CMU Construction Robots May Be First Back To Moon
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Thursday, 26 of February , 2009 at 6:32 am
When Americans finally make it back to the moon, we’re gonna need a base. It’s going to have to have (among other things) laboratories, a powerplant, housing, and a landing pad for resupply craft. CMU’s William “Red” Whittaker (whom you may especially remember from here), explains why robots may have a little bit of work to do before we start taking up residence: “for efficient cargo transfer, the landing site needs to be close to the outpost’s crew quarters and laboratories. Each rocket landing and takeoff, however, will accelerate lunar grit outwards from the pad. With no atmosphere to slow it down, the dry soil would sandblast the outpost.”
That leaves two options: build a big hill to keep dust contained, or pave the landing area to keep dust from getting kicked up in the first place. Either one of these options involves a lot of tedious work… For example, building a protective hill (8.5 feet tall in a 160 foot semi-circle around the landing area) would involve something like 2.6 million pounds of lunar soil. That sounds like a lot, but but two 330 pound robotic rovers the size of riding lawnmowers could get the job done in just six months. Similarly, a couple robots could sift soil in the area around the pad to collect rocks suitable for paving. These particular robots have been developed by Astrobotic Technology, who plan to send robots to the moon and then license the scientific and engineering data that they collect to space agencies and other aerospace companies.
Figuring out which dust reduction method would be best will most likely involve sending a scouting mission (robotic scouting mission, I bet) to the as yet undecided site for the lunar outpost, which is expected to begin operations by 2020.
[ CMU Press Release ]
[ Astrobotic MoonDigger Presentation (PDF) ]
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Category: Space
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Comment by OSHA 30
Made Thursday, 26 of November , 2009 at 8:37 am
Really interested when i read this hope to visit again