[The industry is crazy] A Japanese company imagines an RER to travel between the Earth, the Moon and Mars

Kajima Corporation, in conjunction with Kyoto University, invented lunar and Martian habitats and an express train network to connect them. It should also connect the Earth to ensure professional and tourist travel for the humans of the future. The RER is popular. Strasbourg put its own into service in December 2022 and Emmanuel Macron had announced, the previous month, that he wanted to provide ten French cities with these express networks. Far from the concerns of users in the Ile-de-France region who complain about its many malfunctions, Japan is considering making a completely different use of it. Indeed, researchers from the University of Kyoto associated with the construction company Kajima Corporation have imagined infrastructures for living on the Moon and on Mars. Among them is notably an astonishing prototype of the space RER. Called Hexatrack, this rocket train could connect the Moon, Mars and the Earth and would maintain a gravity of 1G within its wagons to preserve the health of travelers during long journeys. “In a future space society where life on the Moon and Mars will become a reality, each colony will carry out economic activities and many people will travel for business or tourism”, seriously assure the leaders of this project in the press release. . This whimsical means of transport “will be operated as a high-speed express train connecting the base cities of each planet”. First prototype in 2050? The trains, the size of Japanese Shinkansen, would consist of six cars. “The first and the last car are equipped with a rocket to “accelerate” in space and escape the gravitational sphere of their respective planets”. When the vehicles enter the atmosphere of one of the planets, they will spread their wings to benefit from the lift. An entire program. The researchers also invented two cylindrical-shaped habitats, LunarGlass and MarsGlass, which would have artificial gravity (created by rotating these nearly 400-meter-high columns on themselves) and serve as a living base for humans. who will be moving. “If a person grows up in low gravity conditions, they will not be able to stand on Earth. […] We believe that people should live in the facility on a daily basis and enjoy the low gravity of the Moon and Mars and the weightlessness of space only when working, conducting research or enjoying their hobbies,” explains the press release. Kajima Corporation is also working on solutions for people’s food, clothing and housing, and hopes – a bit optimistically – to install a first prototype habitat on the Moon by 2050. RELATED TOPIC An elevator for space? Possible from 2050, according to a Japanese firm A Canadian space elevator patented but not dated The SNCF calls on the expertise of Cnes for its future train-drone