This was one of the best things that I have watched! It was exciting and inspiring. I really like how it was commentated, which reminded me of a sporting event. Outstanding job, NASA, keep doing this!
Sort of. It depends on what you want. If you want water, extraction is relatively easy. Dump the regolith in a box, heat it up, and collect the water that is released (presumably vapor if it is done without putting pressurized gases in the chamber). Water would obviously be in demand if people and other organisms where to stay on the moon, even with water recovery technologies. Furthermore, having a supply of water ready on the moon, as prepared by robots, would reduce the amount of water needed from Earth and therefore the cost of a colony. Water could also form the backbone of lunar energy storage systems. It could be split into hydrogen and oxygen to store energy and recombined to use that energy. The obvious case of that would be with fuel cells, but the oxygen and hydrogen could also be burned to produce high temperatures (maybe useful for extracting mineral resources from the regolith?) or as rocket fuel. Another potential use of regolith is as a bulk building material. Suggestions for rending raw regolith useful this range from sintering to mixing it with sulfur or polymers to produce a water-free cement. I personally prefer the first because it relies less on acquiring/bringing rarer materials and more on providing lots of energy. During the daytime, solar energy should be plentiful, so energy shouldn't be a problem. The materials produced by this method are hard and durable. if crude. However, they could be used as the outer shells of pressurized capsules. These shells would not hold pressure on their own, but would instead provide shielding from meteors and radiation. Once a sufficiently strong shell is produced, unprocessed regolith could be piled on top for additional shielding against radiation and cushioning against meteors. Lightweight, possibly inflatable capsules (not unlike the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module) could be assembled inside the shell, and the structure would be ready for use by astronauts. As far as the difficulty of mining itself, it is surprisingly complex. The lunar environment, even without the 1/6th gravity of earth, poses a lot of o challenges. I will be going to college shortly and plan to join a team for this competition, so I am sure to encounter the specifics shortly. But from the top of my head, here are some challenges. The robot needs to be robust enough to operate without any human interaction, for years if possible. It also has to withstand the abrasive regolith dust while minimizing the amount of dust it kicks up itself. It needs to operate with very limited communication, which limits the amount of information that can be relayed to the driver and the complexity of the instructions that can be sent to the robot. This particular problem promotes work on semi-autonomous modes that can perform tasks without user input. Weight is also an important consideration, as it is quite expensive to get anything onto the surface of the moon. Finally, the process of mining involves safely navigating the simulation moon surface, collecting regolith where the sediment in varied in size and compacted only a couple of dozen centimeters under the surface, and delivering this to the base station, all in a timely manner. To make something that actually mines regolith isn't too difficult, but to make something refined enough to address all of these problems and more is a real challenge. On a final note, work is also being done on how to extract mineral resources from regolith. Here are some links to sites explaining some processes in development: isru.nasa.gov/Molten_Regolith_Electrolysis.html isru.nasa.gov/Carbothermal.html Here is NASA's home site on the fascinating topic of regolith utilization: isru.nasa.gov/MetalsfromRegolith.html I won't be studying material engineering or chemistry, but those people have some fun challenges to take on. Live long and prosper.
This was one of the best things that I have watched! It was exciting and inspiring. I really like how it was commentated, which reminded me of a sporting event. Outstanding job, NASA, keep doing this!
I never saw the challenge in moon mining as being in the acquisition of the material but in the refinement of the material.
Sort of. It depends on what you want. If you want water, extraction is relatively easy. Dump the regolith in a box, heat it up, and collect the water that is released (presumably vapor if it is done without putting pressurized gases in the chamber). Water would obviously be in demand if people and other organisms where to stay on the moon, even with water recovery technologies. Furthermore, having a supply of water ready on the moon, as prepared by robots, would reduce the amount of water needed from Earth and therefore the cost of a colony. Water could also form the backbone of lunar energy storage systems. It could be split into hydrogen and oxygen to store energy and recombined to use that energy. The obvious case of that would be with fuel cells, but the oxygen and hydrogen could also be burned to produce high temperatures (maybe useful for extracting mineral resources from the regolith?) or as rocket fuel.
Another potential use of regolith is as a bulk building material. Suggestions for rending raw regolith useful this range from sintering to mixing it with sulfur or polymers to produce a water-free cement. I personally prefer the first because it relies less on acquiring/bringing rarer materials and more on providing lots of energy. During the daytime, solar energy should be plentiful, so energy shouldn't be a problem. The materials produced by this method are hard and durable. if crude. However, they could be used as the outer shells of pressurized capsules. These shells would not hold pressure on their own, but would instead provide shielding from meteors and radiation. Once a sufficiently strong shell is produced, unprocessed regolith could be piled on top for additional shielding against radiation and cushioning against meteors. Lightweight, possibly inflatable capsules (not unlike the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module) could be assembled inside the shell, and the structure would be ready for use by astronauts.
As far as the difficulty of mining itself, it is surprisingly complex. The lunar environment, even without the 1/6th gravity of earth, poses a lot of o challenges. I will be going to college shortly and plan to join a team for this competition, so I am sure to encounter the specifics shortly. But from the top of my head, here are some challenges. The robot needs to be robust enough to operate without any human interaction, for years if possible. It also has to withstand the abrasive regolith dust while minimizing the amount of dust it kicks up itself. It needs to operate with very limited communication, which limits the amount of information that can be relayed to the driver and the complexity of the instructions that can be sent to the robot. This particular problem promotes work on semi-autonomous modes that can perform tasks without user input. Weight is also an important consideration, as it is quite expensive to get anything onto the surface of the moon. Finally, the process of mining involves safely navigating the simulation moon surface, collecting regolith where the sediment in varied in size and compacted only a couple of dozen centimeters under the surface, and delivering this to the base station, all in a timely manner. To make something that actually mines regolith isn't too difficult, but to make something refined enough to address all of these problems and more is a real challenge.
On a final note, work is also being done on how to extract mineral resources from regolith. Here are some links to sites explaining some processes in development:
isru.nasa.gov/Molten_Regolith_Electrolysis.html
isru.nasa.gov/Carbothermal.html
Here is NASA's home site on the fascinating topic of regolith utilization:
isru.nasa.gov/MetalsfromRegolith.html
I won't be studying material engineering or chemistry, but those people have some fun challenges to take on.
Live long and prosper.
i notice you turn comments off on all your vids. Was it due to Conspiracists or SpaceX'rs? And im being serious.
to much moving part broke down all crap