Transportation within a habitiat

--- In spacesettlers@y..., Ryan Healey wrote:
> --- victoriatangoman wrote:
> > Everyone's raising good points. I'd be very skeptical though of
> > having automobiles of any sort manufactured in orbit. The
> > manufacturing and supply chain for a car is immense and requires
> > high capital costs and a large market in order for it to make
> > economic sense.
>
> Not neccessaryily. Sure they do on earth but they could be
designed to be much
> cheaper and given what our capabilities would be we could probably
manafacture
> enough for the large colonies if it's decided to go down that road.
>
If you assert that cars can be designed to be built much cheaper in
orbit, why can't the same be done on earth? The supply chain for the
autombile industry is immense, with many subcontractors doing
business with multiple car manufacturers. This allows them to
amortize their expenses over a greater volume of production. Do you
really foresee millions of cars in orbit? I sure don't. This would
mean dedicated manufacturing processes for THE ONE autombile
factory. Kind of like Henry Ford's Rouge River factory in Detroit.
It was over a mile long and the whole car was made there. There were
no subcontractors and no just-in-time manufacturing methods.

Just as someone mentioned that because we'll be designing the
habitat from ground up we can do things a different way. I think
that human transportation can be divorced from the car by proper
habitat design. All of the land that must be given over to raods,
the additional infrastructure and human capital which must be
dedicated to keeping cars functional can be avoided and freeing
those resources up for other uses.

The cars or trucks that the habitat absolutely requires can be
brought up from earth. Cheaper to launch a hundred helicopters,
ambulances or firetrucks than to develop an entire industrial supply
chain to support a few hundred vehicles.

> > As for firefighting, I also think that there should be some
built in
> > fire-suppression technology in all of the buldings. Perhaps,
> > alongside the water, electrical, sewar networks, we can
incorporate
> > a halon "main pipe" and when the sensors detect a fire in the
> > building, a valve opens and the halon gas flows the few feet
from
> > the main pipe (perhaps buried under the sidewalk?) to the
building.
>
> Halon would be good. On earth it's illegal due to environmental
reasons but in
> space with no ozone layer it wouldn't be too much of a problem.
Except that
> when you spray a lot of it people can die from it and also it can
leave a
> coating on things that are put out. I can also see CFCs being
used in cooling
> systems in space since there is no ozone layer to wreak there.

On second thought, instead of Halon, perhaps a network of pipes
carrying an inert atmosphere under pressure. When a fire is detected
a valve opens in the building and the inert atmosphere floods in.
The literature I reviewed quite a while ago had the oxygen level at
about 12% which was enough to sustain life but not enough to allow
combustion. Human safety would still be an issue with a rapid, big
fire quickly raising the CO level to a point where the haemoglobin
in human blood would form carboxyhaemoglobin, thereby reducing the
ability of the blood to carry oxygen.

With such a networked fire-suppresion technology, central control
would know instantly when a fire occured. Such an alarm could
scramble fire dept and ambulance help in seconds, rather than
relying on a 911 call, taking the information down, dispatching it,
etc. Thus, if the fire was big and the occupants were incapacitated
due to oxygen deprivation, help would be there without their taking
any action. If it was a minor fire, the occupants could call to
cancel the help that is automatically on its way.

This solution might avoid the pitfalls of of a CFC based system.
Even without an ozone layer, would we really want those gases
accumulating in our atmosphere, or alternatively, would we want to
add more atmosphere scrubbing equipment to capture the escaped gases?

>
> > But, let's not confine our thinking to just house fires. How
about
> > grass fires, shrub fires, forest fires. Started by nature ( I
know,
> > hard to think of nature in our created environment, but why
> > not . . . If we've got weather systems up there, will we be able
to
> > control the complexity of the weather to such an extent that
we'll
> > be able to eliminate lightning? I don't know.) Or how about
> > malicious mischief, sabotage, or stupid kids pulling pranks
which
> > get out of control by lighting fires. Will we be able to have
all
> > of the flora up there so drenched that it would be impossible
for
> > anything to catch on fire? If we do, would we want to put up
with
> > all of the mold and mildew? I think it's more likely that we'll
want
> > to have a comfortable living environment and that'll mean that
our
> > forests and lawns might be susceptable to fire.
>
> I wouldn't expect to eliminate lightning without getting rid of
natural
> whether. We will need to have some way to fight forest fires if
our habitat
> has any forests. As well as that we should also make sure to
design them with
> a good buffer zone between the forest and the populus to reduce
any death toll
> from a forest fire.

