This blog will expose readers to many facets of scientific investigation and discovery. Recent news in science will be shown and expanded on to teach far more. Biographies of scientists will give a deeper insight than what you may have read in textbooks. I hope that the posts will help improve scientific literacy, expand your interest in many fields of science, and inform you about some important scientists.
The Moon has attracted a lot of attention lately. China landed on the far side on January 2, 2019 with its Chang'e 4 lander and Yutu 2 rover after putting its Queqiao relay satellite in a nearby orbit. India touched down safely its Chandrayaan-3 lander on August 23, 2023 on the south pole to explore for water. The United States is teaming up with six agencies in a multi-stage Artemis program to build an orbital Gateway and base camp experimental station there. The first stage, Artemis 1, has already been accomplished. But other than sending rovers and orbiters, what can we expect to do to explore the Moon's more than has been done before? How are people actually going to transport materials on the Moon's surface or Mars? The answer may be levitation.
The NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program is funding a lunar railway system called FLOAT (Flexible Levitation on a Track). Just as railroads provide transportation systems on Earth, something is needed in space to move cargo from mining stations to processing stations. But on the Moon, there is no air to run steam-powered engines, and the atmosphere of Mars is 95% carbon dioxide, so another means is needed. FLOAT provides a magnetic robot ore carrier system powered by solar panels.
There are three parts to the FLOAT design. The track on the bottom is made out of PCB and is connected to the upper layer of solar panels. The PCB FLOAT track uses power from the solar panels to generate a electromagnetic (EM) field. This causes the FLOAT robot (the ore carrier) to levitate because the base of the robot is a sheet of many permanent magnets, and the EM field lifts (levitates) the robot as it interacts with the magnets. The key is that there are no moving parts to propel the ore carrier robot.
The FLOAT system is made of materials that flex easily, so it can be wound around a spool and laid out on the Moon's or Mars' surface without the need for cables, rails, stakes, or any other securing devices. It can also be rolled up and relocated easily if need be. The artistic representation below shows sheets that are closely connected almost as if they are one piece, but the concept designers have more than one option in mind, sometimes with flexible joints between sheets that are about 1 meter (3 feet) long.
From Schaler et al., 2021
Trial runs have already been made on Earth on a very small scale, mostly to test power requirements.
But lunar dust itself might pose a problem. The term "dust" is not the same as house dust on Earth, which is made of pollen, bacteria, smoke, ash, hair, and dead cells. Lunar dust is silicon dioxide glass as fine as talcum powder. Millions of years of bombardment of the Moon's surface by meteors not only has pulverized the rocky surface again and again, but also the speed of the meteors is so high that meteors heat up the rock and dust to create larger glassy bits called agglutinate. The dust is 1000 times smaller.
As described in the 8-minute YouTube video below, lunar dust has caused major problems in the past. These include scratches on space suits and cameras, blockage of seals on suits and storage compartments, and health hazards to eyes and lungs.
So, a non-mechanical ore transportation system like FLOAT minimizes the dust that would be thrown up by wheels, carts, or assembly line devices. The location of lunar landers would have to be carefully planned, too, because dust has been shown to be thrown at least as far away as 160 meters (525 feet) at the speed of bullets, with severe damaging effects. Schaler's tests have also looked into how to deal with solar panels that might become covered with lunar dust.
Ideally, the FLOAT system is hoping to haul up to 33 kg (73 pounds) per robot carrier at speeds of >0.5 m/s (2.2 miles per hour). The regolith that is mined may be examined for its chemical and physical properties, but there are also thoughts that regolith might also be used as a building material ("lunarcrete") with blood as a binder, or for growing plants.
Here's a cool video link to explain diamagnetism compared to other types of magnetism.
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