Newsletter Articles 2023b

July ~ Fish& (Silicon) Chips: The Upcoming Wave of Automation

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, there have been several waves of automation, each in turn displacing workers and ushering in a new employment paradigm. The advent of Chat GPT and Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) has poised society for yet another upheaval in how work is done—raising productivity, but also its consequences, in unimaginable ways. Let’s look at a few past examples.

The pen, the typewriter, the word processor. Prior to the twentieth century, all documents (except books printed by a press), ledgers, and letters were composed by hand. It was slow and laborious. Scriveners like Bob Cratchet earned mere pennies per day. Move ahead a hundred years. Huge secretarial pools using the much faster mechanical typewriter were the norm in offices. All reports and correspondence were hand-typed. Make a mistake? Retype it. But overall, it beat pen and ink.

Then along came the IBM Selectric. Mistype something? Correct it right away, then continue typing. Word processors arose in the 1970s. Tasks that used to require clerical pools could now be accomplished by engineers, marketers, and small business people on their own.

Animal domestication, the steam engine, the internal combustion engine. Draft animals allowed the transport of people and goods in greater quantity and distances than could be hand-carried. The advent of the steam engine ushered in an era when cartage could be transported by multiple tons. Freight and passenger trains increased trade and mobility by an order of magnitude. With the arrival of the internal combustion engine, ancillary industries prospered—steel, coal, rubber, manufacturing of the vehicle itself and all the various parts and components that go into it. In 2021 trucks hauled 10.93 billion tons of freight, 72.2% of total domestic tonnage shipped.

The digital revolution. The design and manufacture of durable goods and services was upended within the past forty years. From 1970 to 2020 worker productivity in the US rose 61.8%. And now comes along Generative Artificial Intelligence. Beginning in the late 2000s, the emergence of deep learning drove progress and research in image and video processing, text analysis, speech recognition, and other tasks.

A generative AI system applies unsupervised or self-supervised machine learning to a data set. The capabilities of a generative AI system depend on the content of the data set used.

Text-based GAI systems are trained on words or sentences. They are capable of natural language processing, machine translation, and natural language generation and can be foundation models for other tasks. Data sets include BookCorpus, Wikipedia, and others.

In addition to natural language text, large language models can be trained on programming language text, allowing them to generate source code for new computer programs.

Generative AI can be trained on sets of images with text captions that identify the pertinent subject, such as “cat,” “dog,” “banana,” or “mountain.” They are commonly used for text-to-image generation and neural style transfer. For example, this type of system can render an image of a Van Gough painting in the style of Salvadore Dali.

Training can be done on sequences of amino acids or molecular representations of DNA or proteins for protein structure prediction and drug discovery.

Music-based GAI can learn the audio waveforms of recorded music along with text annotations to generate new musical samples based on text inputs.

Generative AI trained on annotated video can generate video clips. This and image-based systems have generated the most controversy for their ability to compose deepfakes—digital accounts of events that never happened.

GAI trained on the motions of a robotic system can generate new trajectories for motion planning. Commands like “pick up the hamburger with the spatula and place it on the open bun” would actuate a robotic arm.

The Boeing company is using GAI in its design of NASA’s X-66, an experimental aircraft employing a radical new wing to increase fuel efficiency by at least 30%. Generative AI is used for book cover designs and illustrations, for generating plot outlines, marketing copy and book descriptions, draft emails and letters, and draft legal briefs. New search engines and personal digital assistants now use these systems.

I expect Generative AI to displace those at the bottom rungs of the economic ladder. Ironically, lower wage workers may be hastening the change. The Great Resignation still affects hotels, restaurants, retail stores, warehouses, airlines, hospitals, trucking, local delivery, transit, and manufacturing.

Many of these people were forced to leave their jobs during the COVID pandemic, and sought jobs with better pay, greater security and dignity. The goal of self-actualization, common among white collar employees in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, has trickled down to the labor class. The recent scarcity of workers closely matches the types of labor that lends itself to Generative AI automation.

Where is this all leading us? Or rather, where is GAI leading us? My crystal ball is cloudy. There is a great deal of societal hand-wringing at present. But I can say this: traumatic worker and social dislocation accompanied each previous phase of automation. But from the perspective of hindsight, economists extoll the end results as a boon to society. Today, thanks to past technological advancements, we enjoy the most advanced economy in the history of civilization. The optimist in me says the same will happen with this impending tsunami. But with GAI, we can expect economic dislocation on a heretofore unprecedented scale.

If we as a civilization want to reap the benefits of GAI, we need to start rethinking our educational system to prepare tomorrow’s workers for the inevitable changed economic landscape. On a personal level, many of us should consider moving to emerging industries, such as clean energy, or hydrogen-based transportation—or seek training for the coming changes in our current professions.

Traditional sectors like law, engineering, and manufacturing will always exist, but in a radically different form. Lawyers may no longer require clerical help or even paralegals. Individual engineers and architects will give instruction to GAI to generate and document designs for all sorts of projects without the large teams utilized today.

