Absolutely. This would also make building first structures out of wrought iron much easier. No oxidation protection needed, at least for the structures that will not have atmosphere inside.
What about the radiation that comes from the sun. There is no atmosphere on the moon. So heat from the sun directly on the steel is gonna put that heat I to the steel more than on earth. Imagine a car on a hot sunny day. We will have to be careful with how its constructed. And especially where it is constructed. A cave would be absolutely perfect. Cause the white lunar soil reflects light and heat. I am not saying it's impossible. We will just need to construct habitats that can disperse the heat from the pure power of a star on a body with no atmosphere or magnetosphere to direct the deadly radiation waves. Heck cancer might become the main killer of humans if we move into the stars. The gene shredding ionizing Ray's are everywhere in space. It's why we dont get skin cancer the second we decide to get some vitamin d.
@@johnnywalker472Your metallurgy will produce free oxygen as a byproduct in such massive quantities that it can't all be stored or used. Some will be dumped, over time creating a faint oxygen atmosphere that could potentially oxidize your metals.
@@louishermann7676 you underestimate the amount required. additionally, the main reason the moon doesn't have an atmosphere is that it lacks a magnetic field and the gravity required to keep it. we could pump whatever we wanted into the atmosphere and chances are it'd end up in space
@9:08. "While the bucket wheel is very good for carving up the German countryside to feed their post-nuclear coal addiction..." I regret I only have one like I can give this video.
@@OryxAU no, why should we? because they are stuck with this obsolete technology for decades to come, while we are admittedly not as far as we should have been (thanks, Altmeier and Merkel), but are on our way? everyone pretend as if germany opened new digging sites or new coal power plants. ridiculous.
There's nothing that says moon structures *must* be built from steel, regolith has lots of aluminum and titanium to use structurally, and vacuum removes the need for shielding gasses to weld them. For megastructures like O'Neil cylinders, those lighter materials might be the preferred options to reduce the cost of lift to orbit. Concrete made from regolith, made air tight by glassing layers of it, or putting in some kind of resin or fabric liner or whatever, might be another option for Lunar bases. Carbon might end up too valuable for food production biological carbon cycles to put to structural use, given the cost of food imports; conversely if food imports get really cheap, excess recycled sewage solids may be a primary source of carbon for structural use.
All of the thermosetting resin and epoxy to seal said concrete would need to be shipped up to the moon, and for long term stays we would need a loooot of concrete and steel to seal up
@@phantama7615 We would likely just use sulfur to make concrete, its a great, water free alternative and very robust. It will work better on Mars as the sulfur is there already, but it's a good option for the moon too
@@BarrGC you’re right, it’s melting point isn’t to high either, purified and exposed to the sun it would melt into a liquid on the moons surface, giant solar powered forges, easy to transport back to the moon as well since both bodies have lower escape velocity
"... massive machines moving megatons of lunar regolith vibe hard." Yes. Just yes. Though the logistics and economics of that matter aren't really up to the people, at this time, and I'm sure a sizable portion of the population approves, but the people in power may not.
This is the first time I ever heard “quantity has a quality of its own” and not wanted to punch someone to death. Good on you for using that saying in a context that makes sense!
Tbh I'm not a fan of developing the moon in any major ways. I want my great great grandchildren to be able to look up and see the same pristine beauty I can. That said, mars, near earth asteroids, ect, go nuts and harvest the hell outta those
But you would definitely hear it while staying near the machine, or being on board of it due to vibration going through soil or its structure. And it's gonna be friggen HUGE
I was going to suggest Hectare Metres as a unit of measure, but Lunar Lodes works just as well! And heck yeah, build some self propelled bucket chains! Always figured Titanium would get a lot of use on the moon as well, doubly so if we could use with less issues than steel-making.
Not being in a highly oxidizing environment, like we are on earth, more alloys should be viable. No need for stainless when there is no pesky O2 everywhere.
this series is super interesting. I can really tell the background effort, research and calculations you put into every video. It makes all the difference.
