Permanent Artwork - Rares' WIPs

[RaresH]

Without being sure where to post my progress I went ahead and created a thread. I'll be posting new work in progress in this thread with the latest being updated and shown here in the first post.

[RaresH]

Here's a drawing I'm working on showcasing the cross section of my interpretation of what an initial mining vessel could look like. This will be built in 3d to be animated and used for publicity purposes. I wanted to explore the inner workings of the machinery for a mining expedition as described by Mark. The drawing isn't done and normally I wouldn't post unless it was but I felt compelled to show my progress on this. I enjoy thinking about the engineering workings of any machinery I illustrate in order to lend some credence to my designs. Any thoughts?

http://rares.pixolbrush.com/images/permanent/miningsat_concept_wip_c01.jpg

[Phenix]

WOW :)
I'd like to see more.

[RaresH]

I definitely will include more soon. There are more details that I will be illustrating as I produce more work but the general idea is that this is a cylindrical piece of machinery that comes attached to an orbiter for the journey to the asteroid body. The orbiter is used as the work horse to bring the mining machinery to the asteroid and haul the material back to earth. I'll be playing with exterior designs here pretty soon before I start building the 3d model.

[joertexas]

I definitely will include more soon. There are more details that I will be illustrating as I produce more work but the general idea is that this is a cylindrical piece of machinery that comes attached to an orbiter for the journey to the asteroid body. The orbiter is used as the work horse to bring the mining machinery to the asteroid and haul the material back to earth. I'll be playing with exterior designs here pretty soon before I start building the 3d model.

This is a great illustration! Do you have mass and volume numbers for this?

JR

[RaresH]

Thanks Joe. I have a rough idea as far as size is concerned but I have little idea how to determine volume and mass in such a complex form. Perhaps you or someone else with an engineering background could help me with that.

[joertexas]

Thanks Joe. I have a rough idea as far as size is concerned but I have little idea how to determine volume and mass in such a complex form. Perhaps you or someone else with an engineering background could help me with that.

Volume is the easy part :) The volume of a cylinder is Pi times the radius squared times the length.

Mass, OTOH, depends on what those nifty gadgets in your miner actually are. For my project, I've been able to obtain the actual mass of things like engines and fuel tanks, and I've found NASA estimates for the rest of the miner's habitat module and its components.

You could look at mining equipment, but all of that is built for operations in a one gee gravity field. Not only that, they have to be heavy to work effectively. Another approach is to estimate the mass of the material used to make the parts by determining the volume that part takes up, and then estimating how much of that volume is solid material.

I've heard that some 3D graphics programs can calculate the solid volume of a complex object. I saw that mentioned during a conversation about determining the center of gravity of a aircraft or a spacecraft. If that's true, then the calculations would be straightforward.

JR

[RaresH]

Hey thanks for the math recap Joe. The volume should be easy enough then. I guess I'll have to work out more details before I figure mass but that won't be necessary for the art until we decide to take it further.

[joertexas]

Hey thanks for the math recap Joe. The volume should be easy enough then. I guess I'll have to work out more details before I figure mass but that won't be necessary for the art until we decide to take it further.

Well, I'm willing to brainstorm with you on this. What will this miner be able to do?

JR

[RaresH]

The miner will be able to grapple itself to a target body at which point it will lower itself and make contact with the surface. It will then anchor the drill housing located at the forward end to the surface. The drill will borough into the surface and send debris back to the miner which will then sift the various sized granules and send them the the appropriate grinders. The material will then continue to a series of rotating spokes which will smash the material against a revolving magnetic barrel loosening any silicate and residual and leaving iron, nickel and other metals to continue up the wall to a centrifugal barrel and fanned into the awaiting bags. Silicates and other non-metal material will continue from the spoke chamber to be cooked, via solar oven or microwave, for volatiles at which point silicates and other non-metals will be sent to awaiting bags. Volatiles will be vented to condense in metal containers kept in shadow. That's the general Idea for how this device would work. I'll have more details and what each piece of the machinery does.

[joertexas]

The miner will be able to grapple itself to a target body at which point it will lower itself and make contact with the surface. It will then anchor the drill housing located at the forward end to the surface. The drill will borough into the surface and send debris back to the miner which will then sift the various sized granules and send them the the appropriate grinders. The material will then continue to a series of rotating spokes which will smash the material against a revolving magnetic barrel loosening any silicate and residual and leaving iron, nickel and other metals to continue up the wall to a centrifugal barrel and fanned into the awaiting bags. Silicates and other non-metal material will continue from the spoke chamber to be cooked, via solar oven or microwave, for volatiles at which point silicates and other non-metals will be sent to awaiting bags. Volatiles will be vented to condense in metal containers kept in shadow. That's the general Idea for how this device would work. I'll have more details and what each piece of the machinery does.