The proliferation of autonomous robotics will extend into increasingly smaller manufacturing firms. Those employees who remain will supervise and direct the machinery, rather than fabricate or assemble products. The service and hospitality sector will still be around but will follow a model similar to boutique establishments today, charging a premium price for exceptional quality and service. Fast food chains will become completely automated, a single “manager” running the entire operation. Even the trades will be affected. Individual carpenters, plumbers and electricians will always be in demand, but most large equipment will be automated. Truckers, delivery drivers, farm laborers and construction equipment operators will be vulnerable.

That fish and chips I alluded to in the title of this article? I’ll order by voice command on my phone. It will be cooked and packaged robotically, placed into an autonomous delivery vehicle, and dropped off on my front porch by a small delivery bot. Have your digital assistant talk with my digital assistant. We’ll do lunch.

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Want a deeper dive? Check out these sources, listed in the order of discussion.
36 Artificial Intelligence Examples Shaking Up Business Across Industries. Built In. Feb 2023. https://builtin.com/artificial-intelligence/examples-ai-in-industry
The History of Industrial Automation. Paramount Tool Company. 2023. https://www.paramounttool.com/the-history-of-industrial-automation/#:~:text=Steam%20engines%20allowed%20the%20beginnings,their%20business%20to%20run%20themselves.
Generative Artificial Intelligence. Wikipedia. 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_artificial_intelligence

August ~ Mars Climate

Those who follow my EPSILON Sci-Fi Thriller Series know it’s set in a feature on Mars called Hellas Planitia. To date, there have been twenty successful unmanned mission landings. Sites range from pole to pole, with most concentrated in craters and plains between 30 degrees North and 30 degrees South. Many have found evidence of the existence of past liquid water, or present-day ice. But none have explored the vast crater known as Hellas Planitia.

In some ways, Mars is much like Earth. Its axis of rotation is tilted 25 degrees with respect to the plane of its orbit around the Sun, similar to Earth’s axial tilt of 23.4 degrees. Like here, the Red Planet has distinct seasons. At low latitudes Hadley circulation dominates, comparable to the trade winds. At higher latitudes a series of high and low pressure areas dominate the weather, also like here. Katabatic winds affect both the northern and southern polar caps. The Greenland ice sheet is famous for its fierce katabatic winds.

But in many other ways the planet is, well, alien. It orbits the sun 60 million miles farther out than we do. It receives less than half the solar radiation per square meter that Earth does, 590 Watts/sq m compared to about 1370 Watts/sq m.

For a host of reasons, the Red Planet is colder than Earth. Much colder. A warm summer day at the equator barely rises above freezing, only to plunge to minus 150 degrees F at night.

Typical daily temperature swings are extreme. Away from the polar regions, diurnal differences are around 180 degrees F (100 degrees C)!

Mars’s mean surface pressure is about 600 pascals (Pa), roughly one-one-hundredth of sea level air pressure(101,000 Pa). 600 Pa is comparable to an Earth altitude of about 44 km (27 mi).Consider that at the summit of Mt Everest, about 5 miles high, most humans need supplemental oxygen to survive.

The low density of the Martian atmosphere means that winds of 18 to 22 m/s (40 to 49 mph) are needed to lift dust from the ground. But once airborne, the atmosphere is so dry small particulates can stay suspended far longer than on Earth, where it is soon washed out by rain.

Although the temperature on equatorial Mars can reach above freezing, the low atmospheric pressure is below water’s triple point, 611.66 Pa. This makes liquid water unstable over much of the planet, meaning water ice sublimates directly into water vapor. Where brine breaks out of certain crater walls, it literally boils as it freezes, the flow never reaching the floor.

Polar winters on the Red Planet are considerably colder than the coldest winters on Earth, with temperatures dropping to a frigid minus 243 degrees F (minus 153 degrees C). This is cold enough to maintain ice caps of frozen carbon dioxide (dry ice). The north polar dry ice cap is about one meter (three feet) thick, and eight meters (26 feet) deep at the south pole. The water ice underneath Mars’s carbon dioxide ice sheath is gargantuan by contrast, two km (1.2 miles) thick in the north and three km (1.7 miles) thick in the south.

CO2 ice accumulates in the north polar region in winter only, sublimating completely in summer. But the south polar region’s cover is permanent. The south pole sits at a higher elevation than the north, and is therefore colder.

Spring dust storms are common on Mars. They are driven by the pressure gradient created when the CO2 ice cap sublimates during that hemisphere’s Spring. On the Red Planet, dust in the atmosphere absorbs sunlight, raising the air temperature another 7 degrees F (4 degrees C), making the winds even more energetic. The resulting feedback loop generates dust storms that obscure the entire planet.

A summer day on Mars may warm up to 70 degrees F (20 degrees C) near the equator, but at night it can plummet to about minus 100 degrees F (minus 73 degrees C). Gale Crater, situated at 5.4 degrees South latitude, sees an average summer high of 36 degrees F, an average summertime low of minus 105 degrees F. The winter average high is minus 9 degrees F, and average low is minus 126 degrees F.

Current research suggests that the Red Planet is in a warm (?!) interglacial period which has lasted more than 100,000 years. It is now thought that mid-latitude ice accumulated when Mars’s orbital tilt was very different from what it is now. The planet’s rotational axis precesses (wobbles), so its angle changes over time. A few million years ago, the tilt of the axis was 45 degrees. During some previous ice ages Mars’s poles tilted as much as 80 degrees.

