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Transit on Mars

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Sun, 2010-04-18 10:48

browwiw

Transit on Mars

For some reason, I'm always thinking about Mars. While reading the various current threads about maps of Mars and the exact placements of cities and settlements there on I began to wonder how the transhuman inhabitants of Mars get between them. Especially when transporting large numbers of people or freight. From what little I know about the geography of Mars I know that the northern hemisphere was covered by a primordial ocean and so is relatively flat and plain-like today. Obviously, this flatness would lend itself handily to maglev trains and highways. Highways would be simple enough to construct with giant autonomous construction bots guided by GPS or even purpose-programmed nanoswarms. I kind of like the idea of superhighways stretching across Mars, with literal Redneck truckers piloting freight haulers inbetween settlements. I imagine that high performance racing vehicles would also be popular, much like in the real life Salt Flats. While aircraft would be popular everywhere on Mars, the southern hemisphere would rely on it especially since that terrain is much more rough and brutalized by meteorite impact sites. Besides conventional aircraft and flying cars it occurs to me that lighter than air craft like zeppelins would be highly viable on Mars. The relatively lower gravity of Mars would make blimps more efficient and increase their lift capacity. Now that I think about it, blimps would be a smart, cost effective way to transit up and down to Olympus and could even be used as mobile work platforms for space elevator maintenance (at least the section that is within the atmosphere). That, and zeppelins are always great backdrops for fight scenes, no matter what setting. Any comments or ideas for other forms of transportation on Mars?

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"Let’s face it: Most of us are just here to shoot stormtroopers." - Gary M. Sarli

Sun, 2010-04-18 16:40

evapor8

Re: Transit on Mars

I am loving the idea of Martian blimps, big shining white cigars drifting over red sands. The transport via highways also conjured an image of 'Barsoomian Road Truckers'. Not fighting rednecks in the vein of Mad Max, but rather the elements and/or leftover pre-fall tech (though why you'd put a road right through a dodgy area full of pre-fall nasties is beyond me). You'd just need a reason to have the transports piloted rather than run by AI.

Sun, 2010-04-18 17:24

browwiw

Re: Transit on Mars

Yeah, it did occur to me that entire truck convoys could be piloted via GPS-aided AI. That is a sticky point. Pragmatist that I am, I'd say that there could be a transport trucker's union that lobbies to keep AI out of trucking. Then again, I'm also a cynic and I know that the hypercorps wouldn't suffer any labor unions on Mars. So, it could be argued that small trucking companies use living truckers because it's cheaper than licensing the AI software. Also, living trucker pilots would offer more versatile on-board security than AI.

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"Let’s face it: Most of us are just here to shoot stormtroopers." - Gary M. Sarli

Sun, 2010-04-18 17:47

evapor8

Re: Transit on Mars

Security and pilot. 2 birds with one stone. Plus, why trust an AI, right?! Who'd do THAT! :D

Sun, 2010-04-18 17:55

browwiw

Re: Transit on Mars

Aha! I keep forgetting that there is a bias against true AI in the EP setting. I could still see hypercorps using indentured infogees to pilot their fleets of trucks to reduce costs.

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"Let’s face it: Most of us are just here to shoot stormtroopers." - Gary M. Sarli

Sun, 2010-04-18 20:17

Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture

Re: Transit on Mars

I think Blimps would be using as airliners Highways were likely among the first staying structure built on Mars even before colonnist settled on Mars I'm not speaking about the first ones to arrive, but the civilian population coming to live there big highways with unflattable or underground habitats every X kilometers in case of a sand storm hit,or some heavy radiation from solar flare Trucks would be huge vehicles hosting pressurised living quarters inside and small crew of two or three people plus a narrow AI, doing shift without ever stopping before they reach destination (GM, that could be a nice spinoff game session; a group of Barsoomian truckers played by the players, and facing a difficult and risky roadtrip through infected zone, doing deliveries of dangerous object, escorting, etc) I have mentioned that anime in other threads, but the second half of "Zone of the Enders: Dolores, i" happens on Mars and use one of these trucks the show dates from 2001, but it's well worth watching it.

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Mon, 2010-04-19 01:52

nick012000 nick012000's picture

Re: Transit on Mars

I don't think Blimps are likely on Mars, since the atmosphere at this point is much less dense than that of Earth (though the lower gravity might help to cancel this out somewhat). Airplanes of various varieties seem much more likely to me.

