Many traditional engineering disciplines are represented in several functions at an outpost. Technology developed for one area can solve many other problems. Commonality is present at many levels in a program as large as the SEI. Some equipment will have evolving uses as time goes on, such as vehicles used to transport cargo later being used to mine regolith. Also, the technologies and procedures developed in an ISMU effort on the Moon would serve to bring us up the learning curve for similar operations on Mars. As shown in the table below, these technologies run the gamut of specialties. The lead time to develop these skills can be many years. We need to begin now.
Since the benefits of ISMU present themselves, in part, in the form of reduced mass launched from Earth, the mass of the plants and equipment needed to provide these benefits must be low. The availability of everything we normally use to manufacture materials on Earth will be limited on the Moon and Mars. Power, mining capacity, spare parts, and especially manpower, will be in short supply. Hence, their usage comprises the criteria against which all processes must be judged. All elements of every space effort must be concerned with these limitations. The ISMU plants must operate at reduced gravity and, unless enclosed in a structure, will be exposed to vacuum, solar radiation, and severe temperature variations. They will be subject to the Moon's day/night cycle of two weeks each. Thus, reliability and operability will be extremely important. Complex systems that require frequent maintenance and spare parts must be avoided whenever possible. Systems which can be teleoperated or supervised from Earth will relieve the operations burden from the outpost. Automation similar to that used in present-day chemical plants, enhanced by expert systems now in the development stage, and supervised by Earth-based engineers and scientists, are planned for these robotic factories.
Tasks Moon Mars ------------------------------------------ Mining yes yes Telerobotic Operation yes no Conveying yes yes Atmosphere compression no yes Chemical Processing yes yes Automatic control yes yes Expert systems yes yes Liquefaction yes yes Closed loop processing yes yes Operations yes yes Maintenance yes yes Deployment/construction yes yes Cryogen transfer yes yes Material handling yes yes Fabrication technology yes yes Physical processing yes yes Product usage yes yes Interface with program yes yes Space transportation yes yes Planetary surface systems yes yes Demonstration and Verification yes yes