teleoperated bots to moon

[no_way]

There are couple of things that ought to be done on Moon ASAP, without waiting for manned landings.<br />To find out if the form of hydrogen detected on poles is water ice, and if it isnt, in what form does it exists. The spectrometers dont lie, after all.<br />Another, cooking oxygen out of lunar rocks. Does this work ?<br /><br />So IMO, the most cost-efficient way to do this, would be with soft-landed teleoperated robots, which should be as flexible as possible in operation. Heres one, specifically built and designed for working in harsh environments:<br />http://www.physorg.com/news101623648.html<br /><br />Thing weighs roughly 65kg. The last teleoperated robot to land on Moon, the Lunokhod, weighed 700KG on surface, and was launched on Proton.<br />This should leave ample room for launching a pair of such robots, with large enough suitcase full of experiments and tools that they could operate.<br />Proton launch costs somewhere around $60-80M, these bots cost "only" hundreds of thousands.<br /><br />Realistically, you could pull a neat lunar program for a few hundred million, which <br />- could have very useful output for future developments<br />- could be done on budgets of big corporations ( Honda ? )<br />- would have very powerful symbolic value. you have humanoids on lunar surface, preparing for humans. If a corporation like Honda would pull it off, thats just huge PR value for generations to come.<br /><br />By the way, Honda has announced it spent nearly $300 million to develop ASIMO. So far they have just gotten PR value out of it.<br />

 

[no_way]

just a few of the things you could do with that. Keep in mind, this should all be nonautonomous, teleoperated. Such bots can autonomously perform only simple commands, like stand up and walk to something and so on.<br /><br />Lets say you land near lunar poles. On poles, you want to have vertical solar arrays.<br /><br />Such bots could pull up solar arrays that have no self-deploying mechanism, which would make the packing of them far simpler, and deployment more reliable. With thin film arays, you could even have it rolled up.<br /><br />The bots could also dig a radiation shelter, where they could take cover for radiation storms.<br /><br />next, they could feed various ISRU experiments with regolith feedstock, without any special digging equipment. Also reconfiguring the experiments to certain degree should be possible, swapping balloons, cleaning out waste products and so on. In essence, you'd have man-tended experiment, as these bots could be almost as dexterous as astronaut hand in glove.<br /><br />Provided with enough spares, the bots could also be made self-maintainable to certain degree, given you have at least two of them on the surface. Lets say it fries the main CPU board due to freak radiation event or something. Having a spare, another one could in theory swap it out ( if its designed to be swapped, of course )<br /><br />Basically, you could run an entire manned station, without having humans on site. You wouldnt have humans-on site capability, i.e. doing fine repairs and adjustments on equipent in pressurised habitats.<br /><br />The beauty of going with dexterous robots like these is that at least physically, you arent any more constrained than humans, and having human brain processing capability just a 2-second lag away backing you up, would have immense potential. Which means that you can use wide variety of different tools that are designed for humans, and dont require special design and development.<br />And of course, you could hit a golf ball ...

 

[no_way]

how would space scientists like setup like that ?<br /><br />Lets say you send the bots there, they set up a basic base, with radiation shelters, power generation capability and all that.<br /><br />Now, for next launch, you tell your scientists: see, we have 700kg to be soft-landed on lunar surface, and couple of nice guys waiting there. 200kg of this is going to be used by spare equipment and expanding the power capacity, but rest of it : have fun.<br /><br />So, these guys on site can plug in a power cord for your experiments, can bring in rocks or carry your instruments around, they can also dig holes for you in specific places and so on. There are a few simple mechanical constraints, but other than that, do what you like. <br />None of your experiments needs to have its own power, or its own automatic deployment or configuration mechanisms. Nor need they be mobile.<br /><br />what would lunar scientists come up with ?

