Bootstrapping - Step Sixteen

For all of the tele-operation fans out there, this one's for you.
Yeah baby. :)

Not a human seen anywhere, but all of that equipment we've landed on
the moon a while back has been in operation for quite a while. Now
that we're taking a peek at it, here's what's happened.

16.) Meanwhile on the moon . . .
. . . Communication equipment automatically deployed so tele-
operation can commence for the robots.

I suppose that we've preceded this point by launching a trio of
satellites into lunar-stationary orbit and another trio into geo-
stationary orbit to enable our tele-operation process.

. . . Blankets of solar cells are rolled out.

I thought that these blankets might be the way to go even though
they are less efficint in the PV process than silicon cells. They
are low mass and easy to deploy considering it is the start of the
mission and our lunar robots are of limited functionality and we may
not be able to justify the robotic controls necessary to robotically
assemble a more complex system. Further, would we want to pay the
mass penalty?

. . . Handyman builds microwave tower to beam power to roving robots.

Each of the robots have built in solar cells to provide them with
some emergency power. The handyman robot uses its internal battery
power and, while the other robots are dormant, wires a network
together using its grappler arms, so that the network of dormant
robots, can power the handyman using their attached solar cells.

Once the handyman robot has power being fed into it it starts the
process of assembling a microwave tower and connecting the solar
blankets to the tower.

. . . Excavator robot starts leveling terrain

Now that the tower has been erected, the robots now have free range
and can operate whenever they are insight of the microwave tower.
One of the first robots to start operations is the excavator. It
starts leveling "selaine" so as to ease the operations of the other
robots and to prepare for further base construction.

. . . Paver starts paving roads to aid travel and reduce effects of
moon dust.

Another robot becomes active and it scoops up regolith and using
concentrated solar energy, melts the regolith into cast basalt
bricks which are laid down to build a network of roads. I considered
a process where are robot would lay down a continuous sheet of cast
basalt road, but thought that the severe temperature shock on the
lunar surface would soon reduce that road to a series of cracks and
potholes. Thus the bricks provide room for thermal expansion.

Of course, we could do without a road network, but the reports I've
read on the nature of lunar dust leads me to take the position that
dust mitigation should be an early strategy before damage from the
abrasive dust pretty much destroys the equipment we've sent to the
moon.

. . . Brickmaker makes bricks for shelter for the robots during the
lunar night.

Another robot makes bricks that are more suitable for construction
rather than paving. One of its first tasks is to make the bricks
that the Handyman robot will lay down to construct a shelter for the
robots during the lunar night.

First, the excavator digs into a hillside a little pit. Then the
Handyman starts laying bricks against the pit walls to form a
retaining wall. There is no cement available to bind the bricks
together, but the bricks are designed to be hollow and the rebar
made by the refinery robot is used as vertical support through the
retaining walls. This rebar is driver into the gound from above.
Once a wall is complete, loose regolith is poured into the hollow
walls to give them more mass.

Next, the Handyman takes pieces of the landers and uses them as
spars to form the roof. Then the flat panels from the landers are
taken and secured against the spars.

Now the excavator backfills against the walls and loads regolth on
the roof.

Then the Handyman takes the door unit that was designed for this
shelter and was sent along on a lander and adjoins it to the shelter.

The last job for the handyman is to bring over the complete thermal
heating unit and position it within the shelter.

As an alternative I thought about an inflatable shelter, but in the
absense of electrical power during the lunar night, I thought it
would be better to go for shelter insulation from thermal mass
rather than massive electrolytic cells needed to heat a less
insulated inflatable shelter.

. . . Beneficiator separates regolith into heaps of ilmenite,
olivine, pyroxene, and plagioglase minerals.

Once the preliminary tasks are completed the excavator transports
regolith to the coarse beneficiator which separates the minerals.

. . . Beneficiator separates minerals into heaps of CaO, SiO2, FeO,
Al2O3, MgO, TiO2, Cr2O3, MnO, Na2O, etc.

The excavator then takes these minerals to a more complex
beneficiator, or if needed, a series of beneficiators, which perform
further even more complex steps in the process.

. . . Metal refinery produces steel rebar and oxygen via
carbothermal process rather than often quoted hydrogen reduction
process.

Limited by its size, this is a very inefficient robot. It makes
steel but the product is uneconmic by any measure, except that of
transport cost to the moon. Thus, the batch size is very small, it
takes a lot of energy, so much so that other robots have to cease
functioning so that all available microwave power can be used for
the electric arc furnace.

The small batches of steel are extruded to form rods of rebar which
are stockpiled over the coming months to years for future
construction projects. Considering the small batch size, there will
be many cycles before enough rebar is stockpiled to undertake any
large construction. Of course, the first units of rebar output will
be used for the robot shelter.

. . . Brickmaker makes bricks from smelted slag.

The waste slag output from the steel-making process is used by the
brickmaker to make bricks which are also stockpiled for future use.
Mainly, they'll be used as the ballast that is sent up the lunavator
when it arrives in the future.

. . . The paver - excavator - brickmaker make a sheltered landing
pad for future arrival of moon miners, and to offer protection to
escape vehicle(s) from thermal shock.

Once all of the preliminary functions are taken care of, some of the
robots are used to construct what they can of other ancillary
structures. Their work will consist of leveling the ground, laying
foundations, etc. More specialized work needed to complete the
structures will have to await the arrival of more specialized
equipment and parts.

So, without a human present, and through tele-operation, some
simple, well-defined tasks are completed on the moon's surface by
robotic equipment designed specifically for the range of limited
tasks to be performed. The equipment doesn't have a lot of
versatility but each piece of equipment does its specified task
repeatedly and is thus cost effective.

How does that sound? Any suggestions?

TangoMan