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Moon NASA

NASA's Plan To Build a Levitating Robot Train on the Moon (livescience.com) 28

Posted by EditorDavid from the floating-an-idea dept.
"Does a levitating robot train on the moon sound far-fetched?" asks LiveScience.

"NASA doesn't seem to think so, as the agency has just greenlit further funding for a study looking into the concept." The project, called "Flexible Levitation on a Track" (FLOAT), has been moved to phase two of NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts program (NIAC) , which aims to develop "science fiction-like" projects for future space exploration. The FLOAT project could result in materials being transported across the moon's surface as soon as the 2030s, according to the agency... According to NASA's initial design, FLOAT will consist of magnetic robots levitating over a three-layer film track to reduce abrasion from dust on the lunar surface. Carts will be mounted on these robots and will move at roughly 1 mph (1.61 km/h). They could transport roughly 100 tons (90 metric tons) of material a day to and from NASA's future lunar base.
"A durable, long-life robotic transport system will be critical to the daily operations of a sustainable lunar base in the 2030's," according to NASA's blog post, arguing it could be used to
  • Transport moon materials mined to produce on-site resources like water, liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen, or construction materials
  • Transport payloads around the lunar base and to and from landing zones or other outposts

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo for sharing the article.


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NASA's Plan To Build a Levitating Robot Train on the Moon More

NASA's Plan To Build a Levitating Robot Train on the Moon

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  • A Moon base for long term residence, where higher gravity (not necessarily full Earth though) is desirable to maintain bone and muscle strength, should be build as an "Ouroboros Train" (head and tail connected to make a ring) levitated on a banked track. Access from the hub via a rotating "trainway".

    • Re:Levitating Train Moon Base (Score:4)

      by HiThere ( 15173 ) <charleshixsn.earthlink@net> on Saturday May 11, 2024 @02:49PM (#64465365)

      Why do it that way. A horizontal wheel on an axle is easier. you could levitate just the bearing joint. Getting on and off would be tricky, though, as you wouldn't want to stop it. (That's a lot of momentum to play with.)

      OTOH, in a good vacuum, levitated trains may make more sense. You still need to guard against heat loss in the superconducting magnets, but it should be a lot easier. (A good sun-shade and insulating legs should almost be enough.)

      • Levitating a rotating structure is not an insurmountable engineering challenge. Levitating such a structure with shifting loads within it is a different beast.

        Still, if you could manage it, I'd say make it huge. The bigger it is, the slower you need to rotate it for a given g at the radius. The slower you need to rotate it, the easier it is to get in and out from the hub. Slow enough, and maybe you don't even need any fancy interface at the exit, just deal with the fact that the entry door moves and you

        • Still, if you could manage it, I'd say make it huge. The bigger it is, the slower you need to rotate it for a given g at the radius.

          Depends on what you mean by "slow". The rim velocity for a given acceleration a is a=v^2/r. So the velocity goes up, not down, as you get bigger.

          You seem to be thinking of angular velocity (i.e., RPM), though, which goes down.

          The slower you need to rotate it, the easier it is to get in and out from the hub. Slow enough, and maybe you don't even need any fancy interface at the exit, just deal with the fact that the entry door moves and you can't take all day.

          But is the hardest part of a giant centrifuge really getting in and out?

  • Seriously we can't get a handful of trains running between major cities here in the states and we're going to build one on the moon now?

  • Robots (Score:3, Funny)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Saturday May 11, 2024 @02:00PM (#64465303)

    Robot technology sucks so we’ll never be able to build or assemble this sort of thing on the moon. And even if we did build it, we won’t be able to mine anything on the moon. Mining on the moon is impossible, we’re not going to have astronauts working as miners that’s too ridiculous.

  • FLOAT (Score:4, Funny)

    by RitchCraft ( 6454710 ) on Saturday May 11, 2024 @02:12PM (#64465329)

    "Flexible Levitation on a Track" (FLOAT) - How do I get a job at the government acronym lab? Working their sounds like fun!

    • Re:FLOAT (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 11, 2024 @02:46PM (#64465363)
      First, you need to be able to correctly use there, their, and they're.

      • Doh! Good catch. I've been doing that sort of the thing the older I get. I know the difference but still type the wrong one in. To and Too have been swapping on me unconsciously as well too.

      • Not really, acronyms don't change with interior mispelling. You only knead to no the correct phirst later.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      You need to BRIBE: Bring Redundant Idiots Babbling Electronics

  • and will move at roughly 1 mph (1.61 km/h)

    Looks pretty damned accurate to me.

  • I can't get to work on a levitating robot train. There isn't even a bus. There's barely a house.

  • There will never be any kind of train on the moon. We havnt been there in 50 years for a reason. We might use it as a platform for further studies but the reality is its far easier to build a space station. Someone is getting paid to do a study and then they will pay someone to study the study.
  • With blackjack, and hookers!
  • Seriously, they need to focus on getting things going before doing advanced things like this. This is now just $ being thrown away.

    • This is a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) study. The purpose of NIAC is to look at the feasibility of concepts beyond the next generation.

      (The headline is a little misleading; NASA is not planning this, NASA has a study to look at it.)

      NIAC takes an absolutely trivial fraction of the NASA budget. The idea is that some advanced concepts could pay off with large advances in our capabilities, and part of NASA's mission should be to look at these, and see which ones would be worth following up on.

  • lol (Score:2)

    by DMJC ( 682799 )
    $36 trillion in debt with inflation rampaging and America wants to build a moon train. Priorities.

  • Start by going back and establish a presence before going on for pipe dreams.
    That , already , will be an accomplishment. You need housing , water , power , comms way before you need a train.
    When you get the basics right ( including but not limited to getting back and forth alive ) and got a simple base station working then start dreaming.

    Until then , live with the reality of just getting back and forth this rock alive and in one piece.

    ( For added safety , leave Boeing out of your projects. )

  • Scotty, beam me up... but just an inch or two.

  • A NIAC phase two award is 600 thousands dollars, over two years. That *might* be enough money to pay one person full time for those two years. (Not that scientists make 300K per year, but after overhead and benefits, etc... That is about what one costs). So they say "NASAs plan to build". That is patently untrue. There is no plan to build anything. They are funding like one person for two years to think about the concept and do some calculations. That is a tiny amount of research funding. Which is

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