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Water-Prospecting Lunar Rover Prototype Built
Zothecula writes "Astrobotic Technology Inc., a spin-off company of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), has debuted its full-size flight prototype of its Polaris lunar water-prospecting robot. Polaris is specially designed to work in the permanently shadowed craters at the Moon's poles. Scheduled to be sent to the Moon using a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle, the solar-powered rover is a contender in the US$20 million Google Lunar X Prize and is tasked with seeking ice deposits that could be used by future colonists."
If it's solar powered, how's it going to work in the permanently shadowed craters?
Since your clicking finger may be broken, here is a relevant section of the article to help you out:
To find the ice, a rover thus must operate as close to the dark poles as possible, but not so far that it can't use solar arrays for power, Whittaker said. Polaris thus has three large solar arrays, arranged vertically to capture light from low on the horizon. The solar arrays will be capable of an average of 250 watts of electrical power.
Funny how they did actually consider this before designing a multi-million dollar robot. It looks like maybe they did complete Physics 101.
To find the ice, a rover thus must operate as close to the dark poles as possible, but not so far that it can't use solar arrays for power, Whittaker said. Polaris thus has three large solar arrays, arranged vertically to capture light from low on the horizon. The solar arrays will be capable of an average of 250 watts of electrical power.
So, I guess it'll be in craters that are shadowed by the depth of the walls of the crater, but by not too deep of a crater so as long as the panels are taller than them?
Only 150 lbs for such a large rover, and it can carry all of that weight? That's pretty impressive.
(Yes, I know 150lbs won't amount to much on the Moon. I'm still impressed)
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Internet Foul, on the Defense, Reading the Article and Thinking for More Than 4 Seconds. 15 Karma point penalty. Repeat First Post.
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Somewhere I read that there's little chance to find any good source of water on a planet (or other rock-ball type) without a magnetic field, because that is the only thing that prevents massive hydrogen/water molecules loss from upper parts of the atmosphere caused by solar winds. Therefore, Earth has water, other planets have only uninteresting amounts of it.
Maybe there are (ice) deposits from the time the planets (moon) had the magnetic field? Can anyone clarify?
Damn, there goes my carefully generated karma...
Big assumptions in that.
One thing both the moon and mars do have is lots of dust, not only is dust an insulator, but water tends to stick to surfaces lowering the rate at which it'll move into the atmosphere. Once it hits the atmosphere, yes, it'll tend to get stripped by solar winds. However the initial quantities of water, the rate at which water ends up in the atmosphere and the rate of redeposition (particularly of hydrogen) are still unknowns.
It's actually much worse than this. The moon is basically a radiation nightmare. In addition to all the solar radiation from above (in the form of corona mass ejections), you've apparently got lots from below you as well (thorium and uranium in the crust).
I think most folks are thinking about using the water to make hydrogen (for rocket fuel) and for industrial purposes (e.g., thermal pumps, etc). Drinking water will likely be mostly closed-loop (not unlike how they do it on the ISS).
it has solar cells that face toward the horizon, to capture the small amount of energy that comes over the side
May I know what's the mass of the rover?
Is the "small amount of energy" captured by the solar cell enough to power the movement of the rover?
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What could possibly go wrong?
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The only information that I know about is here...
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2005/08sep_radioactivemoon/
Out in deep space, radiation comes from all directions. On the Moon, you might expect the ground, at least, to provide some relief, with the solid body of the Moon blocking radiation from below. Not so.
When galactic cosmic rays collide with particles in the lunar surface, they trigger little nuclear reactions that release yet more radiation in the form of neutrons. The lunar surface itself is radioactive!
So which is worse for astronauts: cosmic rays from above or neutrons from below? Igor Mitrofanov, a scientist at the Institute for Space Research and the Russian Federal Space Agency, Moscow, offers a grim answer: "Both are worse."
They are attempting to quantify this effect with CRaTER or Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation. Basically, the CRaTER instrument is aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (which is currently orbiting the Moon). However, I haven't seen any specific reports on their findings on their official website http://crater.sr.unh.edu/, press reports indicate that initial finding aren't good...
In a surprising discovery, scientists have found that the moon itself is a source of potentially deadly radiation.
Measurements taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter show that the number of high energy particles streaming in from space did not tail off closer to the moon's surface, as would be expected with the body of the moon blocking half the sky.
Rather, the cosmic rays created a secondary — and potentially more dangerous -- shower by blasting particles in the lunar soil which then become radioactive.
"The moon is a source of radiation," said Boston University researcher Harlan Spence, the lead scientist for LRO's cosmic ray telescope. "This was a bit unexpected."
While the moon blocks galactic cosmic rays to some extent, the hazards posed by the secondary radiation showers counter the shielding effects, Spence said at a press conference at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco this week.
I can't wait for billions of my taxes to be spent finding water on the moon because we all know our economy is strong and infallible, humans have no disease or global strife, and the government is sitting flush with money just wasting away doing nothing because our education and healthcare are all top notch.
I hope one day soon scientists are going to find water on another moon or planet and be so happy they have never wasted one taxpayer dollar doing so.
I am also stoked for a new season of Sarcastaball to get started!
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.