Sounds good. The first challenge will be moving the materials through the machine during the grinding and screening processes. Unless the asteroid is rotating, everything will simply drift about inside the machine.

JR

[RaresH]

Right. That's exactly what I was thinking. So the various chambers the material will be moving through will be spinning independently of the miner. Some parts like the centrifugal smasher will have to be spinner significantly faster than some of the other parts. Thanks for pointing that out Joe. If you have any other thoughts, please feel free to mention it.

[Phenix]

Hello RaresH

I have found a paper on space mining here and might help you as well :)

http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/onlinebks/ResourcesNearEarthSpace/resources03.pdf

[joertexas]

Hello RaresH

I have found a paper on space mining here and might help you as well :)

http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/onlinebks/ResourcesNearEarthSpace/resources03.pdf

I liked the idea of tunneling in and making an airlock to seal the mine. That would help the equipment by provding a pressurized atmosphere and thermal protection. Many of these concepts are applicable to asteroids, too.

JR

[RaresH]

That looks like a usefull resources. Thanks for that. I'm sure it'll prove inspirational as I continue working on the module.

[joertexas]

The miner will be able to grapple itself to a target body at which point it will lower itself and make contact with the surface. It will then anchor the drill housing located at the forward end to the surface. The drill will borough into the surface and send debris back to the miner which will then sift the various sized granules and send them the the appropriate grinders. The material will then continue to a series of rotating spokes which will smash the material against a revolving magnetic barrel loosening any silicate and residual and leaving iron, nickel and other metals to continue up the wall to a centrifugal barrel and fanned into the awaiting bags. Silicates and other non-metal material will continue from the spoke chamber to be cooked, via solar oven or microwave, for volatiles at which point silicates and other non-metals will be sent to awaiting bags. Volatiles will be vented to condense in metal containers kept in shadow. That's the general Idea for how this device would work. I'll have more details and what each piece of the machinery does.


Very good. Now, if we can break these operations down, we can get an idea of how much the machine would weigh. The problem with comparing this machine with terrestrial mining equipment is that equipment here has to be very heavy to withstand the weight of the material it's handling - along with it's own weight.

I think we should start with the drill, and then the other inner works before we cover the housing and the grapples. Their design will depend on what they have to contain and move. I assume that you're planning a tunnel boring type of drill head?

JR

[RaresH]

Exactly right. The drill is really designed to bore a tunnel. The way I see it, the miner is a demonstrator that will need to be compact and suited for harvesting a steady but relatively small amount of material. In order to keep the design cost effective the minder will need to be durable and light only as far the mission requires. So the miner would be designed to handle light loads that add up over time. Right now I'm concentrating on a visual model that would help peak the interest of potential investors and the general public. However, I do enjoy thinking about the engineering specifics of my designs.

[joertexas]

Exactly right. The drill is really designed to bore a tunnel. The way I see it, the miner is a demonstrator that will need to be compact and suited for harvesting a steady but relatively small amount of material. In order to keep the design cost effective the minder will need to be durable and light only as far the mission requires. So the miner would be designed to handle light loads that add up over time. Right now I'm concentrating on a visual model that would help peak the interest of potential investors and the general public. However, I do enjoy thinking about the engineering specifics of my designs.

Even a compact mining machine will still need to process a fair amount of material. A 18" to 24" drill would put out a fair amount of material in a reasonable amount of time. It's also small enough for one person to handle. Does that sound about right?

JR

[RaresH]

That sounds like approximately the size I had in mind. I like your thinking about the miner being simple enough to require one astronaut to handle. Does anyone have any reference images on drill designs that might work well for the miner?

[joertexas]

That sounds like approximately the size I had in mind. I like your thinking about the miner being simple enough to require one astronaut to handle. Does anyone have any reference images on drill designs that might work well for the miner?

Here's a basic rock drilling bit:

http://www.rocksmith.com.au/html/tri-cone_bits_-_mining.html

JR

[RaresH]

Right, that looks good. I wonder though if our drill bit would need to be designed more specifically to our environment. It will operate in a low gravity setting so it will need some mechanism to propel it forward. It may also need something to toss the ore back towards the miner, or is the very process of drilling sufficient for this task?

[joertexas]

Right, that looks good. I wonder though if our drill bit would need to be designed more specifically to our environment. It will operate in a low gravity setting so it will need some mechanism to propel it forward. It may also need something to toss the ore back towards the miner, or is the very process of drilling sufficient for this task?

