Tunneling is essential for something like Hyperloop to work out.
The inhabitants had to deal with unusable interior walls, narrow balconies and problematic natural lighting, which rendered the complex unappealing to the middle class population.
Quote from: Oli on 12/18/2016 05:06 amTunneling is essential for something like Hyperloop to work out.I think you would put a hyperloop above ground. It would be cheaper and the key advantages to underground (radiation and robust sea-level pressure containment) are not issues.
Quote from: LMT on 11/30/2016 11:22 amThe inhabitants had to deal with unusable interior walls, narrow balconies and problematic natural lighting, which rendered the complex unappealing to the middle class population.A classic case of architect failing to understand that people are in fact expected to live in the buildings he designs.Who would've thought that people would need to install the usual rectangular cupboards, beds, sofas, shelves, bathtubs in their homes? That rectangular window panes are far easier to come by than pentagonal?
Would you even need a tube as Mars atmosphere is only 0.6% the pressure of Earths.
Quote from: nacnud on 12/18/2016 01:20 pmWould you even need a tube as Mars atmosphere is only 0.6% the pressure of Earths.The only upfront convenience I can see is that a tunnel would mitigate dust issues. Otherwise, it is possible that Mars would offer less atmospheric pressure than the earthbound hyperloop tunnels will have.
Passenger comfort at such high speeds dictates straight tracks and the tracks will connect city centers respectively densely populated areas. Both will lead to lots of tunneling. Which isn't too bad though with a vactrain because the tunnel diameter can be smaller than with normal trains.
Quote from: nacnud on 12/18/2016 01:20 pmWould you even need a tube as Mars atmosphere is only 0.6% the pressure of Earths.The only upfront convenience I can see is that a tunnel would mitigate dust issues.
With the very low atmospheric pressure on Mars, hyperloop technology is not needed. Just build a maglev train, monorail, etc.Tunneling is a very slow and difficult process. The machines are extremely large. First build on the surface, then when the base has the industrial capacity to build the main structure of the tunneling machine, send the harder to build parts from Earth.
(snip)... But if we have underground cave habitats, then perhaps underground stations as well.If Mars lighting under a dome is insufficient to grow plants in an intensive way, and if dome constructions costs are too high, might we just make very large solar arrays and grow everything underground? After all, agriculture is also an industrial process, in a way, so we would not be going against a Musk quote. A true food production dome is probably not a very comfortable environment, as anyone who has visited a green house will tell you. Too humid and too bright.After all the least effective part of a greenhouse with electric lighting will be the photosynthesis. We might use the power losses in the power system to heat the colony. Does photosynthesis scale linearly with lighting levels?Lots of questions still, before we can design the habitat....
On the third hand, as the Moties would say, transportation is not really free, and youmight have a gain in promoting local usage.