So as someone in a background in the mining industry I have another thought. I know we do not know the exact composition of the sub surface minerals of the moon or and real idea how stable it would be, but the idea of mining in shafts that are subterranean seems like a good idea somewhat. It gets rid of the heat issue, also the excavated tunnels and be used for expansion of "habs" for us to live it and all the materials gained may have better composition than that of the surface regolith. If this was done you could also use a boring type machine that would normally be used here on earth for tunnels to mine, because we are nine going after veins like typical below ground ming we can just mine in one line continuously. Like I said I know nothing of the sub surface makeup of the moon and its stability or it's mineral composition, so this could be an easily disproved idea.
hello mate, I am mining engineer. I can say you are doing a great job. Big and heavy machines moving on feet are great when you have soft terrain, it is a great idea.
I love this, it is thinking about how we do this realistically, we always see concepts that are about swarm robots and such but this is the way more likely scenario. Take what you know and adapt!
Something you've mentioned multiple times but i recently thought of. The limited amount of launches. If the launches are limited then the hardware has to get bigger. So i present the very old project - seadragon, as an idea.
One of your videos popped up on my feed last night, I ended up watching 3 hours worth of your content. You do such a good job at it. Recently been a bit of a doomer when it comes to the future of mankind, but how you put everything in a realistic way, showing how it's all possible for us to do, has cheered me up a bit. Maybe we can do it, maybe we can escape the cradle and venture forth unto the heavens.
Keep making videos bro. Especially the longer ones. I love to watch them before bed. I'm watching all your videos on my TH-cam premium account to support your channel. I love the fact that you go in-depth with your analysis and train of thought. I definitely want to see more channels that cover this aspect of "realistic future timeline of humanity"
today i feel into the rabbit hole of, walking excavators also a thing i wanna bring up from said rabbit hole, DRAGLINE EXCAVATORS, you take an exca- -vator remove the middle section of the arm thing, and have the shovel be controlled entirely by cables, that's one less part to maintain make/ship, harder to operate though i think
From the Moon we will launch mining operations to near-Earth asteroids which will yield insane amounts of rare Earth minerals once we have the infrastructure to exploit them. Within 50 years maybe, we will have mined our first asteroid. I hope
Great to see you pick up on all of that. And crush the numbers and all. Appearantly you're the type of person who _really_ digs in 😂 Chain or wheel, whatever makes most sense, right? I value your insights, and you bringing them over to us... I think this will be a go-to reference index in about tweny years from now. Basically we're watching future stock footage. Metric tons of Kudos man!
I just realized something rather fun, a lunar manufactured ingot would vacuum weld itself to a pile of ingots if they were stacked, this sounds like both a colossal pain and very convenient at the same time
I don't have words to praise you enough, I just love your videos. I am about halfway through your book and it's such a fun read for a nerd like me. I hope you find a lot of success in your life. Thank you for everything ❤
While I'll not expect the Moon to remain pristine, I would prefer later and larger mining operations be carried out on the Far Side. Mostly to avoid changes to the look of the Moon over the next few centuries. The twinkling light of nearside cities wouldn't bother me so much, but a Moon raked into a smoothed ball by centuries of industrial scale strip mining seems unappealing. So I'd hope a bit of long term planning is undertaken to avoid our descendants cursing us out for mucking up the view from home. Especially with the entire Lunar Far Side and every other more distant object in the sky existing beyond this concern. I'd similarly want to make sure there's no advertisements ever allowed across the Moon's face.
I feel like a dragline excavator might be a better option than a bucket chain excavator just for complexity reasons. There are a lot of moving parts in that bucket chain, whereas a dragline needs only a handful of cables and pulleys to do the same job.
Mentioned on your other video, but as this one is more recent I figured I'd also mention here that though ferrochrome is probably not a great material for building on the moon, there are several nickel-iron-chrome alloys with promising characteristics. One in particular that jumps out is inconel600, which only has a few trace elements besides those. Though not as hard as steel, it beats out most non-steel metals(elastic deformation 400MPa, plastic 700). It's also highly corrosive and temperature resistant, showing less loss of strength under high and low temperature than steel, which would be of great use on the moon. Not saying this alloy is necessarily the way to go(the nickel connect is likely too high to be ideal) but it highlights that there are good options that don't require carbon(or require very, very little).
Good video. We really need to start making the moon money if we want to see more funding for space. Minerals extracted in the past haven't disappeared. No one wants to recycle them from landfills.