I'm wondering which process would be better for a first mission; an automated, integrated mining unit, or a set of mining equipment that the crew operates. The question is important because it influences the most basic design assumptions we must make.

The drill head will push the material back out of the hole, which may be enough to propel it some distance in microgravity. The drilling machine will have to be solidly anchored to both drive the drill bit into the material, and to keep the whole thing from rotating as the bit spins and digs in. Those arms you depicted will have to be robust enough to stand the stress of this operation.

The drill will have to be shrouded to contain the material and direct it to a bucket conveyor that catches the material and takes it to the processing unit. Since there is no gravity, the material has to be moved with something that actually carries it along. If we use water as a carrier, then the miner will have to be heated and pressurized to keep the water liquid.

A related issue is cooling and lubrication. Drilling produces a lot of heat, and, although contact with the asteroid and radiation cooling will help, it probably won't be enough to keep the bit cool. Drill cooling and lubrication is done here by pumping drilling mud down the hole as the unit operates.

The exact mining method will also depend on the composition of the rock. If the asteroid we find is actually a rubble pile, then we may be able to use a modified backhoe to gather the material. If it's mostly solid, then we could drill and blast to pulverize the rock into manageable chunks. Blasting will certainly require some sort of netting over the area to keep rock from flying off into space.

I know I've raised more questions instead of providing answers, but this is a way of thinking the operation through..

JR

[RaresH]

I think the first mission would depend on how much material we want to gather. If it's going to be a sample, well then a robotic mission will do. If we want to collect enough material to demonstrate a refueling or resupply, then we'll need people on site to make sure things go right since there's never been a mission like it. I guess we'd do a sample mission first to sample to the drill site and then follow with a manned mission. A manned mission would be hugely popular to the public, particularly if you can convince industry and networks of the potential.

As for the drill design, I think adding water as a coolant would complicate the design. We should look for a method or material that can withstand the heat. This would also make it easier to separate the material within the miner. Conversely, we should select a rock that is easier to mine. For what I understand from the reading material on PERMANENT a large portion of the NEO's are clumpy and or grainy along the surface or as a whole. By selecting these more 'forgiving' asteroids our design criteria could be less stringent and as a result cheaper.

[Rhyshaelkan]

Hopefully it will remain true that asteroids under 200 km in diameter will be much less compacted than lunar soils.

I do not know how true this will remain regarding heavy metal asteroids. The more dense the asteroid I would think an impact with a neighbor would create enough heat to fuse parts of the asteroid together. With enough impacts over the eons some asteroids might be quite fused and thus resistant to mining except by more aggressive methods.

Along that line of thought, I wonder if plastique explosive generates it own oxidizer. If so, it could be used as a blasting agent for astro-mining.

Otherwise plasma torch-microwave-ultrasonic(theoretical gobbly-gook) emitters might be useful to dissolve the material so that the parts can be electro-statically separated.

[Alexander Declama]

RaresH - EXCELLENT work. I'd love to assist on 3-D modeling.

I've heard that some 3D graphics programs can calculate the solid volume of a complex object. I saw that mentioned during a conversation about determining the center of gravity of a aircraft or a spacecraft. If that's true, then the calculations would be straightforward.

JR

Autodesk Inventor will do exactly that. I have not reached that level of proficiency with it yet.

As far as an asteroid miner is concerned, I envision there being two types - 1 for the Fe-Ni metallics and stony asteroids using a power drill solution ala the tunnel borers and one designed for the dead comet cores. Since I believe we're going to see more immediate profitability in volatile extraction, that's where most of my daydreaming goes.

I can see two major ways of processing the volatiles and both involve heat. The more elegant solution IMHO is nuclear power. Take a NLB (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_lightbulb) gas core rocket. It carries the mining machine to the asteroid and touches down. Instead of throttling the reactor down for power generation and temperature control, use the reactor to melt the volatiles for us. We run the reactor normally, but instead of using the hydrogen fuel for thrust, we can loop it into a heat exchanger/drill and that can do the majority of the work for us. The major problems that I can see are that the NLB hasn't been built, American unwillingness to consider nuclear power in space and the temperature gradient at the drilling site may cause explosions.

The other method could be simple brute force. Use solar concentrators and gas/liquid collection system to melt the asteroid. This could be used even on the metallic asteroid with some adjustments.