Studies have shown that when the angle of Mars’s axis reaches 45 degrees, polar ice is no longer stable. Stores of solid carbon dioxide ice sublimate, thereby increasing the atmospheric pressure. This allows more dust to be held in the atmosphere, raising the temperatures even further. Moisture in the atmosphere falls as snow or as ice frozen onto particulates. Calculations suggest this material will concentrate in the mid-latitudes.

Scientists believe that these dusty snows may be the source of the midlatitude subterranean brines observed bursting out of the upper elevations of cliffs and crater walls. They may also be the source of the vast buried glaciers present in Hellas Planitia.

Why do I speculate in my series that the first commercial manned mission to Mars will occur in Hellas Planitia? Recall that Hellas Planitia is an impact crater, the largest confirmed in the solar system. The 7,000 km diameter basin is nine km deep, making it the lowest elevation on the planet.

It’s so deep that the summertime atmospheric pressure at the bottom reaches 1155 Pa, 1240 Pa during winter, when the air is coldest and at its highest density. This is above the triple point, so when the temperature exceeds freezing, liquid water can exist there. A Midsummer day can reach 32 degrees F or higher. The daily maximum soil temperature is about 75 degrees F. Water processing for drinking, irrigating crops, and electrolysis for hydrogen and oxygen won’t have to occur in pressurized facilities, as would be the case everywhere else on the planet’s surface.

The relatively mild Hellas summer daytime highs will require less energy expenditure for heating habitats and EVA suits. Not that the energy budget can be eliminated altogether. Nights are still bitter cold. The warmest Summer lows are minus 50 degrees F. Winters are much colder, dropping at night down to minus 140 degrees F with a daytime average of minus 60 degrees F.

But compared to equatorial locations, Hellas Planitia is a veritable garden spot. Now if only some ambitious company would start prospecting …

Want a deeper dive? Check out these sources, listed in the order of discussion.
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/mars/in-depth/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Mars
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_landing#:~:text=There%20have%20also%20been%20studies,have%20conducted%20Mars%20landings%20successfully.

September ~ The Gateway

NASA is poised to return humans to the Moon. While the lunar landers have grabbed all the headlines lately, there is another component of Artemis that is less known. Yet the Gateway program is critical to Artemis’s success.
Gateway is a small space station that will orbit the Moon. It will include docking ports for a variety of visiting spacecraft and space for long- and short-term crew to live and work. Built with international and commercial partnerships, it will support sustained exploration and research. NASA intends to use Gateway to mature technologies and capabilities for future lunar and Mars missions.
International partners will provide important components, including advanced external robotics, additional habitation, and refueling capability. Dozens of countries and/or space agencies will participate, provided they have signed the Artemis Accords. These stipulate the peaceful use of space for the benefit of humanity, and deconfliction protocols in cases of conflicting facilities. Notably, China and Russia are not Accord signatories and will presumably be excluded from participating in Gateway.
Habitation capabilities launching in 2024 will promote science, exploration, and commercial and international partner involvement. The design will be informed by lessons learned from the International Space Station (ISS). NASA envisions that crew could live and work in space for thirty to sixty days at a time. They will participate in a variety of exploration and private enterprise activities in the vicinity of the Moon, including missions to the lunar surface.
The Gateway will serve as a platform for scientific research near and on the Moon. Unique studies are planned for Earth science, heliophysics, lunar and planetary sciences, life sciences, astrophysics, and fundamental physics by allowing extended views of the Earth, Sun, and Moon.
NASA plans to resupply the station through SpaceX and Blue Origin. Visiting cargo spacecraft will be docked remotely between crewed missions. Nothing precludes purely commercial missions from utilizing Gateway, either for space tourism or for resource extraction.

Schematic of Gateway Modules

Like the International Space Station (ISS), Gateway is modular. And like ISS, it is designed to expand over time, with each module adding function and capacity. The first two elements, the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) and the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO), will launch together on a commercial vehicle.

The PPE is a sixty-kilowatt solar electric ion propulsion spacecraft that will furnish power, communications, attitude control, and orbital transfer capabilities. This technology ionizes a noble gas to propel the vessel. Instead of generating thrust with expanding gases from exothermic chemical reactions, xenon, which is like neon or helium but heavier, is ionized. It is then electrically accelerated to a speed of about thirty km/second, providing thrust.

The module will also provide high-rate and reliable communications for the Gateway including space-to-Earth and space-to-lunar uplinks and downlinks, spacecraft-to-spacecraft crosslinks, and support for spacewalks. Finally, it can accommodate an optical communications demonstration, using lasers to transfer large data packages at faster rates than traditional radio frequency technology.

HALO is where astronauts will live and conduct research. The pressurized living quarters will house command and control systems for the outpost, and three docking ports for visiting supply or personnel spacecraft, or attachment points for additional modules (PPE, ERM, I-HAB and HLS). The module will distribute power across Gateway, will host science experiments, and communicate with lunar surface expeditions. The Orion crew delivery capsule will dock first to HALO, then to I-HAB after its attachment at a later date.

Batteries provided by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will power HALO until PPE solar arrays are deployed, then during eclipse periods. Interfaces supplied by the Canadian Space Agency will handle payloads and provide basepoints for a robotic arm. The European Space Agency (ESA) will supply a communications system to enable high-data-rate transmissions between the lunar surface and Gateway.