Cool thing about moon mining is that to smelter the ore you can just use mirrors since there is no atmosphere which can even allow belt mining ships the refine ore instead of hauling useless junk around Still heat will probably become more of an issue since you would need some kind of method to cool down all of the alloy refined on the moon Here on earth cooling down is also a MAYOR part of the alloy producing process and gives the characteristics you are looking for (cooling with air/oil/water and for how long and when) But cool and videos my guy Since I myself am in the chemical industry it's nice to see how different space processing will develop than here on earth Edit: Oh and maybe cold welding would be a cool addition theme for the next video
good video, 2 things to add. first your lunar lode loader works on hydaulics as shows in the video. probably needs a rework either with gears or pulleys. second as someone working with steel is is easier to use mild steels or steels with different characteristics than 1080. i am not very familiar with american norms but for example simple constructions the chromium manganese and other more valuable byproducts are not desired in frame construction. it makes steel harder to machine ( cutting, drilling and also weldability.) it very well might be very good on shovels due to hardness and less tear. hope you see this not as negative comment , it is not meant to and i am astounded at what pace you creat your videos.
7:53 Why use sodium as a fuel source when electrical operation would seem to make the most sense. Large solar panel arrays would essentially be connected to machinery through big cables on spools that way you don't need batteries. Electrical power is also ideal because aluminum is abundant in the regolith so making simple, cheap, DC brush motors should be easy as long as you can get aluminum refining going. The fact that aluminum is less efficient doesn't really matter since the sun gives us nigh infinite electrical energy. You could probably get alumnium refining temperatures acheived relatively easily by using mirrors to direct sunlight into the lunar regolith and getting it to several thousand kelvin. Electrical motors are about as simple as you can get. The main thing would be being able to produce solar panels on the moon using local materials which you need anyways for sufficient electrical power. Companies are already demonstrating this process.
Great ideas here. One of the first big projects we should undertake on the moon is creating larger nuclear power plants to increase energy availability. It will be a long time until our production actually reaches one moon lode a year.
@@cthulhufhtagn7520 Considering the moon's surface is a very fine volcanic powder ( in a low gravity at that ), solar panels will be having their fair share of issues with wear and tear.
@@cthulhufhtagn7520 No they aren't, the 2 week long nights, not to mention all the permanently dark craters mean it will be nuclear all the way, with solar just as a supplement and backup, just like here on earth!
Terrestrial ore concentrations are an exponential relationship with higher purity being rapidly rarer. Developing the processes to economically extract low grade ores opens access to far more deposits than we are depleting
Honestly, I kinda prefer the idea of the bucket chain excavator. However, I believe it would be better to use a rail and buggie system for larger machines. This would be true, especially for extremely streamlined systems to excavate gigatons per hour.
I was worried when I clicked this video it was going to be another channel of crappy AI generated images with text to speech and probably AI scripts. I am happy that I was very wrong. First video and you got my sub.
Understanding that regolith is more than 45% O and 20% Si, and 5-10m deep, the logical conclusion is to dig below to find the original crust or, even better, the Moon mantle exposed on the surface, with way more valuable materials and better yield. Ergo mining on tunnels and caves.
Without plate tectonics to bring material to the surface I imaging lunar bedrock will be very low grade. During the moons formation the heaviest elements would have sunk to the center. If the moon was geologically active in the distant past there may be hope though.
@@SephBaneAfter the Aitken Basin impact, the mantle is exposed on the mare with great potential for heavier elements and access from the lower points, also 4By of materials from other meteorites all over the surface.
the moon has so much less gravity than earth so moving all of the material will have a much lower energy cost. it also requires less energy to move material from the surface of the moon to the surface of earth than the other way around ( obv ).
I could see a Lode also being an administrative unit of measurement for determining operational areas for mining claims. Your smaller claims might only be a single Lode in size, while the lunar mining megacorporations might claim hundreds or thousands of Lodes, sometimes going all the way to bedrock.
But dude we DONT have free energy on the moon. Some body need to build and deliver you future free energy infrastructure and maintain it (with spare parts and all that) and that COSTS. That's one - second is wear and tear - of said giant excavator- so its add cost. And actual question is - are 12% moon regolith rich enough to break even on all that infrastructure cost? Thats first question that u need to answer and only after that u go to giant excavator on giant mirrors to melt regolith or whatever. And how on earth i mean moon u extract said manganese or carbon from essentially dust? What are your losses? What wear and tear on machine that do said extraction? How many energy that process consume? In what form u keep your extracted carbon and what it cost to keep it that way?
