4 ms·
It definitely doesn't scale linearly. They had a section of the tube only several meters long for vacuum testing pods and that took 15 minutes to depressurize.
by smbullet 10y ago
It definitely doesn't scale linearly. They had a section of the tube only several meters long for vacuum testing pods and that took 15 minutes to depressurize. It's likely bigger/more pumps would be used.
- annerajb 10y agoWoudn't the need for depressuration be removed if using airlock since you only have to depressurize the airlock volume?
- vidarh 10y agoTo some extent, but part of the reason for having pumps is that it removes the need to make the tube fully airtight - the idea being that it's likely to be cheaper to build a tube that is largely airtight and use pumps to deal with leaks than to build one that can keep a vacuum over time.