The first three science instruments to be housed in the module have already been selected. Two of them, the Heliophysics Environmental and Radiation Measurement Experiment Suite (HERMES) and the European Radiation Sensors Array (ERSA), will be attached to Gateway’s exterior. HERMES will monitor lower energy solar particles, including the solar winds. ERSA, led by ESA, will monitor high energy particles with a focus on solar storms.

The Internal Dosimeter Array (IDA) will study radiation shielding effects inside HALO and improve radiation physics models for cancer, cardiovascular and central nervous systems, assessing crew risk on exploration missions. IDA is being built by ESA, with additional science instruments from JAXA.

NASA selected Maxar Technologies of Westminster, Colorado, to develop and build the PPE. Northrop Grumman of Dulles, Virginia was awarded contracts for the preliminary and final HALO designs. NASA contracted SpaceX to provide launch services for the integrated PPE and HALO spacecraft. After integration on Earth, launch will occur no earlier than November 2025 on a Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center.

NASA has let two Human Landing System (HLS) contracts to Blue Origin and SpaceX, Blue Moon and Starship, respectively. These craft will dock directly with HALO before their descents to the surface, then re-dock prior to their return flights.

ESA signed an agreement with NASA to contribute habitation and refueling modules, enhanced lunar communications to the Gateway and two more Orion Service Modules. The International Habitat (I-HAB) will arrive at Gateway with pre-occupation supplies and equipment, then provide expanded living quarters once inhabited. After connection to HALO, I-HAB will have three docking ports for Orion, the Logistics Module (LM), and one spare.

Japan will provide several capabilities to NASA for I-HAB. JAXA’s planned contributions include I-HAB’s environmental control and life support system, batteries, thermal regulation, and imagery components, which will be integrated into the module by ESA prior to launch. These systems are critical for sustained outpost operations during crewed and uncrewed time periods.

The Esprit Refueling Module (ERM) will also be provided by ESA. It houses the fuel tanks used to refuel PPE. The ERM will feature crew observation windows.

Canada signed an agreement with NASA to provide advanced robotics. The Gateway External Robotics System (GERS) is a next-generation smart robotic arm, Canadarm3. It will move end-over-end the entire length of Gateway’s exterior, where its anchoring hand will plug into combined power, data, and video interfaces.

GERS will deploy in 2028. It will repair and inspect the space station, capture visiting vehicles, reconfigure the space station by relocating modules, and help astronauts during spacewalks. Canadarm3 will be able to maintain itself in space and swap out parts. Its AI will allow it to plan its missions, optimize resources and monitor system performance. Designed to work autonomously, the arm could also be operated remotely from Canada, or by onboard crew.

The final planned module for Gateway is an Airlock. No contract has been let yet for a supplier. However, it will be similar to the Nanoracks Bishop Airlock on ISS, allowing transfer of internal personnel/materiel into space and visa-versa. Material transfers in or out of the airlock will be accomplished by the GERS, reducing the need and complexity of astronaut spacewalks.

At present, NASA has defined Gateway missions for assembling modules or to directly support Artemis missions in 2024, 2025, and 2028, then yearly thereafter. But don’t be too surprised to see other Artemis Accord space agencies or countries purchase time aboard the space outpost for their own missions. I expect the same will happen for private companies with commercial and/or space tourism flights either to the station or the lunar surface. Once a permanent lunar base is established, shuttles between the Moon and the space station will become commonplace.

Want a deeper dive? Check out these sources.
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-s-lunar-outpost-will-extend-human-presence-in-deep-space
https://www.nasa.gov/gateway
https://www.nasa.gov/gateway/overview
https://www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis-accords/img/Artemis-Accords-signed-13Oct2020.pdf

October ~ Ground Transport on Mars, Part 1 of 2

In May, NASA solicited a Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) contract for service. The LTV will function like a cross between Apollo lunar and Mars uncrewed rovers. It will be driven by astronauts or remotely as an exploration platform. It must have capacity for two suited astronauts, accommodate a robotic arm or mechanism to support science missions, and survive the extreme temperatures at the South Pole. The press release is unclear if the Agency prefers a pressurized or open cabin concept. Award is scheduled for November 2023.

It looks like we’re too late to get in on this competition. NASA’s contract-for-services business model means we would need a developed vehicle, ready for the Agency to evaluate. Instead, let’s examine wheeled transport on the Red Planet. This gives us about a decade to consider the design parameters for our rover. That makes this a conceptual exercise, the substance of speculation. In other words, the stuff of science fiction!

Whether open or enclosed, a Mars vehicle must survive the intense cold. Mars’s equatorial Gale Crater sees average temperatures of summer highs of 36 degrees F and summertime lows of minus 105 degrees F. In winter the highs are minus 9 degrees F, and lows minus 126 degrees F. Winters at the south pole drop to a frigid minus 243 degrees F, frigid enough to maintain a frozen carbon dioxide ice cap.

Let’s start with lubricants, so vital for minimizing wear on moving parts. Here on Earth, arctic-rated lubricating greases operate down to minus 60 degrees F. Industrial graphite-based lubricants work down to minus 300 degrees F. The lubricant developed for NASA in the1960s lunar rovers is used to grease the Mars rover Curiosity, keeping it rolling for eleven-plus years. We’re covered here.What about the cold’s impact on energy sources to propel our rover? Elon Musk and Space X intend to use methane for Starship’s fuel, making it a likely candidate. This fuel could be produced on the Red Planet using the Sabatier process, where an electrical power supply electrolyzes carbon dioxide, which, when mixed with water, produces methane.