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Mon, 2010-04-19 04:37

King Shere King Shere's picture

Re: Transit on Mars

While I do hink blimps could work on Mars, despite the low density. I dont think they would be generally used or popular. Reason beeing - they are to slow. Airplanes, ¨cars¨ & trains would still out compete ¨slower¨ traveling methods. Perhaps a electromagnetic cannons can launch shuttles into orbit, from where they can land at another destination, I picture these passenger shuttles railroad capable, On ground they can travel by rail to the lancing stations.

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Mon, 2010-04-19 20:10

Sepherim

Re: Transit on Mars

I always envisioned Mars as connected by complete maglev lines, probably because of Babylon 5. Still, air travel is probably best: quicker, safe, cheaper...

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Tue, 2010-04-20 08:38

#10

GJD

Re: Transit on Mars

Canals. Or giant tripod walking machines.

Tue, 2010-04-20 16:22

#11

Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture

Re: Transit on Mars

don't forget the ETI ship buried beneath Sierra Planum *wink*I liked the idea of that industrialist with such a hatred of the Async (read: telepath) that he was willing to use an existencial threat to wipe them out (the Drazi virus) what's worse, the bloke is married to the ex-girlfriend of one of the player characters! all joking aside, I think that there is maglev, too, as there is/was train on Earth I got shivers just thinking of scenes that could occurs on a maglev Think of Cowboy Bebop: Stairway To Heaven's scene in the monorail

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Thu, 2010-04-22 18:54

#12

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Transit on Mars

I think both roads and maglev are big. A fun problem is to get rid of drifting sand, which tends to form dunes and get into machinery. Lots of chances for gritty realism :-) Blimps do have a bit of a problem due to the thin atmosphere, but they can be made larger (the lower gravity doesn't change things, since it also lowers the buoyancy). The speed issue isn't that bad, blimps on Earth can get pretty decent speeds (more than 100 km/h); given the lower drag martian zeppelins will be faster. They will rule where the terrain is messy and you want to cheaply airlift things. However, getting up Olympus is hard: the top is almost outside the atmosphere. Note that the less dense air forces planes to have bigger wings or fly more quickly (lift is proportional to the area and the square of the velocity), although the lower gravity reduces the need for lift somewhat. The same is true for helicopters. In dense air regions powered flight is like on Earth. Marineris is pretty hilly except at the bottom, so beside roads and trains I can also see funiculars and various air vehicles being common. Many of the plains are dominated by huge all-terrain trucks a la Australian desert trucks.

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Thu, 2010-04-22 20:06

#13

Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture

Re: Transit on Mars

I bet those hills in Marineris are favored leasure spots to the elites. the Real Estate pricetags there must be off the charts, either in Rep or hard credits the way I invision it is like an odd mix between Swiss grassy hills at mountains feet and the cone trees covered hills of Hokkaido

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Fri, 2010-04-23 15:56

#14

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Transit on Mars

I can see parts of Marineris like the south Alps like Lugano or Como. Very lush, expensive and civilized. However, the area of Marineris is enormous. Even with millions of people it is going to have many sparsely inhabited areas. Ophir? So dry and rocky, despite the charming pueblo-style arcologies. Coprates is so far away, the commute is awful and the local storms are pretty violent. Eos and Ganges are a bit too wild and changing right now. Nice if you want to live "close to nature" and have to wear a hardhat. South Ius? Now that is just tacky. BTW, tripod walkers make sense in really rough terrain where you want to have a view of the surrounding landscape, yet easily get down on ground level to investigate. I can imagine they were built for use in chaotic terrain for surveyors.

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Fri, 2010-04-23 21:31

#15

nick012000 nick012000's picture

Re: Transit on Mars

Tripod walkers can't do anything a biped or quadruped walker can't do better. The only reason you'd want to make them is to cater to the H.G. Wells fandom and the like.

