Space agencies should work with construction-equipment manufacturers instead of independently reinventing every vehicle. A manufacturer such as JCB already knows how to remove unnecessary features and build machinery around the work customers actually need, while space engineers can supply the radiation and environmental requirements. The human team should likewise be selected for construction competence: nuclear-submarine-standard welders, tunnel engineers, structural specialists, and building fit-out crews. A tunnel-boring machine illustrates the scale, with an example about 170 meters long, roughly two thousand tonnes, and dependent on thousands of heavy lining segments. The settlement also needs an early nuclear power source and later solar and battery capacity, making power generation part of the same industrial plan.
Chapter · 2:15:49-2:24:12
Send construction trades, not generic astronauts
Space engineers should work with equipment manufacturers, submarine-standard welders, tunneling specialists, and fit-out crews because a buried city requires industrial trades and enormous machines.