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Extraterrestrial Drilling and Excavation
Published in Yoseph Bar-Cohen, Kris Zacny, Advances in Extraterrestrial Drilling, 2020
Kris Zacny, Gale Paulsen, Phil Chu, Boleslaw Mellerowicz, Stephen Indyk, Justin Spring, Alex Wang, Grayson Adams, Leslie Alarid, Colin Andrew, Jameil Bailey, Ron Bergman, Dean Bergman, Jocelyn Bergman, Phil Beard, Andrew Bocklund, Natasha Bouey, Ben Bradley, Michael Buchbinder, Kathryn Bywaters, Lee Carlson, Conner Castle, Mark Chapman, Colin Chen, Paul Chow, Evan Cloninger, Patrick Corrigan, Tighe Costa, Paul Creekmore, Kiel Davis, Stella Dearing, Jack Emery, Zak Fitzgerald, Steve Ford, Sam Goldman, Barry Goldstein, Stephen Gorevan, Amelia Grossman, Ashley Hames, Nathan Heidt, Ron Hayes, Matt Heltsley, Jason Herman, Joe Hernandez, Greg Hix, Will Hovik, Robert Huddleston, Kevin Humphrey, Anchal Jain, Nathan Jensen, Marnie Johnson, Helen Jung, Robert Kancans, Cecily Keim, Sarineh Keshish, Michael Killian, Caitlin King, Isabel King, Daniel Kim, Emily Kolenbrander, Sherman Lam, Andrea Lamore, Caleb Lang, Joseph Lee, Carolyn Lee, John Lorbiecki, Kathryn Luczek, Jacob Madden, Jessica Maddin, Tibor Makai, Mike Maksymuk, Zach Mank, Richard Margulieux, Sara Martinez, Yuka Matsuyama, Andrew Maurer, Molly McCormick, Jerry Moreland, Phil Morrison, Erik Mumm, Adoni Netter, Jeff Neumeister, Tim Newbold, Joey Niehay, Phil Ng, Peter Ngo, Huey Nguyen, Tom O’Bannon, Sean O’Brien, Joey Palmowski, Aayush Parekh, Andrew Peekema, Fredrik Rehnmark, Hunter Rideout, Albert Ridilla, Alexandra Rzepiejewska, Dara Sabahi, Yoni Saltzman, Luke Sanasarian, Vishnu Sanigepalli, Emily Seto, Jeff Shasho, Sase Singh, David Smyth, Nancy Sohm, Jesus Sosa, Joey Sparta, Leo Stolov, Marta Stone, Andrew Tallaksen, Miranda Tanouye, Lisa Thomas, Thomas Thomas, Luke Thompson, Mary Tirrell, Nick Traeden, Ethan Tram, Sarah Tye, Crystal Ulloa, Dylan Van-Dyne, Robert Van Ness, Vincent Vendiola, Brian Vogel, Lillian Ware, Bobby Wei, Hunter Williams, Jack Wilson, Brian Yaggi, Bernice Yen, Sean Yoon, Ben Younes, David Yu, Michael Yu, Mike Zasadzien, Raymond Zheng, Yoseph Bar-Cohen, Mircea Badescu, Xiaoqi Bao, Tom Cwik, Jean-Pierre Fleurial, Jeffery Hall, Kevin Hand, Ben Hockman, Samuel M. Howell, Troy Lee Hudson, Shannon Jackson, Hyeong Jae Lee, Michael Malaska, Brandon Metz, Scott Moreland, Avi Okon, Tyler Okamoto, Dario Riccobono, Kris Sherrill, Stewart Sherrit, Miles Smith, Jurgen Mueller, Wayne Zimmerman, Michael Amato, Melissa Trainer, Don Wegel, Andrej Grubisic, Walter F. Smith, Ralph Lorenz, Elizabeth Turtle, Hirotaka Sawada, Hiroki Kato, Yasutaka Satou, Takashi Kubota, Masaki Fujimoto, Pietro Baglioni, Stephen Durrant, Richard Fisackerly, Roland Trautner, Marek Banaszkiewicz, Karol Seweryn, Akihiro Fujiwara, Taro Nakamura, Matthias Grott, Jerzy Grygorczuk, Bartosz Kędziora, Łukasz Wiśniewski, Tomasz Kuciński, Gordon Wasilewski, Seiichi Nagihara, Rohit Bhartia, Hiroyuki Kawamoto, Julius Rix, Robert Mulvaney, Andrea Rusconi, Christian Panza, Marco Peruzzotti, Pablo Sobron, Ryan Timoney, Kevin Worrall, Patrick Harkness, Naohiro Uyama, Hiroshi Kanamori, Shigeru Aoki, Dale Winebrenner, Yasuyuki Yamada, Tilman Spohn, Christian Krause, Torben Wippermann, Roy Lichtenheldt
TRIDENT is the 4th-generation drill system specifically designed for drilling into volatile-rich regions on the Moon. The drill is baselined for the VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) mission. VIPER is a lunar rover planned to launch to the Moon in 2022 as part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) to support the crewed Artemis Program. The rover will prospect for lunar resources in permanently shadowed areas in the lunar south pole region and in particular it will map the distribution and concentration of water ice. The mission draws significant heritage on a prior NASA rover concept called Resource Prospector. Mapping our water resources on the Moon is a next step in lunar exploration. This reconnaissance mission would pave the way for future science and In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) endeavors to the Moon and also Mars.
State-of-the-Art of Manufacturing and Processing Methods in the Digital Era
Published in Yoseph Bar-Cohen, Advances in Manufacturing and Processing of Materials and Structures, 2018
As space exploration expands, in situ resource utilization (ISRU) is increasingly being considered to enable humans to develop sustainable habitation on various bodies in the universe. Generally, ISRU is defined as “the collection, processing, storing and use of materials encountered in the course of human or robotic space exploration that replace materials that would otherwise be brought from Earth” (Sacksteder and Sanders, 2007). ISRU methods are being developed to extract and process resources for enhancing the requirements and capabilities of space missions, allowing landing and extended operation of humans on such bodies as the Moon, Mars, asteroids, and others. ISRU methods are being developed for supporting life, propellants, construction materials, and energy to spacecraft payloads or space exploration crews. Harvesting electric power from solar cells has been very common for spacecraft and robotic systems and has allowed them to operate over years without the need for fuel or other resources from Earth. The use of ISRU methods offers an important approach to reducing the required mass and cost of space exploration and the required payload that must be launched from Earth in order to explore planetary bodies. According to NASA, “in-situ resource utilization will enable the affordable establishment of extraterrestrial exploration and operations by minimizing the materials carried from Earth” (NASA ISRU website, 2016).
Emergence of a Commercial Space Nuclear Enterprise
Published in Nuclear Technology, 2020
Looking further ahead, private entities have proposed activities that will likely require nuclear power. Those with commercial applications that have been announced include powering (1) sustained surface operations [e.g., a lunar base or in situ resource utilization (ISRU)], (2) life support for human missions, and (3) high thrust and specific impulse propulsion. Each of these activities would require relatively high-power levels (up to a gigawatt) (Ref. 12), which would be best fulfilled by fission systems. At the time of this writing, it is not clear that these activities will be commercially viable (especially without the certain supply of nuclear systems), but companies still hope to realize them soon; for example, SpaceX aspires to send humans to Mars by 2024 (Ref. 14). For these ambitions to prevail, companies will likely need nuclear power (e.g., to support humans on the surface of Mars). Perhaps more importantly, the availability of nuclear systems may be a critical determinant of the viability of these further-term activities.