Throwaway Rovers

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Strangelv says, "robot proof of concept?"

MikeD says, "soil samplers"

Strangelv says, "It has the regolith. Now what?"

MikeD says, "not sure about that, there's also the issue of whether we want deeper samples"

Strangelv says, "There's plenty of groups working on this project. Who could we try to recruit?"

MikeD says, "there's really not a whole lot more you can do with a robot on Luna at the moment other than sample soil and rocks"

MikeD says, "the robots should be capable of networking, perhaps have each one perform different experiments, also have some duplication so you can allow for errors and faults"

MikeD says, "there is one fixed requirement, since they need to be solar powered, they need to be able to move quickly so they can avail of the 2 week day, none of this 3m/day NASA BS"

Strangelv says, "Operating temperture"

MikeD says, "they need to be small, cheap and dispensible"

Strangelv says, "How cold does it get at night?"

MikeD says, "near absolute zero"

Strangelv says, "We need heating for two weeks"

MikeD says, "I don't expect them to survive a night"

MikeD says, "you're thinking like NASA"

Strangelv says, "Q: is there feasibility for a shelt... no that only provides protection at noon"

MikeD says, "small cheap dispensible and fast is the requirement"

MikeD says, "underground is on luna is thought to be fairly warm right the way thru, warm enough for water not to freeze"

MikeD says, "Ireland winter temps"

MikeD says, "thinking about freezing"

MikeD says, "but digging a shelter could take longer than it's worth"

MikeD says, "nope, make em small and fast and dispensible and cheap and drop a whole bunch of them all over the moon"

MikeD says, "don't even have to target their landings, just work on averages, a sort of brute force and ignorance method"

You hmm.

Strangelv says, "Need a landing system"

Strangelv says, "What do we call this. Maybe stuff this entire discussion on Lunarpedia as a draft?"

Strangelv says, "At least the techtnical parts"

Strangelv says, "Mike's pondering for a followup for the microwave project"

Strangelv says, "Mike ponders a throwaway rover design as a followup to the microwave project"

Strangelv says, "Multiple fast-moving autonomous and not meant to last the night"

Strangelv says, "oh, and very cheap"

cfrjlr says, "need somebody willing to do the work"

Strangelv says, "Given the profile, I believe they also will need to be lightweight to reduce mass"

Strangelv says, "for the launch"

Strangelv says, "Radio Shack sells or used to sell a $300 kit"

Strangelv says, "complication is where to do it where maybe we can have more than just one person"

Strangelv says, "tinkering on it"

Strangelv says, "That is an obvious point. Who do we have who feasibly can do a bunch of the work"

Strangelv says, "I'd assume that they'ad be able to ask for technical assistance"

Strangelv says, "so a garage, time, and the ability to wield a screwdriver and other tools"

MikeD says, "all the best people we have for that kind of work are somewhat isolated from the rest of the core"

Strangelv says, "The concept appeals to me greatly, but my health is a liability and I lack a garage"

MikeD says, "to be honest, I don't think a mere garage would be big enough once it got beyond the initial design stage."

Strangelv says, "True, maybe stages need to be worked out"

Strangelv says, "initial tinkering, then what?"

Strangelv says, "try to sell it to Phoenix, St Louis, Calgary, et c. to adopt it for the next step?"

MikeD says, "nah, initial tinkering would be only to find a suitable base unit to use"

MikeD says, "you're basically talking about roving laptops, old stripped down laptops in all probability"

Strangelv says, "Maybe, but that's too expensive"

Strangelv says, "Software needs to run on embedded hardware="

Strangelv says, "ARM processors or the like, maybe even cheaper"

Strangelv says, "I suppose that provides some division of labor that can handle long distances"

MikeD says, "not at all, I said _old_ there are laptops out there in near pristine condition that are basically too old to be useful to most normal computer users, but you could install a stripped down version of linux on them"

Strangelv says, "But they'll still be x86. If you put x86s in them it's a poor comparison to what we'd"

Strangelv says, "use for the actual mission"

MikeD says, "this is only for a cheap proof of concept James"

Strangelv says, "What clamshell or portable systems have internals that are good for ripping out and "

Strangelv says, "installing in a different setup?"

