeaway: boring while pressurized will probably be a lot more trouble than cut and fill. If they can come up with an unpressurized water substitute to cool the cutting bits and carry away the grit, it could work, but not for the relatively small amount of hab they will need for the first few synods. Too much investment for too little return.

IMO:

They'll want to drill into a hillside. Very quickly the walls and ceiling are thick enough that pressure is not an issue.  Specific cracks can be sealed. If rock porosity is an issue, maybe a surface sealant.  It really depends on the geology, but structurally it should be fine.

The tunnel should have a shallow upward slope to aid in draining fluids.

A main airlock needs to be set up, probably a bit deeper in, so there's plenty thick rock to anchor into.

I figured a fluid only lock below the main lock will allow drainage without needing to cycle the main lock.  Maybe even disposal of boring refuse.

Once sealed, just keep going. A year later  consider a second parallel bore or a cross bore.

[Ludus]

So this afternoon, Heathrow to the BnB, 16 mile distance, but over an hour and a half by Tube.  Walk a bunch of tunnels to catch the Picadili line (lugging luggage of course) then 30 minutes to Earl's court, super crowded car, magnificent views of graffiti and piss, change over (more stairs), wait, another line for 20 minutes (less crowded but wet and muddy), then a 15 minute walk across the neighborhood since they can't route the tube to every house now can they.

That's not a solution.  I hate California rush hour as much as the next guy, and recognize the environmental impact, but public transport systems suck, even the good ones, and I don't care if steel wheels are more efficient than tires, this is just no way to live.

TBC is the only viable idea out there to give you the benefits of cars, but avoid the infrastructure limitations of roads.

... But yes, Mars. 

Some criticism towards the Las Vegas project is that it uses human drivers and fully.captive cars, but what it does rely on is cheap tunnel boring.  Which is exactly what's important for Mars.

The capability of a fully electric, self starting boring machine on Mars is so far beyond normal mission plans.

Even a 1 mile tunnel, just the first mile..

Swapping road for tunnel doesn't make car any better at transporting people. Using 1500-2000kg 5mx2m steel box on wheels to move 1-2 people is still a very inefficient use  of energy and valuable urban land.

Still can't bet humble bike for efficient personal transport and its modern successors ebikes and escooters.

Sure, but that's a narrow metric.

If everything else was the same, and it was just a bucket brigade exercise in moving the most people for least energy, or the most people per tunnel diameter, then rail will probably win.

But that's missing the bigger question, of how usable the system is, and in which environment, and when compared to which alternatives.

That's where the arguments are.  That TBC can provide integration with a much sparser suburbia, and provide better quality of ride, and support more modes of transportation - things that the narrow metrics miss.

Optimization of subsystems, or of narrow meteics, don't lead to better systems.

H.G. Wells, “Anticipations” section on Locomotion from 1901 provides good context for this discussion from someone thinking about these issues at the very beginning of the 20th century.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19229

Railway travelling is at best a compromise. The quite conceivable ideal of locomotive convenience, so far as travellers are concerned, is surely a highly mobile conveyance capable of travelling easily and swiftly to any desired point, traversing, at a reasonably controlled pace, the ordinary roads and streets, and having access for higher rates of speed and long-distance travelling to specialized ways restricted to swift traffic, and possibly furnished with guide-rails. For the collection and delivery of all sorts of perishable goods also the same system is obviously altogether superior to the existing methods. Moreover, such a system would admit of that secular progress in engines and vehicles that the stereotyped conditions of the railway have almost completely arrested, because it would allow almost any new pattern to be put at once upon the ways without interference with the established traffic. Had such an ideal been kept in view from the first the traveller would now be able to get through his long-distance journeys at a pace of from seventy miles or more an hour without changing, and without any of the trouble, waiting, expense, and delay that arises between the household or hotel and the actual rail. It was an ideal that must have been at least possible to an intelligent person fifty years ago, and, had it been resolutely pursued, the world, instead of fumbling from compromise to compromise as it always has done and as it will do very probably for many centuries yet, might have been provided to-day, not only with an infinitely more practicable method of communication, but with one capable of a steady and continual evolution from year to year.

[Lampyridae]

I didn't read the original thread, but the top of a new thread is probably a great place to ask "dumb" questions, so please be kind. :-)

Is the Boring Company really relevant to Mars or the moon at all? Don't these drilling machines consume huge amounts of water? I'd think a tunnel-boring machine for use on the moon or Mars would be a totally different technology.

Also, exactly how much tunneling is needed in either place over, say, the next 100 years? Is there really a use case for a tunnel other than to build a habitat that's protected from radiation? Wouldn't it be simpler and cheaper just to bury the habitat in a meter or two of regolith? Even if you had to design a Martian/Lunar bulldozer, it'd seem that'd be a whole lot cheaper than a tunnel boring machine.

Some of us think they're very relevant.

Burying a habitat requires you to bring it.

Tunneling is the ultimate ISRU habitat construction technique.

The moon might be too dry, I'm not sure, but the moon is not the goal - Mars is.

If you can get your machine underground and install an airlock behind it, you can keep drilling under full pressure.  That's just miles ahead of any other construction technique.  (Miles, get it?)

I disagree. I've discussed this ad nauseam on the Amazing Martian Habitats thread. All you need is a concrete shell and a few metres of dirt, some extra steel and you have the same protection as an underground tunnel without having to live in Metro 2033.

[meekGee]

I didn't read the original thread, but the top of a new thread is probably a great place to ask "dumb" questions, so please be kind. :-)

Is the Boring Company really relevant to Mars or the moon at all? Don't these drilling machines consume huge amounts of water? I'd think a tunnel-boring machine for use on the moon or Mars would be a totally different technology.

Also, exactly how much tunneling is needed in either place over, say, the next 100 years? Is there really a use case for a tunnel other than to build a habitat that's protected from radiation? Wouldn't it be simpler and cheaper just to bury the habitat in a meter or two of regolith? Even if you had to design a Martian/Lunar bulldozer, it'd seem that'd be a whole lot cheaper than a tunnel boring machine.

Some of us think they're very relevant.

Burying a habitat requires you to bring it.

Tunneling is the ultimate ISRU habitat construction technique.

The moon might be too dry, I'm not sure, but the moon is not the goal - Mars is.

If you can get your machine underground and install an airlock behind it, you can keep drilling under full pressure.  That's just miles ahead of any other construction technique.  (Miles, get it?)

I disagree. I've discussed this ad nauseam on the Amazing Martian Habitats thread. All you need is a concrete shell and a few metres of dirt, some extra steel and you have the same protection as an underground tunnel without having to live in Metro 2033.

Why is a covered tunnel not "metro 2033"?
And why do a trench, concrete shell and a few meters of cover rock constitute an "all you need"  seems to me like a lot more work, and in vacuum.

[Oersted]

As I said back in the Amazing Habitats thread, it doesn't make sense to bring the building materials to Mars when they're already there, in the shape of bedrock. Bore and bore and keep boring and you have an ever-expanding interior space getting cheaper by the meter.

Musk knows that which is why he founded the Boring Company.   

[cuddihy]

There is an open question as to how translatable the technologies are. On earth, water cooling and groundwater is a large part of the equation. Concrete tunnel segments are made of a large amount of water. How does this translate to Martian environment?