To industrialize the Moon, you need substantial power sources. Solar won't be nearly enough and isn't mobile. My sci fi novels use LFTRs with sCO2 turbines. Nuclear is the only viable alternative. Where there is solar exposure, one might try Dysan-Harop for power generation.
I love seeing bucket chain excavators getting some love. However, if tracks are a bad option due to wear and maintenance concerns, a chain being dragged along the lunar surface and all the conveyer belts would also be a bad option right? And the labour to do that wouldnt be easy, and it would take out a large chunk of your production while repairs are being conducted. Very cool video regardless
Once we get mining set up on the moon all we have to do is take a trip to the asteroid belt and strap a couple ion thrusters onto some mineral rich chunks.
Another thing to note about Lunar steel - no rust! Low carbon steel with trace alloy metals would get you pretty far.
An architechts dream
Cheap rust free high strength steel in a decreased gravity environment
Absolutely. This would also make building first structures out of wrought iron much easier. No oxidation protection needed, at least for the structures that will not have atmosphere inside.
What about the radiation that comes from the sun. There is no atmosphere on the moon. So heat from the sun directly on the steel is gonna put that heat I to the steel more than on earth. Imagine a car on a hot sunny day. We will have to be careful with how its constructed. And especially where it is constructed. A cave would be absolutely perfect. Cause the white lunar soil reflects light and heat. I am not saying it's impossible. We will just need to construct habitats that can disperse the heat from the pure power of a star on a body with no atmosphere or magnetosphere to direct the deadly radiation waves. Heck cancer might become the main killer of humans if we move into the stars. The gene shredding ionizing Ray's are everywhere in space. It's why we dont get skin cancer the second we decide to get some vitamin d.
@@johnnywalker472Your metallurgy will produce free oxygen as a byproduct in such massive quantities that it can't all be stored or used. Some will be dumped, over time creating a faint oxygen atmosphere that could potentially oxidize your metals.
@@louishermann7676 you underestimate the amount required. additionally, the main reason the moon doesn't have an atmosphere is that it lacks a magnetic field and the gravity required to keep it. we could pump whatever we wanted into the atmosphere and chances are it'd end up in space
the best part about legs is that you can protect the joints with fabric because they don't rotate continuously. Walking chain excavators with pants
YES! I need pants on my moon-machines!
okay excavator pants are great and all but where we getting fabric on the moon 💀
@@StonyCephalopod maybe rockwool or steelwool? Might be too heavy, though.
7:15 so your saying the right to repair on the moon will be important ;p
No deers on the moon
Your blender skills are awesome. Great work communicating your ideas
I love these Space Age mining machines using Victorian principles
As a (maybe not so) wise man once said, it just works.
If it works, it works
This channel is quickly becoming one of my favorites
same!
The presentations are all very well thought out.
And the dry humor is perfectly delivered.
@9:08. "While the bucket wheel is very good for carving up the German countryside to feed their post-nuclear coal addiction..."
I regret I only have one like I can give this video.
Very good line, though I know it stings for German viewers
@@dirtypure2023 Germans must be real jealous of the French for once.
@@OryxAU no, why should we? because they are stuck with this obsolete technology for decades to come, while we are admittedly not as far as we should have been (thanks, Altmeier and Merkel), but are on our way? everyone pretend as if germany opened new digging sites or new coal power plants. ridiculous.
@@OryxAU mais oui, bien sur!
As a German, I died a little inside after hearing that
There's nothing that says moon structures *must* be built from steel, regolith has lots of aluminum and titanium to use structurally, and vacuum removes the need for shielding gasses to weld them. For megastructures like O'Neil cylinders, those lighter materials might be the preferred options to reduce the cost of lift to orbit. Concrete made from regolith, made air tight by glassing layers of it, or putting in some kind of resin or fabric liner or whatever, might be another option for Lunar bases. Carbon might end up too valuable for food production biological carbon cycles to put to structural use, given the cost of food imports; conversely if food imports get really cheap, excess recycled sewage solids may be a primary source of carbon for structural use.
All of the thermosetting resin and epoxy to seal said concrete would need to be shipped up to the moon, and for long term stays we would need a loooot of concrete and steel to seal up
@@phantama7615 We would likely just use sulfur to make concrete, its a great, water free alternative and very robust. It will work better on Mars as the sulfur is there already, but it's a good option for the moon too
So many options....