MikeD says, "ancient Dells come to mind"

MikeD says, "as long as it has a pcmcia slot it's up to the job"

MikeD says, "or better yet a usb port"

MikeD says, "the more modern built in wifi would actually be the worst option"

Strangelv wonders what the processing hardware in the Radio Shack kit consists of

MikeD says, "that's only the robot, that's going to use pic chips, you need something to control those"

---

Bryce says, "Stardust kinda came a few minutes before time and ask me to run this, so I wasn't much prepared. What shall we talk about?"

Strangelv says, "Landitng mulrtiple throwaway rovers on the Lunar surface at daybreak?"

Bryce says, "Well, that's different. 'Scuse me while I let out a cat. BRB."

Strangelv says, "Mike's idea. I'd paste a link to a crude concept for starting a stub, but it'll be a few"

miked-in-dublin-2 [Guest] says, "http://www.lunarpedia.org/index.php?title=Throwaway_Rovers"

Strangelv says, "danke"

Strangelv says, "It's more readible in edit mode, which is probbly teh most meningful way to view it"

Bryce says, "First thing you need to do is a search and replace on "Strangelv says, "."

miked-in-dublin-2 [Guest] says, "yes, that would help"

miked-in-dublin-2 [Guest] says, "but more than one Lunarpedia article has started out this way"

Bryce says, "Have you heard about the "Mother Goose" Marsbot ideas from Gus Frederick and Penny Boston?"

Bryce says, "I'll see if I can find the post. It may relate to your idea." Strangelv says, "no, how does it go?"

miked-in-dublin-2 [Guest] says, "No, but I've heard of Gus Frederick, it was pretty much his work that gave me the idea in the first place"

miked-in-dublin-2 [Guest] says, "Gus likes small bots, lots of small bots"

miked-in-dublin-2 [Guest] says, "because you're making 1000 or 10000 the cost per unit drops dramatically"

Bryce says, "http://eisci.com/mothergoose/ I guess Gus did the graphics, it's mainly Boston and a couple of colleagues."

miked-in-dublin-2 [Guest] says, "that link is coming up blank for me"

Bryce says, "One thing we talked about then was having little inertial modules on each "gosling", and having them send position data or being polled periodically could be used to compile a map by the swarm of points built up."

Grady [Guest] has arrived.

Bryce says, "Grammar, sorry. I really should proof before sending."

Strangelv says, "Hello"

Grady [Guest] says, "Hello"

Strangelv says, "Now we have an experienced NASA/USN engineer to throw at the problem. 8)"

Bryce says, "Hi Grady! At the moment we're discussing concepts of many small, almost "throwaway" robots for the Moon and Mars. http://www.lunarpedia.org/index.php?title=Throwaway_Rovers http://eisci.com/mothergoose/ "

miked-in-dublin-2 [Guest] says, "http://www.highmars.org/niac/niac05.html"

miked-in-dublin-2 [Guest] says, "http://eisci.com/mothergoose/ is not working"

Grady [Guest] says, "Thanks Bryce"

Grady [Guest] says, "Mike"

Bryce says, "Mike, make sure the opening quote mark didn't get into the URL."

Strangelv says, "Call the lunar implementtion Junebug as they're all over the place and don't last long?"

miked-in-dublin-2 [Guest] says, "no, I see what's wrong

Bryce, I need to put in the www, http://www.eisci.com/mothergoose/"

Bryce says, "Huh, odd, worked on original link and reload for me. Whatever works!"

miked-in-dublin-2 [Guest] says, "could have something to do with your cache"

Bryce says, "The other page you gave, Mike, is different, so check them all, folks."

Bryce says, "I did a reload to force it to work, and it did."

Grady [Guest] says, "Way-to-go Bryce...."

Bryce says, "It's not that important. I tried the www version and it worked too, and that's what counts!"

miked-in-dublin-2 [Guest] says, "yes, and now that I have the files in cache it works too"

Bryce says, "Mysteries of the Internet, tonight at 11."

miked-in-dublin-2 [Guest] says, "setting up dns is tricky for a lot of people"

Bryce says, "How do they don't last long, Strangelv. They don't disappear or leave, do they?"

