[SpaceProgram] NASA Lunabotics Mining Competition

[Matt Joyce]

Easier is a relative term.  Asteroid belts are generally exposed to far
higher amounts of radiation and fast moving debris.

On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 3:57 PM, cole santos <cksantos85 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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