 

[thereiwas]

In general I like the approach of sending bots first. I don't know that the humanoid shape is the best for the lunar environment, where the gravity is different, the ground much more uneven than a factory floor, and the gritty sand everywhere. Can the Japanese robots get up if they fall over?<br /><br />I have seen more practical designs from Japan which, while using the same basic technology as ASIMO, are more functional for specific tasks.<br /><br />My first guess for a Lunar bot is something more like the old Apollo jeep, with a variety of arms.

 

[no_way]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Can the Japanese robots get up if they fall over? <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />Yep, google videos has a bunch of clips about the very same HRP3 doing various tasks, including getting up.<br /><br />And if you head over to robots-dreams.com you see plenty of videos where homebuilt humanoids do various tricks as well, like on recent RoboGames 2007 competition in SF.<br /><br />The thing with humanoid shape is: its very universal. That 65Kg bot can physically do everything that a human could, just supply enough tools and instruments.<br />Another thing: its basically off the shelf technology now.<br /><br />And for any of the companies doing it partly for PR purposes, sending a humanoid would have much bigger perceived impact.

 

[MannyPim]

My own concept for Lunar robots is a colony of semi-autonomous robot "ants" which would be comprised of a few dozen to a few hundred individual robots all communicating together and cooperating on erecting structures, digging tunnels and moving regolith around.<br />Different individuals could be configured for specidfic task sets or have interchangeable parts that they could swap out so that you could dinamically allocate your mobility resources as needed.<br /><br />Some great advantages of this approach would be that each indivdual robot "ant" is relatively simple and cheap. They can be made to be very rugged. And best of all, a colony of robot ants would exhibit a very graceful failure mode. That is, with one or two complex robots, a single failure could completely disable one. Wiht a colony of tow or three hundred robots, a single failure would not jeoperdize the mission. There would be plenty of "healthy" individuals to keep going. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="2" color="#0000ff"><em>The only way to know what is possible is to attempt the impossible.</em></font> </div>

 

[azorean5000]

Robots are the way to the moon, at least for the forseable future. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[MannyPim]

Greetings Azorean !<br /><br />I agree completely although I also believe it's extremely important for humans to begin colonizing the Moon as soon as possible.<br /><br />By the way, does your name "Azorean" have anything to do with where you are from or where you live? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="2" color="#0000ff"><em>The only way to know what is possible is to attempt the impossible.</em></font> </div>

 

[kelvinzero]

I was actually wondering last night why the moon isnt buzzing with 1kg junior science project satellites propelled by off the shelf ion drives or similar. The drive, navigation program and communication would have to come from a technically advanced company, but that part could be mass produced.<br /><br />For some reason this must be much more costly than I would have guessed. I would have thought it would have been so cheap that hundreds of companies could have had a go for pure PR value, even if no scientific value.<br /><br />They probably could do useful things apart from cool flyby shots. Why not orbits that skim within meters? so close that they can actually light the surface with a flash? Also perhaps to finally collide with the surface at certain points so the spectrum of the flash could be analysed for chemical content?

 

[MannyPim]

I hear you.<br />I'm a BIG Moon guy. <br />But I think it will take a while for people to come around and realize that the Moon is the way for us to evolve into a true Space Faring Civilization.<br /><br />Too many people (including all of NASA) are thinking in terms of "we will go to the Moon so we can learn how to go to Mars".<br /><br />No. We will go to the Moon to put down roots and stay and build a bi-planetary society and economy. Mars will be a curiosity for the next one or two centuries. Fascinating though it may be it will still be only a curisosity. The Moon will become part of our everyday expereince within a generation. Regular people like you and I will be able to visit the Moon at least once in a lifetime.<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="2" color="#0000ff"><em>The only way to know what is possible is to attempt the impossible.</em></font> </div>

 

[saurc]

It makes sense to use teleoperated bots on the moon, because the time difference is only a second. However you'd need autonomous bots on planetary missions etc.

 

[kdavis007]

Won't be effective as humans on the moon.