One thing I want to put out there is the fact that it's nice to have people on site, it's prohibitively expensive. With the amount of raw material we're dealing with, we don't need the most elegant or even efficient solution. We need something simple, with high reliability and few moving parts. And ideally can be operated and be repaired by tele-operation.

[RaresH]

Thanks for the offer Alex. I certainly will keep that in mind. We need plenty of things modeled. What modeling software do you use by the way?

As far as miner design goes My guess is we'll start off with one design that will be used on a crumbly NEO with a mix of silicate dirt, nickel-iron granules and volatiles. If you read through the asteroid mining section (http://permanent.com/a-mining.htm) of PERMANENT you'll see it mention these types of NEO's are typical.

Nuclear Propulsion would be fantastic and I'm all for it but we need to think about what's more likely in the near term which is why some of us here are talking about the Ion propulsion engine, search VASIMR, as an option. I'm thinking what can we do with the available technology.

Also I do agree that a manned mission would be prohibitive provided we don't find the funding and we should focus on getting resources to demonstrate the market viability. However I do believe a sponsored televised manned mission would have far more value because it would produce more public and political support for the space industry which would in turn hasten the human migration to the solar system. Now isn't that what were working for :)?

[joertexas]

Thanks for the offer Alex. I certainly will keep that in mind. We need plenty of things modeled. What modeling software do you use by the way?

As far as miner design goes My guess is we'll start off with one design that will be used on a crumbly NEO with a mix of silicate dirt, nickel-iron granules and volatiles. If you read through the asteroid mining section (http://permanent.com/a-mining.htm) of PERMANENT you'll see it mention these types of NEO's are typical.

Nuclear Propulsion would be fantastic and I'm all for it but we need to think about what's more likely in the near term which is why some of us here are talking about the Ion propulsion engine, search VASIMR, as an option. I'm thinking what can we do with the available technology.

Also I do agree that a manned mission would be prohibitive provided we don't find the funding and we should focus on getting resources to demonstrate the market viability. However I do believe a sponsored televised manned mission would have far more value because it would produce more public and political support for the space industry which would in turn hasten the human migration to the solar system. Now isn't that what were working for :)?

I've already weighed in on the issue of a manned mission, so I won't go back into the reasons why I strongly support that option.

As for the equipment, another issue is the amount that we'd like to collect versus the time we have to do the job. If we can't process fuel - that being liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen - onsite, we will be able to bring about 13,500lb (or 6200kg) of material back. If we can produce the 154,000lb of LOX and 28,000lb of hydrogen to refuel the perigee kick engines used to boost the spacecraft out to the asteroid, we can add another 695,000lb (or 316,000kg) of material to our return trip load.

Considering that the miner will spend about a month onsite, this gives us a good idea of how muich material we need to process. A thirty day mission with an average eight hour work day gives us 240 production hours. If we allow 200 work hours, that means we must be able to process somewhere around 5,000kg of material per hour to obtain both fuel and cargo to bring back. Now, many of these processes can run all the time once the equipment is set up, but that gives an idea of what the basic parameters are.

Just to make things more difficult, I'd planned a 1200kg allowance for the miner and other tools.

JR

[RaresH]

Now those are some large figures. It would be something to be able to get that much fuel and resources on a first go around. I think we can greatly reduce to weight by manufacturing some of the tools and containers on site. I have some ideas of my own but I think we can wait on those for another thread.

[joertexas]

Now those are some large figures. It would be something to be able to get that much fuel and resources on a first go around. I think we can greatly reduce to weight by manufacturing some of the tools and containers on site. I have some ideas of my own but I think we can wait on those for another thread.

Well, at least you didn't throw up your hands and call me crazy. Then again, the project is still young ;-)

JR

[Alexander Declama]

Thanks for the offer Alex. I certainly will keep that in mind. We need plenty of things modeled. What modeling software do you use by the way?

As far as miner design goes My guess is we'll start off with one design that will be used on a crumbly NEO with a mix of silicate dirt, nickel-iron granules and volatiles. If you read through the asteroid mining section (http://permanent.com/a-mining.htm) of PERMANENT you'll see it mention these types of NEO's are typical.

Nuclear Propulsion would be fantastic and I'm all for it but we need to think about what's more likely in the near term which is why some of us here are talking about the Ion propulsion engine, search VASIMR, as an option. I'm thinking what can we do with the available technology.

Also I do agree that a manned mission would be prohibitive provided we don't find the funding and we should focus on getting resources to demonstrate the market viability. However I do believe a sponsored televised manned mission would have far more value because it would produce more public and political support for the space industry which would in turn hasten the human migration to the solar system. Now isn't that what were working for :)?

