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Students Vie For Lunar Regolith Mining Robot Prize

Phil Metzger described a lunar regolith mining competition with a set of great posts. The students are expected to create entirely autonomous robots that sift lunar regolith.

Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven used the idea of a telepresence bulldozer in a 1981 novel for just this kind of work:

"Meet Rachel Lief," Lunan said. "Ms. Lief is a bulldozer driver." Lunan paused for effect. "As you see, Ms. Lief doesn't look like your typical tractor driver..."

"But then," Lunan said, "not every bulldozer operator works on the Moon." The cameras followed the trim woman into another room, where there was a replica of a large tractor. It was surrounded by TV screens. One screen showed an astronaut sitting in the driver's seat, staring impatiently into the screen. A bleak, nearly colorless pit showed over his left shoulder.

"About time you got here," the astronaut said.

"We were busy," Rachel sat down in the driver's seat and took hold of the controls. "I relieve you..."

The bulldozer moved through the lunar strip mine...
(Read more about Pournelle and Niven's telepresence bulldozer from Oath of Fealty)

Also, the 2009 movie Moon has some great scenes involving massive autonomous lunar excavators that are exactly what is prototyped by the engineers depicted in the above video. Here's a picture from the movie version of the Moon; take a look at the Moon movie trailer.

(Lunar excavator from Moon movie trailer)

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 5/9/2025)

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