BEST. ROLLERCOASTER. EVER.

CORRECTION: The Dymaxion car had a rear mounted engine, but power was delivered to the front wheels via a reversed Ford driveshaft and differential. My error.

But where does a Martian one keep its engine/turbine/reactor/fuel cells?

But where does a Martian one keep its engine/turbine/reactor/fuel cells?

The original Dymaxion car was over 20 feet long and could carry 11 passengers, so plenty of room. Today, it would probably be called the Dymaxion mini-van. So the works would be in the rear and the head would probably be back there too.

I still don't understand the superiority of this car.  Front wheel drive is nice but that does not require such a radical design.  One wheel in the back?  Whats the point?  With 11 seats who is this car meant for, the Waltons?  Having said that it does have a cool look, but it is practical?

I still don't understand the superiority of this car.  Front wheel drive is nice but that does not require such a radical design.  One wheel in the back?  Whats the point?  With 11 seats who is this car meant for, the Waltons?  Having said that it does have a cool look, but it is practical?

An 11 passenger car with a turning radius of one car length, 30mpg fuel efficiency, and a top speed of 120mph using early 1930's materials and engineering?  Nope, nothing special about this car.

An 11 passenger car with a turning radius of one car length, 30mpg fuel efficiency, and a top speed of 120mph using early 1930's materials and engineering?  Nope, nothing special about this car.

No need for sarcasm.  I was just asking.  Here is my opinion.

+ Eleven passengers is too big for a family car.  and the oblong shap still makes no sense to me.  Is it really that areodynamic?
+ 30 mpg is nice but is it real?  I see a lot of claims from cars companies about great mileage that turn out to be not true. 
+ 120 mph.  I kinda doubt it.
+ The turning radius is nice but I still say the single wheel would make it twitchy, especially at high speeds. 

The fact that most of the car's weight rests on the one rear wheel is generally considered a flaw in the design.

As it had a relatively small engine, though, and light construction, the gas mileage claim is plausible.

Not so small an engine.
Wikipedia says "Drive power was provided by a rear-mounted Ford V8 engine" A gutless one by later standards but no shrimp weight wise.

This is cool, a drawing of the layout.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Dymaxion_car_illustration.jpg

from this page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rear-engine,_front-wheel_drive_layout

Hopefully the bathroom was of the dymaxion house type as seen here.

http://www.thirteen.org/bucky/bathroom.html

Hopefully the bathroom was of the dymaxion house type

While fixed nitrogen is valuable, night soil is inappropriate for composting for epidemiological reasons.

Perhaps there are methods of thermal and chemical processing that would totally sterilize human wastes without destroying their fixed nitrogen content... and which would also not be excessively energy intensive. Given the limited processing we tolerate for sewage before discharging it into rivers, I suppose that is possible.

The future will be wonderful - we will have plentiful energy, so that we can produce our drinking water from rivers and oceans in a sensible and safe way... with mass spectrometers.

Horribly blunt here but if you can sterilize food, as in a canner, you can do the same with "droppings". Lovely word, that. And leave the vitamins intact. Even boiling water temps would do fine. Most likely though, boat or RV type holding tanks pumped out at base.

blathering on
Two big new streilization techs for water are ozone generators and tanning bed type UV lights. Copper or silver in a water tank supposedly helps too. The olde timers used to keep a trout in the farms' cistern to be sure the water was safe enough for the fish and the people, so I hear.

night soil is inappropriate for composting for epidemiological reasons.[....]Perhaps there are methods of thermal and chemical processing that would totally sterilize human wastes without destroying their fixed nitrogen content... and which would also not be excessively energy intensive.

The Humanure Handbook, free download.  When composting is done as is normally recommended, with "turning" the compost every so often, the interior does not heat up enough to pasteurize.  If you leave it alone, it does.  Which means that this method is also conservative of simple manpower, let alone anything beyond that.  I haven't got my own system set up yet, but it's still early spring here.

Please note that the author has had his stuff tested for microcritter content.

The fact that most of the car's weight rests on the one rear wheel is generally considered a flaw in the design.

HOW POLITICIANS LIE: One technique is use of the passive voice. Instead of saying "I made mistakes," the evasive pol says, "Mistakes were made." Thus obscuring the maker of the mistakes. Likewise, when someone is talking out of their hat, instead of taking responsibility for their own opinion, they say, "The fact that most of the car's weight rests on the one rear wheel is generally considered a flaw in the design."

Now I realize that Q could be correct. If so, I am sure he will be happy to give us several URLs that support his indirect assertion. Q, you have the floor.

mellyrn thanks, I downloaded it.

I am working with a small scale version of this sort of thing. I have blathered on about where and how too much already but it is beyond theoretical. For concrete practical untheoretical fact, ya just can't beat plumbing.

Now I realize that Q could be correct. If so, I am sure he will be happy to give us several URLs that support his indirect assertion. Q, you have the floor.

Searching through sites on the Dymaxion Car, I found one of the ones I looked at before that probably led me to this impression.

It seemed reasonable to me that if the car's engine is in the back, and there's only one wheel in the back, weight distribution would be a problem - at least for tire wear. I will admit that this weight distribution would seem, if anything, beneficial for steering.

In any event, it has had time to dawn on me how Reggie could, not being local to Mars, make an error which no AI will save him from. It would be only embarrassing, not life threatening, unless he also runs out of gas.

Failure to note that the Valles Marineris lies between one and one's destination.

Pressurized highways between domed cities, or other, less famous, Martian topographical features, which are also natural barriers to ground transport, are also possible.

One thing the D car was not was a jeep. The wheels are a might small. Still cool to see it.