Methane’s boiling point is minus 260 degrees F, providing pressure to inject the gas into a combustion chamber. But a barrier to internal combustion engine (ICE) use on Mars will be the operating temperature of the motor oil. The best arctic-rated oils are only flowable down to minus 60 degrees F. If the block is not uniformly heated prior to start-up, piston rings could wear prematurely, accelerating oil loss. Uneven heating could also lead to gasket leaks or even a cracked block.

A second on-board energy source will have to keep the engine and crank case warm when the motor is not running, especially at stops away from the base and its electrical power supply.

Another option for our rover is a hydrogen fuel cell (HFC).HFCs catalytically convert oxygen and hydrogen into water to produce an electric current, powering an electric motor. Water should be readily available since it’s a resource which will have to be present at any viable habitation.

Most HFCs operate at a limited temperature range, considerably warmer than Mars’s ambient temperatures. They too, will have to be heated.

ICEs and HFCs have their challenges in the cold. What about batteries? Automotive lithium-ion batteries can be charged from 32degrees F to 113 degrees F and discharged from minus 4 degrees F to minus 140degrees F. The extreme cold of Mars would render them unchargeable and inoperable. Or worse, the water portion of the electrolyte would freeze, rupturing the casement.

Solid-State EV batteries can perform at temperatures as low as minus 22 degrees F and charge faster than lithium-ion. An improvement, but it’s obvious that batteries require a reliable supplemental heat source to function.

Radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) convert the heat of radioactive decay into electrical current. NASA already plans to use RTGs based on Uranium 238 to power lunar and Mars habitats. These power sources can warm themselves to maintain the thermocouple’s required operating temperature. Drawbacks are that they need radiation shielding, add weight to the transport space flight, and potentially risking astronaut health.

The Mars Curiosity and Perseverance rovers employ RTGs for power. They also warm internal components by conduction, electrify strategically placed electrical heaters, and enable the rover heat rejection system (HRS). The HRS uses fluid pumped through 60 m (200 ft)of tubing in the vehicle so that sensitive elements are kept at optimal temperatures.

Whether we choose a closed or open cabin concept, an RTG-based HRS could heat a berth or plug into an EVA suit via a quick connect coupler to keep astronauts warm.

Mars is more arid than any desert on Earth. Fortunately, the need for sealed bearings and bushings has largely been solved by current technology. So this is also settled.

But Martian dust contains a health hazard not commonly found here, perchlorate. When inhaled, this compound causes extreme respiratory inflammation. It clings to EVA suits, tools, or directly enters cabins through airlocks. Air filters and/or N95 or greater masks must be used for astronaut safety. Ironically, this argues for an open cabin design approach. Having astronauts travel in already sealed pressure suits adds no additional risk of contamination.

Any rover intended for long-term use requires provisions for maintenance and repair. There are four critical components that could result in mission failure without spare parts or an ability to service: wheels, suspension, powertrain, and pumps.

NASA has learned a great deal about wheels and wheel durability from Curiosity and Perseverance. They are hollow aluminum cylinders with cleats for traction and curved titanium spokes for shock absorbency. Given the increased payloads to be carried by future Mars rovers, they should arrive with a pair of spare wheels. Replacements required beyond that number can be delivered on subsequent missions.

The Agency’s unmanned Mars rovers utilize a rocker-bogie suspension system. This is an integration of tubular titanium frame and suspension elements. In essence, the cabin swivels about the frame between the front and middle pairs of wheels, maintaining its level position independent of the terrain. This design avoids shock absorbers though, increasing the risk of wear and tear. And obviating low-speed travel.

The best way to repair breaks is to utilize identical components for different areas of the frame. Employ similar couplers for joints and bends. Use similar tubing for frame components. In this way, a handful of spare parts could be used in a variety of locations, using identical fasteners. A single wrench would be all that’s required to service any frame and suspension failure.

Dissimilar power sources have differing maintenance and repair needs. A methane-burning ICE would be comparable to a car engine, but with a fuel-oxygen injection system. While the injector would isolate the interior from the dusty environment, oil would still burn away overtime. Astronauts won’t be able to head to the nearest parts store for a case of oil. A careful assessment of oil use verses travel time will be required to send enough to last several missions.

Moving parts like timing chains, cams, rocker arms and bearings will have to be designed for greater durability than engines here on Earth. A few smaller components like pumps, tubing, etc., can accompany the delivery flight.

If hydrogen fuel cells are used for propulsion, two points of failure must be addressed. The electrolytic membrane itself is susceptible to chemical erosion over time. Current research is leading to more durable nano-scale proton transfer structures.

At the other end of the power train lies the electric motor and gearhead. NASA uses one motor per wheel on the Perseverance and Curiosity rovers. This redundancy allows for continued operation should one drive motor fail. It simplifies overall design by eliminating transaxles to transmit torque to six wheels from a single motor. Electric motors are used to actuate drills, mechanical arms, etc. This also argues for standardization. Use identical motors for all wheels. One replacement motor could suit the needs of multiple missions.