You know, the whole habitat is going to be engineered, right? So
we'll be planning where the forest are going to be, so why not just
lay high pressure water pipes underneath and have some massive
sprinkler heads pop up to start working on the fire before human
fire fighters get there.
>
> Probably an even bigger worry about a forest fire would be the CO2
since the
> habitat wouldn't have much air to dilute it into.
>
> > I keep thinking that the last mile issue is going to be
significant.
> > A "reasonable" walking distance is probably OK, but having to
walk
> > anywhere near a km to get a a transportation node is just not
going
> > to work. The optimization issue is going to be in finding the
> > optimum distribution of subway terminals. What I envision is
what
> > the airlines are doing here on earth. The hub and spoke system.
We'd
> > have small feeder lines connecting to main terminals. They'd
> > continuously run their small hop routes. Then the passengers
would
> > disembark to the multiple main habitat-transversing routes.
>
> What is a reasonable walking distance?
>
> I could see something much like rail networks on earth but
completely
> underground. Getting people to it is the thing that needs to be
worked on. If
> roads are allowed we'd just have people drive to the station in
their electric
> cars. If we don't have cars or roads then we may have to use
slower
> mini-subway systems to feed the main ones.
>
> > But the last mile issue still remains. We could design the
community
> > in clusters so that each neighborhood has a small subway
terminal,
> > at most a ten minute? walk from any point.
>
> Yes. Although that would waste some space.
>
> > Or, something that I'm just now starting to ponder, is having
> > utility corridors underneath each street/sidewalk (better to
access
> > all of the utilities from a corridor rather than jackhammering
and
> > digging into street or ground) and each house - apartment -
office -
> > factory has a basement that can access the utility corridor. In
that
> > corridor are tracks on which a fairly slow vehicle travels. This
> > corridor leads to a main subway node. That solves the last mile
> > issue but the trade-off is a lot of infrastructure has to be
built
> > and maintained.
>
> That might be a good idea. The infrastructure could be maintained
and would be
> built with the colony.
>
> I could easily imagine the main door to a house not being the one
above ground
> but the one to the basement.

True enough.

> > As for the big item transportation equipment - pipes,
construction
> > materials, dirt, . . you name it, I wouldn't want to have to
carry
> > buckets of cement back and forth on a construction site. And,
even
> > if it's modular, we won't be constructing those buildings from
> > paper. Each of the components is going to weigh quite a bit.
Now,
> > without roads how do we move the big stuff throughout the
habitat?
>
> That is a problem.
>
> > The idea about an overhead crane is intriguing, but consider all
of
> > the safety restictions on a construction site. Now how
comfortable
> > would we all be having tons of stuff moving above us wherever we
> > were, because the constuction sites would be all over the
habititat
> > and that central crane system would have to move material
between a
> > number of points. I wouldn't feel too comfortable with the
overhead
> > cranes, and with the bigger habitats, those cranes would be even
> > higher in the sky, posing a greater kinetic energy potential,
which
> > might even be enough to threaten the structure of the habitat
> > itself. Any rebuttals on this issue?
>
> Given the masses and speed of impact I wouldn't think they'd
penetrate the wall
> but they could do a bit of damage. That would have to be balance
against
> fatailies from truck crashes.
>
> > How does one get a refrigerator, a bed, modular wall sections, a
> > concrete truck, fire truck etc along that last mile? As you can
> > probably tell, I'd really like to minimize the precious land
that we
> > use for roads. Ideally, I'd like to see no roads at all, just
> > sidewalks, but I'm having trouble replacing the functionality of
> > road networks, . . . but if we could I think the payoff of land
> > that is freed up would be significant.
>
> Roads will probably be neccesssary and we're probably going to
need them.
> Although we should try to minimise the amount we have. Of course
if we have
> roads people are going to put cars on them eventually unless the
colony bans
> them (some will, most probably won't).
>
Yeah, I think you're right. People will tend to want to put a car on
an empty road. But maybe we just let free market economics take care
of that issue. Prohibitive customs duties on the importation of
pleasure cars, and no domestic auto industry for the 100-1000?
people whose biggest wish is to have a car up there. No industry
will develop to cater to their needs.
>
> > The Segway/electric scooter suggestion seems to me to be
workable.
> > We'd need new anbulances and fire trucks designed that were
pretty
> > narrow to fit on our narrower sidewalk/streets. But how about
moving
> > the big stuff around the habitat?
>
> I don't think you could really make an ambulance any smaller then
they are now.
> There has to be a way to fit all the equipment in and also allow
room for the
> paramedics at each side of the paitent. In reality current
ambulances are
> probably a bit too small.
>

Hmmmm . . . maybe the habitat designers will have to face the "Ford
Pinto" type of question. An extensive road network will get
emergenciy services to anypoint in the habitat, but at what cost to
construct and maintain, and in lieu of what other uses for the land
and financial/human capital. By eliminating doorside emergency
access, what would be the human cost? Not everybody is going to die
if an ambulance can't come right up to their front door. But some
might. Those few minutes could have been crucial.

As for the big equipment that needs to be moved within a habitat,
how about this as a solution: We know that when we first open the
airlock all of the construction will not have been completed. No
matter the scale of the habitat, I think it unlikely that every
building and facility will have been completed for the maximum
target population when the initial population moves in. So we design
utility roads on the surface where our imported trucks can move the
material around the habitat. Then years later when the land area has
been fully utilized and there is LESS need to move material, the
roads are grassed over and become treeless parks. But the
unobstructed right-of-way would still exist for the occasional
emergency and the trucks would just travel on the grass. For that
matter, we could leave them paved if the asthethics don't bother the
population, and road maintenance is approved. Maybe they become bike
paths, community boulevards, etc.