I use autocad and inventor. I have a little bit of experience with 3dsmax and I'm sure I could learn Google sketchup quickly.

[RaresH]

Those programs work just fine. I think for the visual representation 3D Studio will do. I don't know much about autocad and inventor but my guess is you can export obj files just fine from either program.

[RaresH]

Hello Everyone,

I honed in on a design for the miner to be built in 3D and used in our promotional material. Although it may not have been necessary to go so far as to illustrate some of the inner workings shown here, I like to design machines around a functional core. Next, I'll be using this drawing as a blueprint to build the 3d model. Feel free to comment.

http://rares.pixolbrush.com/images/permanent/miningsat_concept_c02.jpg

[Sam Fraser]

May I be the first to say "HOLY *BLEEP*! :eek: (In a good way. :rolleyes:)

[Mark Prado]

Awesome! This is very impressive for public relations (important!) as well as a solid start for an engineering model.

[RaresH]

Thanks for the positive remarks! Very endearing comment Sam. Thanks :). I'm glad you guys like it. As you suggested Mark, besides the obvious promotional use, I would very much like to be involved in helping to design a working prototype if we are fortunate enough to get the necessary funding. When we do decide to use this art in promotion I do have a print ready version handy.

[joertexas]

Thanks for the positive remarks! Very endearing comment Sam. Thanks :). I'm glad you guys like it. As you suggested Mark, besides the obvious promotional use, I would very much like to be involved in helping to design a working prototype if we are fortunate enough to get the necessary funding. When we do decide to use this art in promotion I do have a print ready version handy.

Welcome back to the forums, Rares. While you were gone, John and some others beat me into submission, and now I'm supporting a lunar exploration mission as a first step.

Care to take a shot at designing a 200kg backhoe that will run on the moon?

JR

[moonus111]

I used to be a member of Team Blue (asteroid advocates) when I was very young. I think that Team Silver (moon advocates) and Team Blue work very well with each other. The reason for this is that Asteroids have volatiles. The moon is essentially void of them. With the low gravity of the bodies in question (asteroids and the moon) it seems that material can be moved around easily. Much in the same way that long ago waterways were essential for trade, low gravity wells will serve as an open port.

Any plan to go to the moon places the individuals (or entities if you want to talk about robots) in a severe situation of lacking life sustaining material. Trade with earth can provide some of the water, biomass, volatiles, etc. One could imagine the moon as being locked in a trade that is dominated by energy for volatiles (water/nitrates/C02 for solar panels). Trade with asteroid mining activities is an essential step, as it can unlock the potential of the moon fully, and then we can get on to Mars, Venus, Jupiter, etc.

It just makes common sense that Asteroid and Moon advocates work together. What I get stuck on is that the Reds (Mars) are never talking about a return value to earth. We can't go to mars for any economic value until we've dominated our own "Mediterranean sea" of the earth-moon system. Would Romans chose to sail the open Atlantic?

I could rant on, but I think that's enough...

btw freaking sweet pic RaresH, whatever you're doing keep it up, that's some damn good stuff!

[RaresH]

Thanks for the post Joe and Moonus. I don't mind designing a lunar backhoe really. I enjoy it. I'd like to catch up on some of the arguments behind switching to a lunar mission before I move ahead. I will be thinking about a design in the meantime.

I'm inclined to agree with you Moonus and you make a good point. Both the moon and asteroids will likely be exploited. Although I'm still unsure what other high value resources the moon could provide in the near term other than water which is very important of course, but I can imagine why there's been a shift to a lunar mission besides resources. I'll save my thoughts for a more appropriate thread though.

[joertexas]

Thanks for the post Joe and Moonus. I don't mind designing a lunar backhoe really. I enjoy it. I'd like to catch up on some of the arguments behind switching to a lunar mission before I move ahead. I will be thinking about a design in the meantime.

I'm inclined to agree with you Moonus and you make a good point. Both the moon and asteroids will likely be exploited. Although I'm still unsure what other high value resources the moon could provide in the near term other than water which is very important of course, but I can imagine why there's been a shift to a lunar mission besides resources. I'll save my thoughts for a more appropriate thread though.

The argument that convinced me was the delta vee required to get to an asteroid...

JR

[Sam Fraser]

Thanks for the positive remarks! Very endearing comment Sam. Thanks :). I'm glad you guys like it. As you suggested Mark, besides the obvious promotional use, I would very much like to be involved in helping to design a working prototype if we are fortunate enough to get the necessary funding. When we do decide to use this art in promotion I do have a print ready version handy.

Hi Rares, I've sent you a PM and also e-mail.