The final components are pumps—for delivering heated fluids from an RTG, or for moving gases from one place to another like from an airlock to storage tanks. Pumps are simple devices, consisting of an electric motor and an impellor for liquids, or a piston and valves for gases. Assuming the motors are standardized, spare pumps could easily accompany rover deliveries.

That’s enough of a progress report for now. Next month, we’ll explore whether our rover should have a pressurized cabin or not, then decide on the final design elements. In the meantime, scroll down for an exclusive cover preview for my next novel, Red Planet Lancers, coming this Winter!

Want a deeper dive? Check out these sources.
https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/wheel-lunar-rover/nasm_A19750830000
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-pursues-lunar-terrain-vehicle-services-for-artemis-missions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crewed_Mars_rover#:~:text=Crewed%20Mars%20rovers%20%28also%20called%20manned%20Mars%20rovers%29,the%20crew%20to%20work%20without%20a%20space%20suit.
https://mars.nasa.gov/news/9474/nasas-oxygen-generating-experiment-moxie-completes-mars-mission/?ref=upstract.com
https://www.castrol.com/en_us/united-states/home/castrol-story/newsroom/features/keith-campbell-space-engineering.html
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/making-methane-mars#:~:text=It%20utilized%20a%20solar%20infrastructure,produce%20breathable%20oxygen%20from%20water.

November ~ Ground Transport on Mars, Part 2 of 2

Last month we examined several component options for our Mars rover. This month we’ll evaluate an open-verses-pressurized cabin, then select the elements we want to include in our vehicle.

The Martian atmosphere is thin. Mars’s mean surface pressure is about 600 pascals (Pa), comparable to an Earth altitude of 44 km (27 mi). Astronauts must wear an EVA suit whenever outside.

Most popular movies portray Martian rovers as enclosed vehicles. Let’s face it, Mark Watney in The Martian wouldn’t travel across Mars in an open cockpit to Schiaparelli Crater. The film would have been less compelling if his face had always been hidden behind a reflective visor.

But as noted in Part 1, an open cabin neatly solves issues related to toxic dust contamination, which is excluded by the EVA suit itself. No inboard filtration system is needed.

Heating the suit, critical for mid-winter days or mid-summer nights, can be facilitated by plugging it into a heat rejection system associated with a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. Heating a full cabin would require a larger, heavier RTG.

But if we want a pressure vessel, carbon fiber composite is the material of choice. Offering high tensile strength and stiffness at a light weight, this material is extensively used in aerospace. Our cabin would employ a three-layer construction: an interior flat cross-fiber pressure vessel, a honeycombed or corrugated middle for insulation and additional sturdiness, and an exterior flat cross-fiber layer to resist impacts and abrasion.

The question arises, should the cabin be windowless like a thermos bottle on wheels, or should it have windows? Using cameras and view screens makes sense from a structural integrity standpoint, especially if fore, aft, and side views are accommodated. Cameras have the advantage that they can be zoomed in to more closely examine features without an EVA.

But there is precedent for windows in spacecraft. The ISS cupola‘s outer framework is made from forged aluminum, with an inner steel frame. Each window is composed of 4 separate layers, an outer debris pane, two 25 mm pressure panes, and an inner scratch pane. The pressure pane and debris pane are composed of fused silica glass, offering good transparency, heat retention, and high radiation resistivity. The panes can be replaced after an external pressure cover has been fitted.

A pressurized cabin requires some form of an airlock. Let’s examine three basic ways to provide one, each with their own set of challenges: a “standard” airlock, a suitport, or a reduced cabin size.

A standard airlock is the bulkiest option. It employs two hatches to allow ingress/egress from the rover interior to the airlock, then from the airlock to the outside. The airlock’s atmosphere will have to be compressed and stored to exit. Or it could simply be evacuated with the astronaut’s exit and replenished from a supply of compressed air when the astronaut returns. The large size could be mitigated if its walls are inflatable, allowing the two hatches to rest against the side or back of the cabin when not in use.

A suitport is a hollow horizontal tube with a small round hatch sealing it off from the rover cabin. The outside “door” is the bottom half of an EVA suit. An astronaut slides feet-first into the tube, wearing the top half of the suit, plus gloves and helmet. Once sealed into the tube, the top and bottom of the EVA suit are attached and seated. The interior gasses are pumped and stored or expelled when the user pushes out of the tube. The reverse steps allow reentry into the rover’s cabin. Compared to a standard airlock this reduces the pumped or replaced air volume.

The downside is the system is clumsy. A fool-proof means of sealing and unsealing the two suit halves is critical. If not properly connected, an astronaut may not be able to retain consciousness long enough to correct the situation when outside. If the whole suit doesn’t release properly, she/he would be stuck inside the tube.

A failure to liberate the suit from the exterior port would prevent an EVA. An inability to reconnect the suit to the port would strand the astronaut outside, or risk loss of interior cabin pressure when the hatch is opened. Suitports have been described in science fiction but may pose too many safety risks to be practical.

The third option is to reduce the cabin size to fit a single occupant. Depending on how tight the dimensions are, an astronaut may be constrained to leave his/her EVA suit on, minus the helmet and gloves. Forcing an individual to remain suited for several days introduces nearly the same considerations—noted below—as an open cabin craft, but with more weight and certainly more expense.