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Fri, 2010-04-23 22:23

#16

Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture

Re: Transit on Mars

if there is any kind of walker, I think it would be more in the vein of the AMP suit from Avatar and Matrix Revolution, or the Jump suits from Starship Troopers (the novel and the animated Series). maybe even like the landmates from Appleseed but nothing as big as the tripods, Gundam mobile suit or the Valkyries. Not fully transformed, at least. aside from the AMP suit and landmate, the more realistic approach for monoplace walking tank would be something from Battletech, and yet not fully functional, maybe a prototype something so secret and so friggin expensive it would require a hypercorp or a habitat governement to finance it.

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Sat, 2010-04-24 01:52

#17

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Transit on Mars

Walking tanks are silly, since they just achieve a higher profile (easier to hit) with more vulnerable points (knees). Two-legged walkers are also unstable and would have speed limitations. I agree that tripods are somewhat silly, but a spider walker makes sense - stable, can handle complex landscapes and provides flexibility. But it would be lousy in battle.

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Sat, 2010-04-24 02:46

#18

Decivre

Re: Transit on Mars

Arenamontanus wrote:
Walking tanks are silly, since they just achieve a higher profile (easier to hit) with more vulnerable points (knees). Two-legged walkers are also unstable and would have speed limitations. I agree that tripods are somewhat silly, but a spider walker makes sense - stable, can handle complex landscapes and provides flexibility. But it would be lousy in battle.

As a combat unit they are crap, but walkers make excellent all-terrain vehicles (multi-legged ones, of course). A well-designed walker with a good balance system might even be able to climb sheer surfaces, making such a design excellent for exploration. I could see spider walker drones being the standard for exoplanet scouting. For combat purposes, the Reapers are pretty much perfect for the job. Slim armored profile, weapons up the yang, and it floats. When it comes to war, legs are for targets.

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Sat, 2010-04-24 09:07

#19

nick012000 nick012000's picture

Re: Transit on Mars

As for walkers, two words: ground pressure.

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Sat, 2010-04-24 10:24

#20

browwiw

Re: Transit on Mars

'Walker' type armored vehicles would be good for anti-aircraft and artillery units, allowing them to get into hard to reach mountainous terrain. Built up urban areas would also be good for smaller walker type infantry units. I agree that conventional, open area combat would not be a good theater for walking tanks.

—

"Let’s face it: Most of us are just here to shoot stormtroopers." - Gary M. Sarli

Sat, 2010-04-24 14:24

#21

evapor8

Re: Transit on Mars

Decivre wrote:
Arenamontanus wrote:
I agree that tripods are somewhat silly, but a spider walker makes sense - stable, can handle complex landscapes and provides flexibility. But it would be lousy in battle.

I like the sound of that. Scale up and tweak the MiniTank specced in the [url=http://www.eclipsephase.com/codebreakers-compendium-custom-morphs]Custom morph thread[/url]. Perhaps use it as transport.

Sat, 2010-04-24 15:43

#22

Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture

Re: Transit on Mars

how much of Mars is actually "mapped"? I mean mapped as having roads and small dome towns (like Ebb 6)?

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Sun, 2010-04-25 07:14

#23

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Transit on Mars

I think population is very unevenly distributed. The average population density is 220 people per square kilometer, just below current Germany. Looking at current Earth, the Gecon database finds about 17% land area with population density *zero*, and then very roughly a log-normal distribution peaking for around 10 people per kilometre (but with some places going up to 100,000 people per square kilometre). Rescaling to fit average Martian density I get an estimate of 24.8% of land having less than 1 person per square kilometre (think Mongolia or Greenland), about 21.7% between 1 and 10 (think average of Canada or average -stan in central Asia), 26.3% between 10 and 100 (mildly populated countries), 21.3% between 100 and 1000 (densely populated countries) , 5.5% above 1000 per square kilometre (think Monaco, slightly denser than Singapore or Hong Kong). Since people on Mars are likely to live more closely together for life support needs and uneven terraforming, we should expect much higher densities in the nice areas/dome cities and much less in the Tharsis highlands. The above numbers is just a rough sketch. But it suggests that only about one fourth of the surface has population densities that produce dense city/road networks, the rest is pretty wild. There is a lot of outback. Maybe a good analogy would be to look at maps of the Western US desert states. Some big cities, sometimes apparently located at random, a wide grid of roads/rails linking various smaller settlements, a fine grid of very small roads from these to reservoirs, individual farms, mines and (in EP) terraforming stations. Most of the place is empty. Now scale this up to planetary proportions. By the way, apropos the thread theme, while looking in the core book I noticed that it explicitly mentions flying cars. So at least one kind of lowland transportation is definitely around. But I doubt it is standard out in the high desert or on the plateaus.