@@BarrGC you’re right, it’s melting point isn’t to high either, purified and exposed to the sun it would melt into a liquid on the moons surface, giant solar powered forges, easy to transport back to the moon as well since both bodies have lower escape velocity
and there's no free oxygen / water to oxidize anything, opening the way for magnesium and super non-stainless steels optimized for strength only
HELL YEAH, we gotta conquer the moon boys
Somebody push the button. The infection wants to spread. Sterilize! Sterilize!
I love it! We should do it
So it was written
thats why china is up there
Its all cool until others do it then it becomes pollution
First of all: subbed.
Hi Cody!
idk what to say holy heckin WOW!
Heck of an endorsement from a legend.
The excavators being able to walk with giant feet is so beautiful
"... massive machines moving megatons of lunar regolith vibe hard."
Yes. Just yes.
Though the logistics and economics of that matter aren't really up to the people, at this time, and I'm sure a sizable portion of the population approves, but the people in power may not.
Awesome, always a good day when anthrofuturism uploads. Not a whiff of doomerism, only the indomitable human spirit. Also, first.
real
🏆
This is the first time I ever heard “quantity has a quality of its own” and not wanted to punch someone to death. Good on you for using that saying in a context that makes sense!
I reckon. we should take on AS MANY FAT LUNER LOADS as we can :)
I love big fat lunar loads
Really didn't expect a killdozer reference in a video about moon mining.
It's the second time he makes a killdozer reference.
should've seen the last video
No trees to hug, no tree huggers.
The more heavy industry on the moon, the more trees and plants and animals stay alive on Earth.
Everybody wins from this.
@@thomashiggins9320 except the Mooninites, forgot about Luna's Indigenous um, people?
@@tannerdowney2802save the microorganisms bro!
Tbh I'm not a fan of developing the moon in any major ways. I want my great great grandchildren to be able to look up and see the same pristine beauty I can. That said, mars, near earth asteroids, ect, go nuts and harvest the hell outta those
@@gmaninatrashcan7144 Just harvest the dark side of the moon, not the side the earth sees
Lunar Bucket-Chain go "..." because sound does not travel in a vacuum.
But you would definitely hear it while staying near the machine, or being on board of it due to vibration going through soil or its structure. And it's gonna be friggen HUGE
fresh moon colonization video. Neat.
4:01 take on WHAT?!
You heard him 😏
Hnngh...
Oughh!
ugh... hmh... full....
This is the best kind of futurist content, it reminds me of the old Popular Mechnaics cover stories in the best ways~
- Damn, there is so much dust I can barely breathe!
- We are on the Moon, Dave! Go check your life support already!
I was going to suggest Hectare Metres as a unit of measure, but Lunar Lodes works just as well! And heck yeah, build some self propelled bucket chains! Always figured Titanium would get a lot of use on the moon as well, doubly so if we could use with less issues than steel-making.
Not being in a highly oxidizing environment, like we are on earth, more alloys should be viable. No need for stainless when there is no pesky O2 everywhere.
Just imagine our grandchildren will take this for granted
I’m ok with this
@@AlternativePracticeand their great grandchildren will take breathing on mars in shorts and a t-shirt for granted.
@@jackturner8472more like their 100000x great grandchildren, terraforming mars even with insane levels of tech is at the least a 1000 year project
I'm imagining a 70-year old genZer saying "Back in my day SCIENTISTS were the ones going to the moon. Now it's all ex-oilrig workers and coal miners."
@@FokoPoko991retire from the earth mining industry when your bones are tired and work another 20 years in low gravity lol
this series is super interesting. I can really tell the background effort, research and calculations you put into every video. It makes all the difference.
As always the best part is the animation! Couldnt imagine this with other "better" ones
Now THATS colonization I can get behind an understand!
We have so many stuff we utilize, we don't have to always to focus on the futurism.
Low tech futurism
If god didn’t want us to strip mine the moon, why did he make it out of delicious cheese?
So as someone in a background in the mining industry I have another thought. I know we do not know the exact composition of the sub surface minerals of the moon or and real idea how stable it would be, but the idea of mining in shafts that are subterranean seems like a good idea somewhat. It gets rid of the heat issue, also the excavated tunnels and be used for expansion of "habs" for us to live it and all the materials gained may have better composition than that of the surface regolith. If this was done you could also use a boring type machine that would normally be used here on earth for tunnels to mine, because we are nine going after veins like typical below ground ming we can just mine in one line continuously. Like I said I know nothing of the sub surface makeup of the moon and its stability or it's mineral composition, so this could be an easily disproved idea.