To recap, a pressurized rover would require a composite body. It would need a source of heat for the additional space, an air filtration system to minimize exposure to perchlorates and heavy metals (see Part 1). Visibility must be accommodated either via video screens or windows. Lastly it would have some form of airlock. But all these elements increase vehicle volume and mass, and therefore mission cost.

Let’s assume we’ve convinced our billionaire to fund our Martian rover project. Our first task becomes specifying what the rover would be used for. If it’s the first missions to Mars, it will mostly move habitat modules into position for assembly, then transfer equipment from supply vessels. Once the base is assembled, it will be used to deliver scientific or communications equipment to, or collect samples from, nearby locations.

An open cabin means wearing an EVA suit full-time. This entails wearing a diaper, or Maximum Absorbency Garment (MAG). These can absorb a thousand times the weight of the absorbent. But sooner or later, a colon must be voided. This gives a practical EVA duration limit of twenty-four hours. Having to wear a dirty MAG for several days could put a real crimp in astronaut comfort, let alone recruitment. For extended trips a closed cabin could offer a facility like a vacuum toilet used on the ISS. An open cabin is most feasible for single-day missions.

Given the mass and volume constraints of early missions, including SpaceX’s Starship, and the minimal distances to be traversed on Mars, let’s opt for an open cabin rover. This means that missions will be restricted to single day affairs. But if we design our vehicle to travel 5 kph, our rover’s effective range would be 40 or 50 kilometers. That’s more than enough range to establish an enduring human presence on the Red Planet and perform research. A closed cabin model will have to wait until multiday trips become a necessity.

Our power source will be a hydrogen fuel cell, with a small RTG to warm critical components and supplement EVA suit environmental systems. It would accept interchangeable mechanical arms, to support its missions like the Lunar Terrain Vehicle, and a trailer to carry spare parts, tools, mission equipment and samples. Our rover will use a tubular titanium frame with a rocker-bogie suspension and wheels similar to current Mars rovers, but capable of travelling at a blistering 5 kph.

If anyone happens to know a billionaire willing to fund a prototype to demonstrate to NASA in ten years, have them reply to this email. But until then, expect future editions of this newsletter monthly. Plus, my next novel, Red Planet Lancers coming this February. Happy reading!

December ~ Autonomous Farming in Space

I’m a fan of the Star Trek spinoff, Picard. Several bucolic scenes take place on the admiral’s family estate in France. As Jean-Luc converses with Laris his Romulan housekeeper in the vineyard, levitating spray applicators float down the carefully tended rows of grape vines. It’s a reminder that technology is not only advancing in our densely populated urban centers. Farming, too, is evolving toward an autonomous future.

This tech will be critical in the coming years when humanity plants its first boot prints on the Moon, then on Mars. The goal in both locales is a permanent human presence. Given the expense each astronaut represents, there will be pressure for them to spend their time doing other tasks besides crop cultivation. It will be far more cost-effective to grow food in-situ than shipping it there from Earth, especially so on Mars.

The Moon will be the proving ground for techniques and technologies needed for the profound isolation on the Red Planet. Mistakes and mishaps in the lunar environment can be ameliorated with shipments from Earth in a matter of days. On Mars, a crop loss could spell starvation for colonists long before help could arrive. Let’s examine the state of ag tech today that will be needed on other worlds in the not-so-distant future.

The workhorse of modern farming is the tractor. An autonomous version is a marvel of technology, combining artificial intelligence, robotics, 360-degree vision, 3D cameras, and global positioning system (GPS) guidance.

This versatile device is used for numerous jobs on a typical farm: tilling, seeding, cultivating, spreading fertilizers and soil amendments, weeding, and harvesting. Let’s delve into the companies and their products advancing this technology today.
Showcased at the January 2022 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Moline, Illinois-based John Deere unveiled its fully robotic 8R farm tractor. The company commands over 25% of the world-wide ag equipment market, and a 40% share in North America. Deere’s goal is to provide a self-operating system for row crops by 2030.

Deere has aggressively purchased several Silicon Valley firms to advance its automation goals. It acquired Bear Flag Robotics for$250 million for its autonomous navigation system. In addition to incorporation into Deere’s 8R, it can be retrofitted onto existing tractors.

Case’s Trident 5550 is designed for spreading dry and liquid materials in fields. The model at the farm show incorporated technology developed by Raven Industries, which Case parent company CNH acquired for $2.1 billion in June 2021. Similar to Deere’s autonomous 8R, the enhanced Trident employs self-driving capability, advanced cameras and AI to interpret a continuous stream of images to detect obstacles.

ASI Robotics provides three autonomy conversion kits. One package converts a skid steer loader and its myriad attachments. This is especially useful for tasks in tight spaces. A second kit retrofits compact tractors which operate in the narrow rows of orchards, vineyards, and other specialty crops. A third conversion is designed for broad acre and row crop full-size equipment, connecting multiple larger tractors, combines, or other vehicles. For example, a single operator can control several machines working together to till, fertilize and seed a field in one operation.

Available this past summer, Monarch’s MK-V compact autonomous tractor operates with or without a human driver. Its dimensions are suitable for fruit orchards, small scale family- and truck-farms.