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Sun, 2010-04-25 11:31

#24

Decivre

Re: Transit on Mars

nick012000 wrote:
As for walkers, two words: ground pressure.

Ground pressure is a universal problem for all ground vehicles. Larger footpads and more limbs can work to counteract the problem just as easily as more and bigger tires on trucks, or bigger treads on tanks. The biggest problems that legged vehicles have are speed and size... both of which are the primary reasons that they suck as combat units. However, the capacity to tread on any terrain and the maneuver advantages are why they work great for exploring.

—

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Sun, 2010-04-25 11:55

#25

Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture

Re: Transit on Mars

question: how big are the Exoskelletons of the Hyperdense and Transporters? And what do they look like? are we talkling Avatar's AMP? Appleseed's Landmate? the labors from Patlabor? (if you think about it, the first Patlabor movie, by Mamoru Oshii, shows a nice inspiration for what exsurgent virus could do on AIs like Muses or vehicles) ditto for the flying cars. Do they look like cars that fly (like the police cars in Blade Runner, or the cars in Batman Beyond), or are they more like small size airplanes (like the Hyperion in Skyland)? by the way, how are the "air roads" marked? holograms emited from the ground? floating beacons? (though that'd me more likely to be found in Venus's heights) on the widespaces on Mars, I picture large highways specially made for big ground vehicles, like you'd find in the Australian Outback

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Sun, 2010-04-25 12:23

#26

Kanada Ten Kanada Ten's picture

Re: Transit on Mars

Is there a need to transport cargo and passengers between settlements, though? Goods can be manufactured locally and egos can be cast when mesh won't do. The only real needs are raw materials, which are probably pumped from the Space Elevator through pipes like oil. Cross-country transport seems like a luxury, a dangerous expense, or just plain backwards...

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Sun, 2010-04-25 12:58

#27

Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture

Re: Transit on Mars

well, there are ore mines on Mars, right? how else would they transport the extracted ore and remain cost effective? Trucks is the best option especially for smaller exploitations that can't afford aerial transport someone mentioned maglevs. are they locals or planet wide?

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Sun, 2010-04-25 14:59

#28

browwiw

Re: Transit on Mars

Well, the core book's dossier on Mars makes several references to maglev trains. I figure that's the main form of ground transit and shipping amongst the largest and best established cities and settlements. And just like in modern day life, it's cheaper to distribute goods and bodies from the train depots by truck. As I mentioned above, highways are probably laid by autonomous armies of GPS guided construction bots. As for farcasting on a planetary scale, that actually sounds like a really extravagant form of transportation for such a short distance. Especially when you start factoring in the cost of morph rentals. Cheaper just to catch a maglev train. Also, let us not forget that transhumans are still human in the vast majority of their motivations. Not every decision is going to be based on efficiency and economy. Things like maglev trains and dirigibles will persist be people enjoy traveling on them, especially if they have luxury accommodations. Should Mars ever get its sea back, you know some hypercorp is going to put a luxury liner on it.

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"Let’s face it: Most of us are just here to shoot stormtroopers." - Gary M. Sarli

Sun, 2010-04-25 15:23

#29

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Transit on Mars

Mars might be a bit unusual in that there are big flows of matter. On a fully terraformed Mars most manufacturing would be local and largely recycling, but we are not there yet. Mines extract fluorite and sulphides for greenhouse gas production, and they have to be transported together before they can be released. I would expect this to be a good reason to have trains, although as many mines demonstrate giant trucks can do the job too.

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Sun, 2010-04-25 16:14

#30

Decivre

Re: Transit on Mars

Quincey Forder wrote:
question: how big are the Exoskelletons of the Hyperdense and Transporters? And what do they look like? are we talkling Avatar's AMP? Appleseed's Landmate? the labors from Patlabor? (if you think about it, the first Patlabor movie, by Mamoru Oshii, shows a nice inspiration for what exsurgent virus could do on AIs like Muses or vehicles)

Actually, I'd recommend the power armor in the Fallout series as a good example of [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_exoskeleton]powered exoskeletons[/url]. The Starship Troopers novel, the G.I. Joe film, and Iron Man (film and comic) are other good examples. Powered exoskeletons aren't really mecha, but suits that enhanced the wearers movements. They are not necessarily the same height as the wearer, such as in the case of the hyperdense exoskeleton, but generally are; models that are of a different size being so for a purpose (the hyperdense exoskeleton is taller than humans for the purpose of moving objects that are too heavy or bulky for normal humans).

