 |
| AUTOMATED LUNAR MINING & MANUFACTURING |
| Lunar mining and manufacturing could be mostly automated with minimal human labor. I don't expect replicating nano-bots to build mass drivers, habitat, lava tube towns, etc. To me it looks like we will have to land 1000 to 2000 tons of equipment and expand from there to millions of tons of equipment if we ever want to build mass drivers, solar power satellites, lunar power beaming systems, cities, railways, rocket bases, factories, fleets of surface vehicles, power plants, electrical transmission and communication cables, and more. 3D laser or electron beam lithography guided by computers can make almost any kind of part. Add some automated computer controlled machine tools and robotic assemblers and much could be done. The diagram above is of course very basic. Power supplies are missing, but you get the general idea. I'm only here to inspire; not to create the future! But expect more ideas in the future, as moonminer.com is always a work in progress. Robots can do simple "grunt work" like mine for volatiles, iron fines and raw regolith and dump it into the input hoppers of various processors like magma electrolysis units, ilmenite electrostatic separators and fluidized beds, solar furnaces, electric furnaces, lift iron or steel plates with an electromagnet, dig sand molds, stack blocks of various kinds, etc. These robots would be driven by human teleoperators, though AI and robot vision advances in coming decades might make it possible for robots to mine in the wide open spaces of the maria independently. When if comes to more complex work like bolting up and welding up a 10' x 10' x 100' flat iron plate "mobile home" like the one designed by my friend Mark Rode of the Moon Society St. Louis chapter it seems to me that humans in spacesuits will be called for to drill holes, fasten bolts, weld up the plates, weld in the webs, cut the airlock holes, bolt up and weld up the airlocks and bolt them in then weld in the airlocks, install the silicone seals, hinges and doors. Arc welders would probably be used for most of the welding. Hydrogen/oxygen cutting torches might be used or a CO2 laser that focuses on the metal to create a hot spot that is simultaneously subjected to a jet of compressed oxygen to burn thru the metal. The laser welder would spare hydrogen. It is also possible that this could all be done with teleoperated robots and some skilled joystick jockeys at high resolution computer video screens in the safety of landed habitat modules. |
 |