Soil analysis involves sensors, satellite, and drone images to quickly assess the condition of a field. The information collected can help detect nutrient deficiencies or determine the right quantity and type of fertilizer to use. Precision agriculture software then creates a plan for fertilizing. Plants get the correct amount of what they need, and in the appropriate places, to grow well.

AI also manages water, measuring soil moisture content, topology, rainfall, and sun exposure. Coupled with precise locations of where measurements are taken gives farmers a new insight into what is happening above the soil and in it.

Sensors detect and monitor irrigation system water levels, identify changes in flow/pressure, waste, leaks, and blockages and shut off supply. Wasteful water use is detected and corrected. Operators can make more informed decisions that are very specific to particular conditions or crops.

Hitachi and Ag Automation have partnered to develop tech that allows farmers to optimize their irrigation practices. Automating the collection of soil moisture data and remote monitoring and control of water delivery systems, growers can easily manage their crops and improve their yield.

Central Oregon, where I live, has experienced a multi-year drought. The shortages have been so severe, irrigation districts with junior water rights have endured curtailed water allotments, forcing farmers to plant less acreage. The past two seasons their supply was cut off entirely before the end of the growing season, further diminishing yields.

The region’s irrigation districts are employing a two-pronged strategy to combat shortages. Growers are encouraged to adopt these smart ag practices. At the same time, districts are converting open canals to underground pipe, in some cases preventing the loss of up to 40%of water to seepage and evaporation.

Advances have also been made in weeding and pest control. See & Spray uses computer vision and machine learning to differentiate between plants and weeds and target herbicides only at the weeds.

John Deere and Volocopter developed a 9.2-meterbattery electric drone that can fly for up to 30 minutes. It features weed scanners and crop sprayers to accurately identify and control undesirable plants.

In April, Deere formed a joint venture with Global Unmanned Spray System (GUSS) Automation, which has devised semi-autonomous orchard and vineyard sprayers. Using AI and Internet of Things, multiple sprayers can be remotely controlled by a single operator, running up to eight at a time from a laptop. GUSS can detect trees and determine how much to apply on each one, regardless of height or canopy size.

Deere bought Silicon Valley startup Blue River Technology in 2017 for $305 million. Blue River’s “see and spray” robotics platform utilizes dozens of sophisticated cameras and processors to distinguish weeds from crop plants when applying herbicides.

Carbon Robotics’s autonomous LaserWeeder covers up to 20 acres a day. This amazing AI farming machine impresses me the most. Of all the tasks I do in my yard, weeding is my least favorite. I expect that’s true on the farm as well. To have a machine that can drive itself, differentiate between a weed and a desirable plant, then incinerate the undesirables at the rate of 100,000 per hour… When the company comes up with a miniature version for urban yards, I’m all over it! Check out this impressive short promotional You Tube video.

Harvest equipment has also experienced an AI renaissance. Four Growers, a Pittsburgh-based startup provides robotic harvesting and analytics for high-value crops, such as greenhouse tomatoes. Philadelphia-based Burro, produces small, autonomous robots that assist farm workers with various conveyance tasks. Harvest CROO automates the crop management, harvesting and packing of specialty crops, like strawberries. The automated tractors discussed earlier can harvest wheat and row crops, or cut, rake and bale animal forage crops.

The revolution extends indoors using a technique called vertical farming. Plants are grown in pots on shelves, maximizing valuable floor space. They’re provided light, water and fertilizer on multi-tiered growing racks. Rather than stationary plants and mobile husbandry and harvest devices, the weeding, pest control and harvesting occurs in stationary machinery that the plants move to via an autonomous conveyor system.

This tech is most amenable to leaf crops like lettuce, spinach, etc. Considering that all farming on the Moon and Mars will be indoors, this is likely to be adopted by mission planners. There is less wasted vertical space and good management of water and fertilizer. One constraint is the narrower range of suitable crops.

Initially, vegetables, cereals and roots will be grown. Automated monitoring will manage soil moisture, fertilizer and salt levels. Small robotic devices will till, plant and harvest. To minimize required equipment and chemicals, seed batches must be screened for insect pests and disease prior to shipment to Mars. Crop diversification and specialization will grow with the colony: leaf crops, and larger autonomous tractor-tended trees, vines and bushes.

I’m a bit disappointed that except for aerial drones, we seem to be a long way from the anti grav autonomous implements shown in Picard. But we are rapidly developing the tech needed to sustain a permanent presence as we explore our solar system. If you have a chance to visit a farm, see which of the above-described systems are being adopted and proven there.

Want a deeper dive? Check out these sources.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/02/how-deere-plans-to-build-a-world-of-fully-autonomous-farming-by-2030.html
https://www.advancednavigation.com/tech-articles/autonomous-farming-a-leap-forward-in-ag-tech/
https://www.clickworker.com/customer-blog/autonomous-farming/
https://www.monarchtractor.com/blog/autonomous-tractor
https://asirobots.com/companies/agriculture/
https://social-innovation.hitachi/en-us/case_studies/digital-solutions-in-agriculture-drive-sustainability-in-farming/?utm_campaign=FY23US&utm_source=SEM&utm_medium=SUSF_Search
https://fourgrowers.com/
https://www.harvestcroorobotics.com/