Quincey Forder wrote:
ditto for the flying cars. Do they look like cars that fly (like the police cars in Blade Runner, or the cars in Batman Beyond), or are they more like small size airplanes (like the Hyperion in Skyland)? by the way, how are the "air roads" marked? holograms emited from the ground? floating beacons? (though that'd me more likely to be found in Venus's heights) on the widespaces on Mars, I picture large highways specially made for big ground vehicles, like you'd find in the Australian Outback

Hopefully we'll get more info on flying cars with Sunward (which deals with Mars), but I'd imagine that they have a fairly slim profile (like modern cars, perhaps smaller) and ion drives for propulsion. Roads may be marked off by mesh-based AR data, being transmitted directly into a person's inserts as they travel about or perhaps stored universally on inserts and updated whenever you reach a city. The advantage of this is that such "markings" would be unaffected by weather, and would be usable by virtually everyone.

—

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Sun, 2010-04-25 16:31

#31

browwiw

Re: Transit on Mars

Arenamontanus wrote:
Mars might be a bit unusual in that there are big flows of matter. On a fully terraformed Mars most manufacturing would be local and largely recycling, but we are not there yet. Mines extract fluorite and sulphides for greenhouse gas production, and they have to be transported together before they can be released. I would expect this to be a good reason to have trains, although as many mines demonstrate giant trucks can do the job too.

Having grown up in the western Kentucky coal field region I know a little bit about the interdependency of mines, trains, and trucks. If a coal mine is far enough way from the power plant it is feeding, then its coal comes in on train (often miles long trains that are a bitch to wait for at RR crossings). If the trains don't pass directly through the grounds of the plant, then the coal is loaded onto semi trucks and moved the last leg of the journey that way. If the mine and plant are relatively close then the plant is fed by a constant stream of semi trucks. It's like that locally, I and while it pays well, I hear that coal trucking is a miserable ass job. Basically, you drive hundreds of miles a day in a circle, everyday, on the same route. Mind numbing and by the end of the day you're as filthy with coal grime as any underground man. Sounds like a good job for a Barsoomian.

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"Let’s face it: Most of us are just here to shoot stormtroopers." - Gary M. Sarli

Tue, 2010-04-27 03:04

#32

GJD

Re: Transit on Mars

nick012000 wrote:
Tripod walkers can't do anything a biped or quadruped walker can't do better. The only reason you'd want to make them is to cater to the H.G. Wells fandom and the like.

Yes. Kind of my point.

Mon, 2010-05-03 23:31

#33

browwiw

Re: Transit on Mars

An excellent point was brought up that since Mars has a thinner atmosphere aircraft would have to have larger wings to increase their lift surface. Would this make flying wing aircraft (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_wing) popular on Mars?

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"Let’s face it: Most of us are just here to shoot stormtroopers." - Gary M. Sarli

Tue, 2010-05-04 13:33

#34

Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture

Re: Transit on Mars

The atmosphere has been thickened, lately, though still poisonous to all but the Rusters (if even them). A normal airplane would flight normally I think. Better, even, because of the lower gravity. by the way,is Marineris Valles cities still covered by domes? maybe a city like Ashoka, but Noctis Quinjao and Valles New Shangai? By the way, were is the famous Face? I reckon is a big touristic spot

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Tue, 2010-05-04 14:52

#35

The Doctor The Doctor's picture

Re: Transit on Mars

Quincey Forder wrote:
By the way, were is the famous Face? I reckon is a big touristic spot

If there is not one, chances are someone is busily constructing it. :) Or getting ready to drop a tiny black monolith on Iapetus from low orbit...

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Tue, 2010-05-04 17:49

#36

GJD

Re: Transit on Mars

Quincey Forder wrote:
By the way, were is the famous Face? I reckon is a big touristic spot

It's in Cydonia, about 41 degrees north, 350 degrees west, between Arabia Terra and Acidalia Planitia.