I dont think we will know the sub surface makeup until we are well into the artemis mission
hello mate, I am mining engineer. I can say you are doing a great job.
Big and heavy machines moving on feet are great when you have soft terrain, it is a great idea.
I love this, it is thinking about how we do this realistically, we always see concepts that are about swarm robots and such but this is the way more likely scenario. Take what you know and adapt!
Something you've mentioned multiple times but i recently thought of. The limited amount of launches. If the launches are limited then the hardware has to get bigger. So i present the very old project - seadragon, as an idea.
One of your videos popped up on my feed last night, I ended up watching 3 hours worth of your content. You do such a good job at it. Recently been a bit of a doomer when it comes to the future of mankind, but how you put everything in a realistic way, showing how it's all possible for us to do, has cheered me up a bit. Maybe we can do it, maybe we can escape the cradle and venture forth unto the heavens.
That's freaking so awesome to hear
You're going to hit 100k by the end of this year if you keep these videos up, save this comment
Keep making videos bro. Especially the longer ones. I love to watch them before bed. I'm watching all your videos on my TH-cam premium account to support your channel.
I love the fact that you go in-depth with your analysis and train of thought. I definitely want to see more channels that cover this aspect of "realistic future timeline of humanity"
“Tearing up the German countryside to feed their post nuclear coal addiction 😂”
today i feel into the rabbit hole of, walking excavators
also a thing i wanna bring up from said rabbit hole, DRAGLINE EXCAVATORS, you take an exca-
-vator remove the middle section of the arm thing, and have the shovel be controlled entirely
by cables, that's one less part to maintain make/ship, harder to operate though i think
When tech gets advanced enough, we should just do all our mining on the Moon to avoid harming Earth's ecosystems
The moon's just the start.
From the Moon we will launch mining operations to near-Earth asteroids which will yield insane amounts of rare Earth minerals once we have the infrastructure to exploit them. Within 50 years maybe, we will have mined our first asteroid. I hope
I wanna mine Uranus
I can see it now. In 600 years. Make the moon great again.
It faster than that
Keep doing what you’re doing.
Great to see you pick up on all of that. And crush the numbers and all. Appearantly you're the type of person who _really_ digs in 😂
Chain or wheel, whatever makes most sense, right? I value your insights, and you bringing them over to us...
I think this will be a go-to reference index in about tweny years from now. Basically we're watching future stock footage.
Metric tons of Kudos man!
I'm ready to drive some moon trains
I’m wondering if a HyperLoop would work on the moon. It definitely wouldn’t work here but maybe in space!
This channel should be renamed Lunar-Factorio.
Edit: What does "WLHM LC7012" on the bucket chain excavator mean?
I'm thinking "Wide Load Heavy Machine" and a model number, but curious too
Probably model Number, but LC could also be maybe be low carbon 7012 which might refer to it being cast iron? Just a guess though.
@@volatileskyLC is likely Lunar Class
gigaliter gang
2:45 in and already again sooo happy you do what you do. Love to see your channel growing spectacularly!
Can I possibly get a reference for that map around @5:30 ? It looks very interesting and I'd love to inspect it more.
I just realized something rather fun, a lunar manufactured ingot would vacuum weld itself to a pile of ingots if they were stacked, this sounds like both a colossal pain and very convenient at the same time
I don't have words to praise you enough, I just love your videos. I am about halfway through your book and it's such a fun read for a nerd like me.
I hope you find a lot of success in your life. Thank you for everything ❤
Book!? What book?
@@MaximumMatadorthis one th-cam.com/video/AqF7-3mZKmM/w-d-xo.htmlsi=O9XKHtTf99MMtBO4
It’s only weakness will be basements 😂😂😂
Honestly I thought this was going to be a Space Engineer video. But I stayed because of the great content! Good stuff!
I love these sci-fi / factorio calculations! subbed
Important for any mining operation would be the prospecting, it could also use its own lunar operation/vehicles
These are the most epic videos ever!!! So inspiring for humanity!!! I love the back of the envelope calculations you did.
Inherit the moon, inherit the solar system.
Won me over with “Splitting & Shitting & Shedding” 😂🥂
Just FYI: When you are mining at the dark side of the moon, you are scratching the man in the moon's butt.
