Subselene: Lunar nuclear powered melt-tunneling for high-speed transit tunnels(osti.gov)
osti.gov
Subselene: Lunar nuclear powered melt-tunneling for high-speed transit tunnels
https://www.osti.gov/biblio/5262838-subselene-nuclear-powered-melt-tunneling-concept-high-speed-lunar-subsurface-transportation-tunnels
3 comments
Ok, that's pretty wild. Can it work on earth too? That seems like a good starting point.
This was published in 1986.
Tunneling with nuclear machines on Earth had been under consideration for decades before [1]. It's not entirely clear why it was abandoned, but most likely something didn't work out in practice like it was supposed to do in theory.
[1] https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/americas-mad-scientis...
Tunneling with nuclear machines on Earth had been under consideration for decades before [1]. It's not entirely clear why it was abandoned, but most likely something didn't work out in practice like it was supposed to do in theory.
[1] https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/americas-mad-scientis...
i posted Subselene (1986) because the earlier 1973 proposal to do similar on earth (Subterrene) was also submitted recently,
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28559927
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28559927