Tue, 2010-05-04 18:40

#37

Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture

Re: Transit on Mars

thank you! Is there any settlement there? like I said, this is one of Mars' best know features on the planet a hotel resort would make big bucks around there

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Wed, 2011-09-28 10:51

#38

The_Ren

Re: Transit on Mars

I am also curious about how EP takes the Cydonia complex and the mountains north west (i think) of the Face as well. For that matter the conspiracy theory stuff about the back side of the moon and the tower plus various other structures. If nothing else I'd like to know how the universe of EP sits on the whole subject. Is it conjecture by a bunch of people "hoping" for aliens or was it true? I'll admit to only having a 101 level understanding of most science (considering that's about as far as i got in college for any given subject (Damnit Jim I'm a writer...not a scientist! ^_^)) as well as only hearsay and a single college level course on conspiracy theories as well as the research skills of a library aid (which i used to do research on the subject cause I'm kinda interested in the subject). But putting reality aside due to the ephemeral nature of any game system how much "reality" does EP put into these two hot spots of potential alien architecture in our solar system?

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Wed, 2011-09-28 16:49

#39

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Transit on Mars

The Cydonia hills are not that impressive up close. A range of mesas and hills north of Terra Arabia, extending into the northern lowlands. Nice if you like sand dunes and rocks. http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/target/CYD1/cydonia1tp_bot_med.gif http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/image/planetary/mars/f035a72_processed.jpg They are also far from everything. The closest major city would be Ashoka, with 10,000 inhabitants - a few thousand kilometres away. If you think people would pay to see the hill once believed by some to be alien, then what about the canals of Schiaparelli and Percival Lowell? They were believed by even more people for even longer. Canal tours along the imaginary paths made by the original Martians?

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Wed, 2011-10-05 15:41

#40

The Doctor The Doctor's picture

Re: Transit on Mars

Arenamontanus wrote:
If you think people would pay to see the hill once believed by some to be alien, then what about the canals of Schiaparelli and Percival Lowell? They were believed by even more people for even longer. Canal tours along the imaginary paths made by the original Martians?

I keep wanting to throw an anarchist group that is building a face at Cydonia at my players to see how they react. Sort of a pro-terraforming, pro-independence organization trying to inspire people to build great things without any sort of corporate or governmental influence.

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Wed, 2011-10-05 16:04

#41

Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture

Re: Transit on Mars

carving a face, or a message visible from orbit: Come ride with me through the veils of history I'll show you a god fallen asleep on the job How can we win, when fools can be king? Don't waste your time, or time will waste you! for a group set in Cydonia, it's rather fitting, don't you think?

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Sat, 2011-10-08 06:26

#42

Jay Dugger Jay Dugger's picture

Re: Transit on Mars

Arenamontanus wrote:
I think both roads and maglev are big. A fun problem is to get rid of drifting sand, which tends to form dunes and get into machinery. Lots of chances for gritty realism Smile

Other than maglev coming right out of Sunward, could you actually have sensical airfilm trains? Positive pressure would keep dust and fines out, and power costs little on Mars. You could carry on-board gases instead of compressing the thin atmosphere. The airfilm train makes Mars more habitable with every puff of exhaust! And you still have a reason for a train to carry a supply with it. Propellant, not fuel, but it returns trains to more of the nineteenth century model with a coal car and an engine, which permits easy recycling of old spaghetti westerns.

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Sometimes the delete key serves best.

Sun, 2011-10-09 07:02

#43

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Transit on Mars

Jay Dugger wrote:
Other than maglev coming right out of Sunward, could you actually have sensical airfilm trains? Positive pressure would keep dust and fines out, and power costs little on Mars. You could carry on-board gases instead of compressing the thin atmosphere. The airfilm train makes Mars more habitable with every puff of exhaust! And you still have a reason for a train to carry a supply with it. Propellant, not fuel, but it returns trains to more of the nineteenth century model with a coal car and an engine, which permits easy recycling of old spaghetti westerns.

