[SpaceProgram] NASA Lunabotics Mining Competition

[cole santos]

I agree, however doing on a asteroid would be even easier. Loose
rubble for material, primordial composition, low gravity = lower
energy per weight of material mined. On a significantly gravitational
body one must expend energy to leave and arrive. If your goal is extra
solar, planets are a distraction at best...

On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 8:52 AM, Matt Joyce <matt at nycresistor.com> wrote:
> Well mining lunar poles for ice (H20) would be a necessity to build a
> refueling station on the moon.  Which would be a necessity for a permanent
> presence there.
>
> Also launching materials we can gather / process / fabricate on the moon
> would be cheaper than launching from earth by a sizable amount.
>
> =/
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 9:37 AM, cole santos <cksantos85 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Ya mining the moon is pointless until way later down the tech tree.
>> Aluminum, He3, oxygen. The mining strategies are way different as
>> well. One has gravity one doesn't. Mining on moon will have lots of
>> dust as well that is hell on anything that moves. If I was an
>> astronaut I would use a shovel for the quantities required for small
>> scale stuff like oxygen for habitats. Rather than surface mining we
>> need a tunneler. This would allow us to mine and build habitat at the
>> same time. Fusing the walls with a ring of CO2 lasers as you go. If
>> you did this on mars on a slope you could build a couple mile deep
>> hole. It would be easier to maintain 1 atm at the bottom. Kinda like a
>> mine shaft that's hot and pressurized at the bottom.
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 2:04 AM, Alex Cureton-Griffiths <alexcg at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > http://www.nasa.gov/offices/education/centers/kennedy/technology/lunabotics.html
>> >
>> > Since we've been talking of asteroid mining and potential habitats (of
>> > which resource accumulation is a part), I think this could be a really
>> > interesting challenge to go for. Not sure there's enough time before
>> > the 2012 deadline, but 2013 application process opens in August 2012.
>> > It's aimed at university students, so perhaps a hackerspace in
>> > Academia could have a stab at it.
>> >
>> > I'm not an advocate of mining the moon per se, but any mining robot
>> > that can mine the moon can likely mine Mars, asteroids, etc.
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