14 November 2000
Deep Space Exploration - Looking for Planetary Paydirt
By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer

Lunar resources, such as oxygen from regolith or south pole ice deposits, would motivate returns to the Moon and could significantly enhance the economics of future lunar colonization. Initially, work crews from Earth carried in highly modular transportation systems would suplement automated mining operations.

Eventual human expeditions to Mars need to "live off the land," making use of on-the-spot resources on the distant red planet. Fuel and oxygen can be produced by processing machinery, extending the reach and stay-times of explorers.

Business Sees Cash Among the Constellations

Engineering students and faculty at the Colorado School of Mines set up a round table to brainstorm ways to get useful products and services from space.

Experts from NASA, federal research labs, industry, universities, and private groups met here October 24-26 at the Colorado School of Mines, taking part in a "Space Resources Utilization Roundtable."

New spacecraft data clearly picture the inner and outer solar system as a prospector's paradise. But don't take your pick, shovel, and drill bits out of the tool shed just yet. Strategizing a "big dig" of the solar system is short of having a solid plan to assure hitting paydirt.

Starting small

"We're seeing a big picture approach to developing space resources," said Michael Duke, technical coordinator at the School of Mines for the roundtable. "There are new and useful ideas being discussed. These are the kind of things that start the juices flowing in terms of the big picture," he told SPACE.com.

Starting small and carrying out experiments that show the resource potential of space is an advisable strategy, Duke added. Useful demonstrations can be done on robotic missions to the Moon and Mars. "In some cases, we may be able to try out small-scale
technologies that improve the effectiveness of spacecraft missions," he said.

Utilizing technologies that benefit science return from space missions, but also shed light on the economic benefit of using on-the-spot resources is a good match, Duke said.

As example, processing of Martian resources to churn out fuel for a Mars sample return mission could be later scaled up to support human expeditionary crews on the red planet.

"On the Moon, we want to look at those lunar polar regions, where there may be hydrogen concentrations - water ice, perhaps," Duke said. "We need to learn what its distribution is, what are the environmental considerations that go into extracting it and processing that material," he said.

Planetary prospecting

Planetary geologist, Jeffrey Taylor of the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, said space resources are essential for space settlement. He is working on a plan of action to promote planetary prospecting.

Celestial campsites on the Moon or Mars that support more than a few thousand people require use of local, down-and-dirty resources to build and sustain those far-flung housing projects and generate products for export, Taylor argues.

In the case of setting up a Martian settlement, Taylor said, it may be cost effective to ship out needed water, oxygen, hydrogen, major metals, and food from a lively lunar operation, at least initially. "As we begin to settle the Moon and Mars, we must also keep track of changing economic conditions, such as launch costs or substitutes of one material for another," he said.

Taylor and Linda Martel, both of the Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Science, emphasized that data now in hand, as well as new information from lunar and Mars missions, should be assessed in terms of spotting the heaviest deposits of resources. Also, pinpointing odd, anomalous regions is a priority.

"We have to find resources in more concentrated places, as on Earth," Taylor said.

Either ore

To date, mostly robot prospectors have been busy at work.

For the Moon, the U.S. Pentagon's Clementine, NASA's Lunar Prospector, as well as samples brought back by foot-stomping Apollo astronauts, offer a wealth of insight about resources there.

For Mars, a number of orbiters and landers have in the past, are now, and will in the future, sensor-scan the red planet to chart minerals and look for evidence of water.

"Prospecting can begin immediately," Taylor said, by studying data already archived. But that data needs to be looked at with the eyes of specially trained planetary economic geologists, an expert workforce that he and Martel are now trying to help shape.

Taylor explained that work should focus on the "unusual economics" of planetary ores, including the relationship of lunar and Martian development to each other. By definition, ores are rocks or minerals that can be mined, processed, and delivered to the marketplace or to technology at a profit.

Aggregate will be an important resource on both the Moon and Mars. Here on Earth, it is the most mined material in the United States, at some 2.3 billion tons a year. It is used for roads, concrete, bridges, roofing materials, and glass, Taylor notes.

On Earth, aggregate comes mainly in the form of gravel, sand, and solid rock that's quarried to make crushed stone. The busted up and heavily cratered lunar surface is rife with aggregate. But on Mars, Taylor points out, a thorough search for unconsolidated aggregate is necessary. Martian sand dunes might prove key in this regard. Debris at the base of cliffs on Mars could also be another possibility, he said.

How low can you go?

Biting down hard on Mars may not be too far off in the future.

