Small Robots Could Build Landing Site For Moon Base

A new NASA-sponsored study suggests that small lawnmower-sized robots could be used to build a landing site for a moon outpost. In order to be efficient a landing pad would have to be close to any structures created, but without an atmosphere to slow down the lunar sand it would sandblast the outpost, creating the need for some sort of protection. By using small robots to either build protective berms or collect rocks to "pave" a landing pad, NASA hopes to provide protection against the sand-blasting effects of a landing on the moon.

Comments

Re:No hitchikers

[Walkingshark]

I somehow doubt this is going to be much of an issue. Chances are much higher for something like damage from thermal expansion/contraction from driving in and out of shadows to do in a rover, or getting that nasty abrasive moon dust into the moving parts.

Re:I for one, *sigh*...too easy...

[girlintraining]

Do you have any concept of which you are speaking?

Minneapolis/St.Paul metropolitan area is rapidly becoming snarled in traffic jams. We've recently deployed a light-rail transit system, serving approximately a dozen stops. It was wildly successful and there are plans to expand it, with the next leg going over the recently rebuilt 35E bridge that (as you might recall) fell into the river a year ago. Our public transit system though, bluntly stated, has the suck. Really, unless your destination is downtown, or your transportation is within minneapolis/st.paul proper, you'll be spending hours riding and waiting. Which means that in Minnesota, as soon as you can afford it -- you buy a car. Insurance, by the way, is mandatory. We have a relatively high cost of living index as well. Not only that, but our traffic system is already being pushed beyond capacity. Experiments in "high occupancy vehicle lanes" to secure federal tax dollars have frustrated commuters because it's being used largely as a toll system for the upper-class to bypass traffic snarls, especially along 394 and the 35E (burnsville)->94(minneapolis) corridor.

Why on earth (lol) would you want to further automate road construction in Minnesota? Human labor on this planet is pretty cheap, even if it is unionized.

Presently, the Minnesota Department of Transportation has a budget of approximately 2.2 billion dollars per year. We just biffed a few hundred million on reconstructing a bridge that fell into the river (oops), so we're kinda tight on funding right now. There are redesigns planned for most major freeway/freeway interchanges inside the 694/494 beltway, and we are already at capacity -- with average commute times of over 45 minutes. The budget has grown annually perhaps 5-9%, while the usage patterns indicate at least 15-23% (depending on who you ask) rises over the same period. In short, we're not keeping up. Adding insult to injury -- unlike California where temperatures are relatively constant and weather-related road repairs are at a minimum, leading to highway lifespans of 50 years or more... Up here in Minnesota, we need to resurface the roads perhaps every 5-7 years, and rebuild them entirely every 20 years or so due to high temperature variations and constant humidity and weathering. Concrete roads, common throughout most of the country, are not used here except for overpasses and select areas because they fall apart too quickly under weather conditions -- necessitating the use of less-robust black-top. So our per-mile maintenance costs are higher. As well, unlike in other parts of the world, we have at least a third of the year in which we can't build roads -- because the ground is frozen!

In short, labor is more expensive up here, the build times are shorter, the demand is rising faster than supply, and alternatives simply don't exist. Why robots? Because they can work at -40 temperatures, doing 16 hour shifts. Because human labor is damned expensive up here, and because automation means we can do more work for our dollars spent. That is, if such technology existed. But it doesn't. Every mile of road we build takes a team of twenty people working at least a couple days. And it's crap work that nobody wants to do, and only a small subset of the population is physically capable OF doing -- which is why, regardless of how well it pays, there's going to remain a shortage.