 

[nexium]

You need something like a retrofited ICBM to get ion engines to an altitude of at least 100 kilometers, with some horizontal velocity. Then the ion engines can reach the moon, perhaps even Mars and other planets, but the travel time can be a year for the moon and a decade for other planets. Cheap ion engines (or equivelent) would likely fail before they ran out of ejection mass. Neil

 

[azorean5000]

yes, i come from Azores and live there (the same set of islands where the 2003 iraq "war conference" was held).<br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>it's extremely important for humans to begin colonizing the Moon as soon as possible.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />problem is that there are no activities that are worthy the cost of estabilishing a manned moon base. Unless tech leaps, or a new activity like a new unknow great material shows up (no helium-3) the human element wont be cost-effective.<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p> Won't be effective as humans on the moon <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />i agree, it wont, but i will be much more cost-effective (especially in the future, were robots repair and maintain each other). thats vital for TPTB <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[kelvinzero]

Hi nexium,<br />Yeah I heard a figure somewhere of 6 months for an ion drive to get to the moon, im sure that figure is changing all the time.<br /><br />I would think it would be quite cheap to put it into orbit though. You would send it up with a mission to the ISS. It only costs several thousand per kg... and they could biff it out into space during a moon walk. Hopefully they would remember to wind it up first <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" />

 

[webtaz99]

Azorean5000, I urge you to learn more about Lunar resources. Try www.permanent.com for starters.<br /><br />The materials themselves are not as important as the energy (also known as cost) saved by not launching them from Earth. The Moon may be dried up and not-sexy, but it is the future for space development. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[nimbus]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>problem is that there are no activities that are worthy the cost of estabilishing a manned moon base. <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />Bill Stone didn't seem to think so when he described his Shackleton mining expedition; that'll be ready within just 7 years. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[MannyPim]

The problem continues to be the same problem we have always had with commercial space.<br /><br />1) The exhorbitant cost of getting mass to LEO makes almost any business plan a non-starter. That's why commercial suborbital is so important. It enables us to take incremental steps in developing a space economy.<br /><br />2) The high risk of space business ventures (even if the cost to LEO problem had already been solved) because it's almost a completely new area of economic activity. We have very little expereince and virtually no idea what business models will work best. Again this is why commercial suborbital is important. It will establish some intial business models and help us gains commercial knowledge about the markets that we can then use to move forward. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="2" color="#0000ff"><em>The only way to know what is possible is to attempt the impossible.</em></font> </div>

 

[nimbus]

I had taken Azorean to mean that a Moon base could not be a profitable project regardless of whether it's done publicly or privately. Billions of tons of resources to mine sounds profitable..<br /><br />I see that LEO still is a bottleneck, but I don't see any other show-stoppers. The business model will have to be worked out, yes, but someone showing everyone the way by leading an expedition initiating the output of that large a bed of resources will definitely benefit the space business. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[azorean5000]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p> I had taken Azorean to mean that a Moon base could not be a profitable project regardless of whether it's done publicly or privately. Billions of tons of resources to mine sounds profitable.. <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />A manned moon base is not a profitable project, not with current tech. But a robotic one...perhabs <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[jimfromnsf]

"A manned moon base is not a profitable project, not with current tech. But a robotic one...perhabs"<br /><br />No, there are just as many hurdles as for a manned base, just different

 

[nimbus]

I fail to see how billions of tons of ore aren't profitable. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[kdavis007]

No it isn't... Maybe a combination of robots and humans on the base yes...

 

[nimbus]

So billions of tons of ore aren't enough to break even on the cost of returning them to Earth, and the consequent catalysis of extra-terrestrial resourcing industry?<br />The X-Prize purse money was a net loss in money, for the contributors, but that wasn't the intended profit, and as far as I understand, nor is it in the case of Shackleton crater. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[j05h]

<i>> I fail to see how billions of tons of ore aren't profitable.</i><br /><br />Getting at those resources is a serious challenge. Teleoperated precursors could be a strong advantage for establishing human bases. Tele-robotics developed for Moon use would be applicable for cis-Mars tele-ops as well. Still, those billions of tons of ore require a lot of work and investment before any extraction can occur.<br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>