While I'll not expect the Moon to remain pristine, I would prefer later and larger mining operations be carried out on the Far Side. Mostly to avoid changes to the look of the Moon over the next few centuries. The twinkling light of nearside cities wouldn't bother me so much, but a Moon raked into a smoothed ball by centuries of industrial scale strip mining seems unappealing. So I'd hope a bit of long term planning is undertaken to avoid our descendants cursing us out for mucking up the view from home. Especially with the entire Lunar Far Side and every other more distant object in the sky existing beyond this concern. I'd similarly want to make sure there's no advertisements ever allowed across the Moon's face.
I feel like a dragline excavator might be a better option than a bucket chain excavator just for complexity reasons. There are a lot of moving parts in that bucket chain, whereas a dragline needs only a handful of cables and pulleys to do the same job.
First of your videos I watch. I'm ready to follow you into this holy crusade my fellow engineer.
Mentioned on your other video, but as this one is more recent I figured I'd also mention here that though ferrochrome is probably not a great material for building on the moon, there are several nickel-iron-chrome alloys with promising characteristics. One in particular that jumps out is inconel600, which only has a few trace elements besides those. Though not as hard as steel, it beats out most non-steel metals(elastic deformation 400MPa, plastic 700). It's also highly corrosive and temperature resistant, showing less loss of strength under high and low temperature than steel, which would be of great use on the moon.
Not saying this alloy is necessarily the way to go(the nickel connect is likely too high to be ideal) but it highlights that there are good options that don't require carbon(or require very, very little).
Man, this channel is just my alley. Id love to see this within my lifetime
Good video. We really need to start making the moon money if we want to see more funding for space.
Minerals extracted in the past haven't disappeared. No one wants to recycle them from landfills.
Came for the anthrofuturism, stayed for the alliteration 😊
Another fantastic video, brother! Long live the lunar load!
You are curing my depression, thank you
Cool thing about moon mining is that to smelter the ore you can just use mirrors since there is no atmosphere which can even allow belt mining ships the refine ore instead of hauling useless junk around
Still heat will probably become more of an issue since you would need some kind of method to cool down all of the alloy refined on the moon
Here on earth cooling down is also a MAYOR part of the alloy producing process and gives the characteristics you are looking for (cooling with air/oil/water and for how long and when)
But cool and videos my guy
Since I myself am in the chemical industry it's nice to see how different space processing will develop than here on earth
Edit: Oh and maybe cold welding would be a cool addition theme for the next video
Thank you very much, I've been looking for this exact thing!
Re: the carbon problem. Carbonaceous c-type asteroids are the most common, I would guess that many impact craters will be high C.
good video, 2 things to add. first your lunar lode loader works on hydaulics as shows in the video. probably needs a rework either with gears or pulleys. second as someone working with steel is is easier to use mild steels or steels with different characteristics than 1080. i am not very familiar with american norms but for example simple constructions the chromium manganese and other more valuable byproducts are not desired in frame construction. it makes steel harder to machine ( cutting, drilling and also weldability.) it very well might be very good on shovels due to hardness and less tear. hope you see this not as negative comment , it is not meant to and i am astounded at what pace you creat your videos.
РЖД wagon on the moon hits hard
да
Awesome video! Btw I bought your book, great work!
7:53 Why use sodium as a fuel source when electrical operation would seem to make the most sense. Large solar panel arrays would essentially be connected to machinery through big cables on spools that way you don't need batteries. Electrical power is also ideal because aluminum is abundant in the regolith so making simple, cheap, DC brush motors should be easy as long as you can get aluminum refining going. The fact that aluminum is less efficient doesn't really matter since the sun gives us nigh infinite electrical energy. You could probably get alumnium refining temperatures acheived relatively easily by using mirrors to direct sunlight into the lunar regolith and getting it to several thousand kelvin.
Electrical motors are about as simple as you can get. The main thing would be being able to produce solar panels on the moon using local materials which you need anyways for sufficient electrical power. Companies are already demonstrating this process.
... LIKE ANTENNAES TO HEAVEN
amazing stuff as always, keep em coming
I love these videos please create more I must submerge myself in lunar industrialization complete and utter lunar colonization
10/10, lunar locked & loaded! Instant sub!!!!! MOREEEEEE
I love the stellaris music in the background
Great ideas here. One of the first big projects we should undertake on the moon is creating larger nuclear power plants to increase energy availability. It will be a long time until our production actually reaches one moon lode a year.
