Originally posted by NGC2736
I hope to see some of this in my lifetime.
Remember a while back John and I posted the "bucket wheel for extraterestrial use" on the Moon thread? In Sudbury Ontario Canada there is an impact
crater that is rich in Nickel and Cobalt etc... for years it has been the host to a lunar mining symposium and demo site...
Norcat in cooperation with Lockheed Martin builds and tests Lunar mining Equipment... Documents by the hundreds on all aspects of this have been
available for years at LPI and the Colorado School of Mines...
When we phoned the head of the project we left a message on his machine simply asking for more information on Mining Equipment... nothing about the
moon... When we received a return call the first question was "Whats your clearance level?"
This paper was ordered on a CD...
---------------------------------------------
REPORT ON THE CONSTRUCTION AND TESTING OF A
BUCKET WHEEL EXCAVATOR
Dale S. Boucher1, Jim Richard2
1Northern Centre for Advanced Technology Inc. 1400 Barrydowne Road,
Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, P3A 3V8
2Electric Vehicle Controllers Ltd, 2200 Valleyview Road,
Val Caron, Ontario, Canada,
P3N 1L1
Phone: (705) xxx-xxxx x202, email: xxxxxxx@norcat.org
The Northern Centre for Advanced Technologies Inc. (NORCAT), in partnership with Electric Vehicle Controllers Ltd. (EVC), is presently engaged in the
development and adaptation of existing mining technologies and methodologies for use extra-terrestrially as precursor and enabling technologies for
ISRU and for use as ISSE in support of longer term missions.
More specifically, NORCAT, in collaboration with Colorado School of Mines, has developed, constructed, and tested a bucket wheel excavator. The unit
is based upon the design developed by CSM’s Mike Duke and Tim Muff.
The design of the test unit was developed with the CSM design as a guide. Considerations were exercised to facilitate construction and testing of key
operational parameters. This yielded some changes in design and operating concepts, which were incorporated where appropriate. In addition, some
bottle necks and weak points were identified in the original design. NORCAT engaged Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) to fabricate a lunar regolith
simulant from mine tailings that would exhibit some significant similarities to the reported mechanical properties of lunar regolith. The Bucket wheel
unit was tested in this simulant in October 2004.
This presentation will report some key results of the Bucket wheel re-design.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Muff is now with Lockheed Skunkworks
Sudbury To Host Planetary And Terrestrial Mining Sciences Symposium
Mining technology developed for use here on earth has already been used as the basis for developing the technology required to mine the moon and
Mars. Dale Boucher, Director of Research and Development at the Northern Centre for Advanced Technology Inc. (NORCAT), indicates NASA and the CSA
approached NORCAT several years ago to leverage Northern Ontario's drilling expertise derived through the mining industry. That initial meeting in
2000 developed into a collaboration that continues to date.
www.space-travel.com...
