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The Boring Company [video]

boringcompany.com

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Re: The Boring Company [video]

#131

Post by ethbro »

pjc50 wrote: post #120
loufe wrote: post #52

The costs of tunneling are like FAR more expensive than most think. Breaking, excavating, and supporting rock is slow, time and cost heavy, and precarious work. While this is an interesting concept, unless there are serious advances in rock boring techniques (personal opinion: there are none coming) this will never approach fruition. I would suggest anyone interested in further research look into the "Big Dig" of Bos…

Not only the drilling, but the shoring up and walling of the tunnel. Also, people tend to be opposed to "move fast and break things" if they're likely to get buried under them.

Until you remove the "they" by fully automating the system.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#132

Post by idoh »

astrodust wrote: post #62
loufe wrote: post #52

The costs of tunneling are like FAR more expensive than most think. Breaking, excavating, and supporting rock is slow, time and cost heavy, and precarious work. While this is an interesting concept, unless there are serious advances in rock boring techniques (personal opinion: there are none coming) this will never approach fruition. I would suggest anyone interested in further research look into the "Big Dig" of Bos…

Seattle's Bigger Dig is also worth studying: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaskan_Way_Viaduct_replacemen... Sending rockets to another solar system would be cheaper than the tunnels depicted in this video. I'm not even kidding. Where is all that material going to go? There's so many tunnels there you could build a small mountain with it. Maybe he can team up with some sea-steading outfit and build a small continent…

If you start the tunnel down far enough, you could be below anything that could be hit. Would that make it less expensive?

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#133

Post by ThrustVectoring »

So it's roll-on roll-off rail, with one car per train rather than running on a schedule. Loading and unloading is also parallelized through elevators (though it'd likely be far better to build a ramp down to a station. Basically it'd be an underground angled parking lot, except the parking spots can put themselves on rails and go somewhere else.)

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#134

Post by tinym »

tuacker wrote: post #117

I feel like everything Elon Musk undertakes with his companies is just one huge Mars Beta Test. - SpaceX: Obvious, got to get to space somehow - Tesla: Build cars/machines to run on something that is guaranteed to exist on Mars (the sun) vs. Oil - Gigafactory: How to build batteries 101 - Solar roof: While Earths environment may not be as harsh as Mars you still learn something, and improve solar panel production in…

By the time we've learned how to live on a planet as inhospitable as Mars, maybe we'll know how to make a home on Earth.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#135

Post by [deleted] »

mmanfrin wrote: post #127
pnathan wrote: post #85

This is very, very wasteful compared to actual mass transit. A subway network is much more effective at delivering people. If he's looking for mega-good, Musk would do significantly better to drop a full subway network. edit: tunnelling is a broadly solved problem. It's difficult, expensive, slow, etc. But there's no engineering reason why a hole in the ground can't happen. Musk might be able to drive some significan…

If he's looking for mega-good, Musk would do significantly better to drop a full subway network. Like Hyperloop?

[deleted]

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#136

Post by astrodust »

tcoppi wrote: post #83
astrodust wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seattle's Bigger Dig is also worth studying: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaskan_Way_Viaduct_replacemen... Sending rockets to another solar system would be cheaper than the tunnels depicted in this video. I'm not even kidding. Where is all that material going to go? There's so many tunnels there you could build a small mountain with it. Maybe he can team up with some sea-steading outfit and build a small continent…

Somehow I think Elon Musk has made it through the middlebrow dismissal phase of this if the concept has made it this far(to include actual digging in SpaceX's parking lot even).

Somehow I think Elon, who's a pretty smart guy, has run out of challenges and is now resorting to trying crazier and crazier things.

Next up: Elon's Space Elevator! Elon's Fusion Reactor! Elon's Teleporter!

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#137

Post by rhino369 »

tcoppi wrote: post #83
astrodust wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seattle's Bigger Dig is also worth studying: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaskan_Way_Viaduct_replacemen... Sending rockets to another solar system would be cheaper than the tunnels depicted in this video. I'm not even kidding. Where is all that material going to go? There's so many tunnels there you could build a small mountain with it. Maybe he can team up with some sea-steading outfit and build a small continent…

Somehow I think Elon Musk has made it through the middlebrow dismissal phase of this if the concept has made it this far(to include actual digging in SpaceX's parking lot even).

Musk could also be bullshitting to help get funding to create a boring machine that is just twice as good as what we have now. That would be a very profitable company and would reduce subway costs, etc.

Musk's a sales technique to promise the moon (Mars really) and then use the cash to build a revolutionary but realistic company.

SpaceX isn't going to colonize mars, but its putting satellites in orbit.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#138

Post by ethbro »

hkmurakami wrote: post #89
loufe wrote: post #52

The costs of tunneling are like FAR more expensive than most think. Breaking, excavating, and supporting rock is slow, time and cost heavy, and precarious work. While this is an interesting concept, unless there are serious advances in rock boring techniques (personal opinion: there are none coming) this will never approach fruition. I would suggest anyone interested in further research look into the "Big Dig" of Bos…

Anyone know what it's costing Tokyo Mwtro to keep digging tunnels at very large depths? They have great coverage yet they're still digging new lines.

The issue with Tokyo is that the density supports metro expansions.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#139

Post by 9935c101ab17a66 »

pnathan wrote: post #85

This is very, very wasteful compared to actual mass transit. A subway network is much more effective at delivering people. If he's looking for mega-good, Musk would do significantly better to drop a full subway network. edit: tunnelling is a broadly solved problem. It's difficult, expensive, slow, etc. But there's no engineering reason why a hole in the ground can't happen. Musk might be able to drive some significan…

As a counter-point: do some research into Seattle's absolute disaster with tunnelling the last few years. Yes, there are some details of the situation that are specific to Seattle, but it just goes to show that even nowadays, tunnelling isn't as easy as we think it is.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#140

Post by idlewords »

mmanfrin wrote: post #127
pnathan wrote: post #85

This is very, very wasteful compared to actual mass transit. A subway network is much more effective at delivering people. If he's looking for mega-good, Musk would do significantly better to drop a full subway network. edit: tunnelling is a broadly solved problem. It's difficult, expensive, slow, etc. But there's no engineering reason why a hole in the ground can't happen. Musk might be able to drive some significan…

If he's looking for mega-good, Musk would do significantly better to drop a full subway network. Like Hyperloop?

This is to subways like hyperloop is to high-speed rail. A stupid overelaboration of an existing, proven idea.
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