Solar panels are the superior option for the moon
RTGs are a pretty good choice.
@@cthulhufhtagn7520
Considering the moon's surface is a very fine volcanic powder ( in a low gravity at that ), solar panels will be having their fair share of issues with wear and tear.
@@cthulhufhtagn7520 No they aren't, the 2 week long nights, not to mention all the permanently dark craters mean it will be nuclear all the way, with solar just as a supplement and backup, just like here on earth!
Not enough existentialism , but apparently from that 5 stars😂
I was thinking Space Engineers is looking good... Then he hit me with the Blender. LoL
These videos are high quality for a roman army sized chanel with a budget of 5 bucks he found on the groud
this needs to go viral NOW!!!!!!1111!!1!!
Terrestrial ore concentrations are an exponential relationship with higher purity being rapidly rarer. Developing the processes to economically extract low grade ores opens access to far more deposits than we are depleting
Honestly, I kinda prefer the idea of the bucket chain excavator. However, I believe it would be better to use a rail and buggie system for larger machines. This would be true, especially for extremely streamlined systems to excavate gigatons per hour.
I was worried when I clicked this video it was going to be another channel of crappy AI generated images with text to speech and probably AI scripts. I am happy that I was very wrong. First video and you got my sub.
Understanding that regolith is more than 45% O and 20% Si, and 5-10m deep, the logical conclusion is to dig below to find the original crust or, even better, the Moon mantle exposed on the surface, with way more valuable materials and better yield. Ergo mining on tunnels and caves.
Without plate tectonics to bring material to the surface I imaging lunar bedrock will be very low grade. During the moons formation the heaviest elements would have sunk to the center. If the moon was geologically active in the distant past there may be hope though.
@@SephBaneAfter the Aitken Basin impact, the mantle is exposed on the mare with great potential for heavier elements and access from the lower points, also 4By of materials from other meteorites all over the surface.
those renders man 🙏
the moon has so much less gravity than earth so moving all of the material will have a much lower energy cost. it also requires less energy to move material from the surface of the moon to the surface of earth than the other way around ( obv ).
Great content. I look forward to the next installment
Lunar Draglines. I love it 😊
I could see a Lode also being an administrative unit of measurement for determining operational areas for mining claims. Your smaller claims might only be a single Lode in size, while the lunar mining megacorporations might claim hundreds or thousands of Lodes, sometimes going all the way to bedrock.
But dude we DONT have free energy on the moon. Some body need to build and deliver you future free energy infrastructure and maintain it (with spare parts and all that) and that COSTS. That's one - second is wear and tear - of said giant excavator- so its add cost. And actual question is - are 12% moon regolith rich enough to break even on all that infrastructure cost? Thats first question that u need to answer and only after that u go to giant excavator on giant mirrors to melt regolith or whatever.
And how on earth i mean moon u extract said manganese or carbon from essentially dust? What are your losses? What wear and tear on machine that do said extraction? How many energy that process consume?
In what form u keep your extracted carbon and what it cost to keep it that way?
Acre foot side tangent made my day
i immediately got recommended a bucket chain excavator montage after this video. cant wait to see how far this series goes btw, Titan base ????
We got industrial mechs baby! Lets GOOOOO
We've had them for about a century. But their return is long overdue. Long live the walking excavator!
8:05 love the Kill Dozer shout out!!
Forever in our hearts!❤
Luna and beyond, brother!
To industrialize the Moon, you need substantial power sources. Solar won't be nearly enough and isn't mobile. My sci fi novels use LFTRs with sCO2 turbines. Nuclear is the only viable alternative. Where there is solar exposure, one might try Dysan-Harop for power generation.
Strip mining earth rainforests 🤢🤮
Strip mining the moon 😎💪
I love seeing bucket chain excavators getting some love. However, if tracks are a bad option due to wear and maintenance concerns, a chain being dragged along the lunar surface and all the conveyer belts would also be a bad option right? And the labour to do that wouldnt be easy, and it would take out a large chunk of your production while repairs are being conducted. Very cool video regardless
This reads like a quora answer, but better
Once we get mining set up on the moon all we have to do is take a trip to the asteroid belt and strap a couple ion thrusters onto some mineral rich chunks.