A commercial drilling firm has teamed up with NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to explore the feasibility of a Mars drill. Preliminary work looks very promising, said Humboldt Mandell, Jr., in JSC's Exploration Office.

A proprietary drill design -- capable of digging down to over 650-feet (200-meters) below Mars' surface -- has been scoped out by Baker Hughes of Houston, Texas. A leader in oilfield drilling services, the firm works on high-technology ways to go deep to find oil and gas reservoirs, supplying separation technologies to the worldwide process industries.

Baker Hughes has offered to deliver a space-rated drill in 24 months after go-ahead, at a fixed price of $12 million. "That's pretty cheap," Mandell said. Several iterations of the drill design have been made. Now being fabricated and near ready to test is a 110-pound (50-kilogram) version of the drill capable of reaching some 65-feet (20-meters) depth on Mars. The device would use extremely low power to do its work, he said.

Getting a drill on an advanced lander heading for Mars in 2007 or 2009 is the prime directive.

Boring for interest

"Depth does matter. The deeper, the more customers," JSC's Mandell said. "If you're operating at the surface, you are interesting a small number of geologists. The deeper you go, then you involve the organic chemists and life scientists. Below that, now you start getting into the possibility of liquid water. That's when you start picking up the support of the human exploration type of people that, conceivably someday, could put money into this," he told SPACE.com.

Techniques and technologies to measure while drilling are under review by NASA and Baker Hughes. So too are ways to produce intact, protected core samples that can be studied by automated means, Mandell said. Work underway today may lead to future drills on Mars that burrow down as deep as two-and-a-half miles (4-kilometers), he said.

Sucking up 200 watts of energy per day, the drill would make slow, but steady headway - about a little over three feet (one meter) per day for 200 Mars days, Mandell said. "If we had a nuclear power supply, then we could really go," he added.

Pavement of solar cells

Taking the Moon at face value is Alex Ignatiev, of the Space Vacuum Epitaxy Center at the University of Houston. He reported progress in using lunar-like materials to produce thin film silicon solar cells. Small quantities of carefully concocted, NASA-supplied, lunar "simulant" are used in his experiments.

In melting and evaporating the fake Moon material, an excellent substrate and anti-reflective and protective coating for thin film silicon solar cells has been created. Lab investigations are underway to fabricate silicon solar cells on melted lunar regolith, Ignatiev said.

Ignatiev said that he envisions a solar cell grid on the Moon, powering up bases and science hardware.

Initially, a desk-sized crawler takes in the lunar regolith, laying out a pavement of solar cells as it moves about. Batches of the Moon-made solar cells would provide electricity, on the order of 200 kilowatts capacity per year. Over time, gigawatts of power can be made available.

"Then you can start beaming the power around the Moon to where you need it," Ignatiev said.

Novel breed of MicroCATS

Ultra-small technology offers big promise, said Robert Wegeng, chief engineer at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington. He gave an update on the building of Micro Chemical and Thermal Systems, or MicroCATS for short.

Microminiaturization has led to a novel breed of MicroCATS, Wegeng said. This work makes it possible to greatly reduce the weight, size, and expense of space systems, such as heating, cooling, and power generation hardware.

These tiny devices, best thought of as a chemical plant on a chip, can handle chemical reactions and chemical separations. Possible space applications include making rocket fuel or yielding oxygen for human consumption.

Wegeng said that the Moon's surface, plopped down on Mars, or planted upon near-Earth asteroids and comets - the palm of your hand-sized MicroCATS look promising in their ability to suck in resources and yield outputs of water, oxygen, and fuel.

Here's the dirt

The real message of the Space Resources Utilization Roundtable, the third gathering held to date, is "almost a destiny thing," said Taylor of the University of Hawaii.

"Great nations do great things, If we back away from space, what are the great things we're going to do?" he asked. "Even without the grand plans, as long as we have a goal of wanting to have permanent habitats on the Moon and Mars, then we can prepare for that objective with modest cost and great return," he said.

A few uncertainties, technologically and scientifically, need to be addressed over the next few years, said Duke of the Colorado School of Mines. For one, finding out how much water ice might be at the lunar poles is important. Public and private partnerships to spearhead technology development is another, he said.

"The roundtable is bringing together interested space professionals, experienced resources personnel from industry, and entrepreneurs," Duke said. "Our goal is to utilize the resources of space, including the Moon, Mars and asteroids, advancing the prospects for their commercial development."

"That's the strategy to get us to the decade of 2010, and beyond," Duke said.