How Can Drilling Engineers Help Revolutionize Space Transport andColonize the Solar System:Focusing on Lunar Water-Ice

摘要

Water is considered the'oil of space'with applications ranging from fuel production to colony consumption.Recent findings suggested the presence of water-ice in the Permanently shadowed craters on Lunar poles.This water present on the Moon and other planetary bodies can significantly bring down the cost of spaceexploration,fueling the colonization of the solar system.With low-resolution orbital data available,the nextstep is to drill and analyze samples from the Moon.An extensive review of drilling systems designed by NASA was conducted focusing on the effect ofdifferent planetary environments on the drill design.Inspired by this and the drilling systems developed inthe petroleum industry,an auger based rotary drilling rig was designed and fabricated with an extensive high-frequency data acquisition system,measuring all essential drilling parameters.Several analog rocks werecast with regolith simulant grout to replicate different subsurface geotechnical properties in the Lunar polarcraters.The drill was tested on samples with different geotechnical properties to account for the varyingproperties expected in the Lunar poles.Application of the drilling engineering concepts has resulted in the development of a robust drillingsystem capable of replicating drilling process for different planetary environments like the Moon andMars.Using the data acquisition system on the rig,an advanced machine learning algorithm capable ofprocessing and analyzing the real-time high-frequency drilling data to estimate a sample's geotechnicalproperties and water content was created.The evolving algorithm was developed based on initial drillingtests on homogenous and heterogeneous analogs.It was tested on samples with varying heterogeneityto estimate the geotechnical properties and the water content accurately.With some modifications,thisalgorithm can be applied in the Lunar and Martian missions to estimate the geotechnical properties in real-time,without the need to analyze the subsurface samples on the surface.This can result in a cost-effectiveexploration of water-ice resources on the Moon and Mars,kickstarting the space resources industry andthe human colonization on those planetary bodies.The expertise of the drilling engineers in designing andexecuting wells in extreme terrestrial environments can help create significantly effective drilling systemsfor extraterrestrial environments.This work details the design considerations to drill on the Moon and other planetary bodies focusingspecifically on the application of drilling data to evaluate geotechnical properties and water content at Lunarpolar conditions.The techniques developed here might pay a vital role in understanding the extent andcomposition of water-ice on the Moon,leading to efficient colonization of the solar system.