What you are describing sounds a lot like hovercraft (on guide rails). If you have a train or rail car of mass M in gravity g with an area A, you need a pressure P=Mg/A to keep it afloat. A typical rail car is about 20 meters long and 3 meters wide (assuming a wide shirt), weighing 30-140 tons. That means a required over pressure of 2000-8700 Pa - not enormous at all! It is harder to estimate the amount of air that will be released. If we assume a 1 cm gap in the shirt letting out all air below it as the train swooshes past, and that the train goes 200 km/h, the total volume of air per hour is just 6000 cubic meters. If compressed to 50 MPa the total volume would be just 30 cubic meters - definitely doable. However, it is likely impractical. 30 cubic meters per hour of high pressure tanks is a lot of space on a train, and releasing the pressure suddenly makes the air become very cold - there are plenty of engineering problems with that. I suspect using air fans is much more effective, at least in the lowlands.

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Sun, 2011-10-09 10:25

#44

Jay Dugger Jay Dugger's picture

Re: Transit on Mars

I thought of the airfilm trains from 2300AD, which never made much sense to me, really. --- If I follow the math right, you get 6000 cubic meters released per hour by : Multiplying the car area (60 square meters) by the skirt height (1 cm) to give the under-skirt volume (0.6 cubic meters, or 600 L). Distance covered in an hour (200 km) divided by the car length (20 m) gives the number of times (10000) the under-skirt volume (0.6 cubic meters) empties in an hour. Total volume required equals the product of the number of times (10000) the under-skirt volume empties times the volume under-the-skirt (0.6 cubic meters): 6000 cubic meters. --- That doesn't seem like all that much volume on a train. At 50 MPa, you get 30 cubic meters or about four-fifths the size of a 1C-series freight container (per Wolfram Alpha), which have dimensions of 6 m x 2.4 m x 2.4 m or so. A real-world well car can double-stack larger shipping containers up to 16 m long. Each such larger shipping container could store 90 cubic meters at 50 MPa. That would give the airfilm train three hours at 200 km/h if it only double-stacked and if it only devoted half to compressed gas storage. On the other hand, this also ignores the Martian atmospheric pressure: low, but unspecified, and variable by location. (What a pain!) It seems trains have plenty of volume for the scheme, but only at a high cost in payload fraction: half! Compressed gases shouldn't cost much on E.P. Mars, and again, you get to recycle old plots if you adopt them. "Refuel" every three hours or so? Hardly economical, but perhaps dramatically useful. --- Perhaps you could do better with cryogenic storage of liquid air?

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Sometimes the delete key serves best.

Mon, 2011-10-10 08:10

#45

Xagroth

Re: Transit on Mars

Personally, I think most transport on Mars will be hypercorp-controlled. Why? Sunward states that the Hypercorps want the population in comfy, located domes, not distributed around the planet where the hypercorps cannot fully control them. As for moving goods... I see a monorail (or a traditional 2 railed train), build about 20-30 meters above ground to avoid the sand, between zones, and "road trains" of really big wheels between smaller gatering places and distribution nodes. For the flying transport, I'd say it's not really that good of an idea, because of the strong winds already mentioned in Sunward too. Instead, I bet for quick transports aerospacecrafts are used, but for some big, ostentous zeppelins used by the hyperelite for some parties here and there (with very high attention payed to atmospherical conditions and climate prediction). As for the mentioned "shuttle cannons", remember that the orbital lift in Olympus is there for a reason: cut costs. I think it's actually cheaper to deploy a space-capable shuttle where it's needed for quick transport (which only requires a relatively plain spot of terrain) than to install land facilities that big and energy-demanding. Remember: hypercorp = barren, functional, economic. Hyperelite = extravangant, wasteful.

Mon, 2011-10-10 12:58

#46

Axel the Chimeric Axel the Chimeric's picture

Re: Transit on Mars

It's sort of a non-argument that most major transport systems will be hypercorp-controlled. Roads, trains, aircraft, etc. are not cheap for the most part. Even with nanofabbing, the maintenance costs of these things are huge. While a person can certainly buy/build a vehicle and go sailing off into the wastes, they'll find no roads and likely very little navigational help, which, for 99.9% of the population, should be an effective deterrent in and of itself. Most people don't go off-roading, nor do they have a reason to. So, yeah, pretty much every airport, road, train-station, bus depot, etc. is going to be owned by a hypercorp, the consortium, or any number of local governments, even without some sinister motive.

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