Humanity just took another step toward colonizing Mars, but this week's advance didn't involve Elon Musk's massive Starship rocket, SpaceX, some gee-whiz new rocket propellant, or even anything that humans can fly, land, or breathe.
But yes, Musk was involved because, of course, he was.
Another one of Musk's many firms, The Boring Company (TBC), announced "Big tunneling milestone!" today with a video of off-white, rocky sludge moving down a conveyor belt away from some spinning machinery.
This might not at first glance look like anything important, but TBC says this is a big deal because for the first time, the company "has continuously mined in a Zero-People-in-Tunnel (ZPIT) configuration." The company explained, "There is nobody in the machine (besides the videographer), which is simultaneously advancing forward and erecting a ring (i.e. building the tunnel)."
Here's the clip:
Big tunneling milestone!
— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) May 13, 2025
For the first time, TBC has continuously mined in a Zero-People-in-Tunnel (ZPIT) configuration. There is nobody in the machine (besides the videographer), which is simultaneously advancing forward and erecting a ring (i.e. building the tunnel). Each… pic.twitter.com/nQS8WRAt2w
"In the same way that full and rapid reusability is the holy grail for rockets, ZPIT continuous mining is the holy grail for Boring Machines," the company said. "This is the safest, fastest, and least expensive architecture to build tunnels."
TBC's "Prufrock" machines are some dead-sexy engineering and, despite their terrestrial nature, they represent the next advance required to colonize Mars. While the company was founded seemingly on a whim — nine years ago when Musk was stuck in some of L.A.'s ungodly traffic — there was a method to his seeming madness.
TBC completed its first major project, the Las Vegas Convention Center Loop, in 2021. Projects in Chicago, Los Angeles, and the D.C. Beltway remain mired in red tape and, I presume, official graft.
But the point wasn't to dig tunnels. It was to learn how to dig tunnels more quickly and less expensively than anyone ever had before — TBC claims its tunnels can be dug 10 to 40 times faster and at a thousandth of the cost of traditional methods — and without the need for any pesky human beings at the dig site.
Because if human beings are going to live on Mars, they're going to have to live underground. And it would be better if automated tunneling machines could get started on excavating those habitats long before the first settlers arrive.
And Another Thing: Martians will have to live underground at least until it becomes possible to terraform Mars. I wouldn't worry too much about what environmentalists and other Luddites here on Earth have to say about that because when the time comes to start diverting comets and smashing them into Mars for water, we Earthlings won't get a say in what Martians choose to do with their planet. And, no, despite what you might have read, if humans manage to create a breathable atmosphere on Mars, it won't simply leak out into space.
You should not be surprised to learn that TBC's Prufrock series of diggers run on battery power (there isn't enough air on Mars to run diesel or gas). Or that unlike any other digger, they can start their own dig without other machinery prepping the site first. And that now they can dig and lay tunnel without human intervention.
Even fully assembled, a Prufrock can fit inside the cargo area of one of Musk's Starships. At 400 tons, Prufrock currently weighs too much to launch on Starship, which can lift “only” 250–300 tons. But that’s just a matter of making Starship more powerful — and SpaceX already has that on the drawing board.
Transfer windows to Mars open about every 26 months. Launching a few Prufrocks to Mars, and then giving the AI-controlled diggers two years to do their thing, would go a long way toward making possible the first extraterrestrial human colony.
Can they do it? I don’t know — but watching all the exquisitely engineered pieces click into place is a thrill.
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