Surface Mine Design and Planning for Lunar Regolith Production
Abstract
Terrestrial surface mine design and planning techniques are applied to the production of lunar regolith for manufacturing makeup gases for the life-support system of a lunar base. Two scenarios are examined, due to the uncertainty of whether bound hydrogen sensed near the lunar poles is from cometary ice deposited in cold traps (#1), or to hydrogen implanted within regolith grains by the solar wind (#2). Scenario #1, with a total production requirement of 44 tonne/day of regolith, could be handled with four groups of four 6-m3 capacity slushers (drag scrapers), each group extending 100 m around a single processing module. Scenario #2 (4.382 tonne/day) could be accomplished with three powered bowl-type scrapers (capacity 24 m3) gathering the regolith into long windrows feeding a large processor. The present orebody model is extremely thin (1 m), although broad in extent: this prevents usage of high production-rate systems such as large draglines.
Recommended Citation
L. S. Gertsch and R. E. Gertsch, "Surface Mine Design and Planning for Lunar Regolith Production," Proceedings of the 1st Symposium on Space Colonization, of the SpaceTechnology and Applications International Forum (2003, Albuquerque, NM), vol. 654, no. 1, pp. 1108 - 1115, American Institute of Physics (AIP), Feb 2003.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1541408
Meeting Name
1st Symposium on Space Colonization, of the SpaceTechnology and Applications International Forum (2003: Feb. 2-5, Albuquerque, NM)
Department(s)
Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering
International Standard Book Number (ISBN)
0-7354-0115-2
Document Type
Article - Conference proceedings
Document Version
Citation
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2003 American Institute of Physics (AIP), All rights reserved.
Publication Date
01 Feb 2003
