341–350 of 800 posts
Isn't this a solution that becomes outdated with self driving cars?
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We'll have to look seriously at living underground on mars. It won't protect us from solar rays on the surface. One of the cheaper ways to protect yourself is to put a layer of rock inbetween you and the sun.
how to become ant people
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I am not sure the poor state of existing infrastructure precludes someone from building their own new infrastructure. Public transportation outside of the US is often run by private companies, and they make plenty of money. Even in the US, passenger rail is typically run by the government or government-like bodies, while freight rail is just private companies. I don't think there's an intrinsic reason for that, it's…
Many US passenger rail systems were private but stopped turning a profit and were "nationalized".
During World War I, regulation prevented the rail industry from properly responding to an uptick in rail demand for exports to fuel the war's various foreign factions (ship capacity had been greatly reduced by German submarines). After the rail companies asked for a rate increase in order to help deal with the increased traffic (which was rejected), the President seized the rail network in order to sidestep the debacle and get their exports out.
The rails were de-nationalized when the war ended 2 years later. After that, the use for passenger travel steadily declined as automobile and bus transportation grew, and the rails never recovered (except during WWII). In 1971, when the entire network was about to collapse, the government created Amtrak. Amazingly, most of the network is still limited in capacity and speed due to regulations from 1947. And most of the improvements in the system have come since 2000. Any subsidies that could have upgraded the network or increased capacity or efficiency over a period of 80 years went into building highways and airport control towers (but not more efficient public buses or light rail).
Of course, Amtrak still leased its rail lines from the railroads, so the old rail companies became the new landlords and freight providers, while Amtrak serviced passengers. Amtrak basically cut passenger service and available rail lines in half, with whole corridors becoming freight-only. Later Amtrak bought bankrupted railroad track, and currently something like 25% of the rails Amtrak travels are owned by it.
The parent is half-correct. The freight customers don't have the same needs as the passengers, and "more convenient" methods of transportation exist for them, but for some reason the government demands that passenger rail remain (for the next big war?) so it got bailed out and nationalized.
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If he wants to get into the tunnelling business and start bidding on these "big dig" projects in various cities, I think he'll find some success. His engineering aptitude, his ability to think around problems, that's gotten him to where he is today. If he retreats from this and builds some kind of pneumatic tube system to transport goods, people, or whatever, he still might have a chance of a win. Those systems have…
Maybe he can use something that isn't concrete
A rocket can go to the moon and come back safely, that takes an abundance of caution and significant attention to detail, but it's a fixed-length trip. Civil infrastructure has to exist for decades, or in the case of many American undertakings, well over a century. That requires extreme caution.
If you invented a concrete alternative today it'd take at least twenty years for it to be considered a viable alternative to concrete because long-term studies of the mechanical characteristics of it under a wide variety of conditions will have to be taken out.
Concrete is an extremely complicated material, I know people that have gotten a Ph.D. in aspects of it, and it's very well understood. This hypothetical alternative you're talking about has a lot to measure up to.
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Hilariously so even. This is basically a subway system, except you have to provide your own seats. All this is succeeding in doing is making Musk look hilariously out of touch.
He may well be out of touch, but at least Musk's suggesting a real solution to current transit problems, even if it's impractical. On the other hand, whenever I read stuff by politicians and engineers with real knowledge and influence in this field, I'm astonished by the total lack of vision. Even in London, where you have a major, successful transport engineering project (Crossrail) completing, and an entire city de…
Decide which one is it.
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…
> But there's no engineering reason why a hole in the ground can't happen. Depending on the specific location, there may very well be. Underground tunnels are vulnerable to earthquake-inflicted damage, for instance, and you would want to avoid repair as much as possible. Similarly, there may be environmental or conservatory reasons not to build tunnels, or reasons related to cost, or obstacles not yet encountered (th…
The Disney version of this concept: [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0q_oP9TPD4&t=2479
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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.
I wouldn't be surprised if a 2x or 3x more efficient boring machine is the ultimate product of this and it makes future infrastructure projects much cheaper as a result.