h a l f b a k e r yIt's as much a hovercraft as a pancake is a waffle.
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As there is lots of dust (regolith) on the moon, and it has low gravity, you could use an electrical 'pitcher' to throw it down. To get 30 lbs. of trust, you need to throw ~1/3 lbs. of regolith down at 200m/s - requiring ~300 watts.
The vehicle will be composed of 2 parts - a center, suspended part,
housing the pilot, cargo, dust (changing masses) (this is done so that the center of trust will go through the center of gravity) - and an outer part holding the [fuel cell/solar panels], pitcher, legs (non-changing masses)...
The dust holding container has a slopped floor connected to a flexible (so the top can change position), vibrating (so the dust will go down it better), and rubber tube. This tube empties it's contents in the pitcher, which is on the outside structure.
The pitcher is 2-3 spinning wheels placed in close proximity, so that the dust falls between them and is accelerated out. The wheels could be in various configurations - flat faced, concave faced, padded (the better to accelerate with)...
(?) Picture!
http://mysite.veriz...erine.holt/gal1.htm
2nd one down. [my-nep, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 06 2004]
[link]
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Not sure I get this, the vehicle drives where, the dust is initially where, the dust is finally where? |
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I think he's suggesting a way to drive the moon. |
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You'd have to use a vacuum to get the dust in the top, wouldn't you? That sucks. |
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So theoretically I could use this to relocate my house to warmer climes...? |
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The vehicle dose not drive! It's more a rocket decent stage. |
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[kbecker] the dust is initialy on the ground - you then put in the vehicle (with a shovel?), get in, rev-up the pitcher, and open the dust valves - up you go. The dust ends up on the ground at high speed. |
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[Dr.Curry], theroreticaly yes, but a house is heavy and 86 second "jumps" whitch take you .75 - 1 mile each is not a good way to do it...Whitch brings me to my problem - .75 miles limits this basicicly to a recreational trick vehicle. :( |
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It would have to be an ascent stage. Hard to get the moon dust to use to descend to the moon before you are on the moon. |
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useful for those of us who bought ranch sized parcels of land on the moon and when we have the tech we can go live there! |
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Yes,I quess you are right - but a decent stage is a more controled device - acents often just burn eingein for # seconds. And a decent operates and looks a lot like a acent stage |
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This sounds very dusty. I guess you can't drive top down, huh. |
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Why is there so much dust on the moon? Something to do with how nature abhors a vacuum? |
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All this about decency and trust warms my heart. + |
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I would guess that there is nowhere for the dust to go. On earth, I would imagine it evetually because the silt at the bottom of lakes and oceans. |
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No, it would not because the chuckers (the rapidly spinning parts are the 'chuckers', the 'feeders') are spining in oppisite directions. (also, there mass is rather low) |
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-this was in response to a (now gone) annotation about the chuckers making the vehicle spin (or something...) |
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[Eugene]: you can't vacuum in a vacuum. There's no air pressure to drive your dust in. |
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Using regolith as reaction mass is a neat idea, but I would suggest using an electrostatic drive rather than mechanical pitchers. No moving parts! Stick a hose in the bottom and run your electrostatic drive in reverse to fill the tank. |
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//electrostatic// in true HB fashion I read only the title, summary and first sentence... so I thought it was already electrostatic and bunned it.... [ ] |
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Minor problem, regolith really doesn't flow very well, and is
very very abrasive. This might work for a a single use, with
very careful launching design, but would wear out very
quickly if its intended for repeated use. |
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Why not just throw the whole moon downward using, for
example, a very large spring or an inverted trebuchet? |
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It would be worth it just to hear that special mission control
voice saying "Roger, commence trebuchet sequence on my
mark." |
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So long as it's a decent stage. I tried using a rubbish stage once - never again. |
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