Strangelv says, "Temperture"

Strangelv says, "Mike's idea is to not include heters"

Strangelv says, "Which mens they brek overnight, unless there's a way to mke them impervious to the"

Strangelv says, "temperture changes"

Bryce says, "So they just die and sit there. Spare parts for some future scrounger."

miked-in-dublin-2 [Guest] says, "just do as cheap as possible and get as much out of them in 2 weeks as possible"

Strangelv says, "Relics for collectors, too" Bryce says, "Yeah."

Strangelv says, "Need to control the mass to fit with the low cost objective. Launch on the cheapest "

Strangelv says, "booster that can take you there"

miked-in-dublin-2 [Guest] says, "arranging to overnight them successfully would probably escalate the cost too much"

Bryce says, "The trouble is not the cost of the probes, though, it's the cost of transportation. You might not gain that much "mission savings" by saving money on the probes."

miked-in-dublin-2 [Guest] says, "and soil analyses at 100-1000 locations wouldn't be worth the cost?"

miked-in-dublin-2 [Guest] says, "the hard part is getting subsoil analyses"

Bryce says, "The ultra-cold nighttime temperature might mess with electrical properties, but if we shut down power until the Sun shows up again, they might be made hard enough to survive night without that much extra cost. So you can get a lot more work out of them."

Grady [Guest] says, "They may need to tell mother goose each finding for recording data."

miked-in-dublin-2 [Guest] says, "that's the whole idea, basically walking compters with wifi"

miked-in-dublin-2 [Guest] says, "the fan out and network through each other"

miked-in-dublin-2 [Guest] says, "s/the/they"

Bryce says, "I would put some data cache on the individual units, but it does us no good there, so normally I would expect them to pass data up ASAP."

Grady [Guest] says, "Sounds like a software nightmare...."

miked-in-dublin-2 [Guest] says, "not really, just switch between them every so often"

Bryce says, "Penny Boston's "Mother Goose" was actually looking at roving cell phone technology as a model."

miked-in-dublin-2 [Guest] says, "that's the same basic tech"

Bryce says, "Each unit could transmit its own data and also relay data from units further out."

Bryce says, "farther out."

Grady [Guest] says, "Piggyback?"

Bryce says, "Expanding info web."

miked-in-dublin-2 [Guest] says, "there's not going to be that much data flow, it'll be sporadic and intermittent, though ideally at controlled times"

Grady [Guest] says, "A working model here on Earth would be fun....."

Bryce says, "I'm not sure if Mike's "throwaway" rovers would work the same way. Where did each of your rovers send data, Mike?"

Strangelv says, "The discussion point that brought this back up BTW, was what can the Moon Society do to"

miked-in-dublin-2 [Guest] says, "same basic idea, though I hadn't thought it out quite a well, but I'd have got there" Strangelv says, "bend metal next now that we have a working Solar Powered Sattelite demonstrator prototype"

miked-in-dublin-2 [Guest] says, "have say 16 bots link back to mother, have 16 mothers link back to grand mother" Strangelv says, "Have the rovers make a beeline away from twilight to increase their duration? You did "

Strangelv says, "specify that they move rpidly"

miked-in-dublin-2 [Guest] says, "at some point you wind up with base units that have to be able to transmit back to earth or a sat"

Bryce says, "Yes, I noticed that "no 3m/day like NASA" you mentioned. If each rover is cheap enough and you don't care that much, you could make them speed up. Or maybe hop."

miked-in-dublin-2 [Guest] says, "but ther's not much that says they can't be mobile too, have the whole swarm just fan out so far, then all move in one general direction"

Strangelv-1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:British_Mark_IV_Tadpole_tank.jpg

Strangelv says, "If tread based, something densigned to get them out of their inevitable spills as often as"

Strangelv says, "manageable?"

Grady [Guest] says, "Would there be a problem with radiation?"

Strangelv-1 ponders a nasty Solar storm right as they deploy

Strangelv says, "How expensive are hardened electronics?"

Strangelv says, "HArden a percentage of them for that contingency?"

---

Strangelv says, "Idea about junebug rovers: what if they landed in batches from an orbital platform?"

Strangelv says, "land 500 at a time every week or so until stocks are exhausted?"