Lunar Surface Excavation; Excavated Regolith Transport

NASA anticipates extracting metals and oxygen from Lunar materials. The easiest material to employ initially will be regolith because it is already pulverized into small particles and can be loosely scooped. NASA will initially be constrained as to how much equipment can be boosted to the Moon so one factor will be how to initially reduce the number of types of machines needed for regolith excavation and movement. The second constraint, which is a driver for all terrain shaping activities, is the efficiency of material movement – how much how fast? The third issue will be equipment wear and tear – Lunar regolith is light and relatively easy to scoop, but also due to its particular characteristics is notoriously invasive and potentially destructive of moving parts (bearings, gears, other wear surfaces). Due to vacuum and reduced gravity, the architecture of machines will likely have to be changed (for instance, machines that use counterweight mass will have to change). And finally, minimizing operator personnel (i.e. more mouths to feed and care for on the Moon) and simplifying maintenance will have substantial benefits. This effort will examine already prototyped excavator concepts developed under various NASA internally developed and from University-based completions. But, we will also bring into the analysis the wealth of knowledge in terrestrial Earth movers because each of these architectures was formed from some kind of specific need and a likely also applicable in some modified form on the Lunar terrain.