THE NEW NASA PROSPECTOR MINING SCOUT CONCEPT

 I like this new Prospector design concept by Marc Senger.

It even folds up and takes off! Do you like it?

VAST FREEZERS OF DATA BRISTLED ON THE SURFACE OF OTHER WORLDS

I was contemplating the vast amount of storage needed to house the world wide web.

Giant halls of servers thrumming endlessly.

But just how much space will these servers need as the number of users explodes into trillions over the coming decades?

How much energy will it take to keep these towering hives of wires cool?

Will we one day see colossal farms of storage encrusting the Moon or colder more-distant bodies and planets? Grand larders powered by the sun and cooled by space?

Gerry Anderson could never have predicted the World Wide Web [or at least I don't think he did] but had he then data storage could well have been a crucial role for his various world protectorates and space fleets.

My own favourite, Project SWORD, could well have found itself setting up and guarding the globe's mega-servers on data farms spanning colder worlds like Ceres or Io.

Massive satellites would harvest the flow while city-sized space stations would offer respite for SWORD personnel and the re-fuelling of sentry craft at the far edges of the system.

How would data sentinels look? How would SWORD web farmers and storage miners be transported? Which craft would be needed in the fleet?

As we contemplate this and other gargantuan puzzles we may well gaze at the grandeur of Gerry Anderson's titles for ETERNITY and seek some counsel there.

What do you think readers?

Space Mining by kev d

As requested, here's my quick contribution to mining on another world!

Take care,

Kevin D

project sword: moon mining memorandum

It always fascinates me that one of the functions if the Project SWORD mission was to undertake mining.

Mining other planets.

Personally when I look at the SWORD fleet of toys I don't think of mining as a likely use. I suppose the Moon Prospector could locate seams of ores and minerals and the Moon Ranger could have been useful in bulldozing rock spoil but beyond that I'm not sure. A Moon Bus full of miners? Maybe SpaceX toys could add something?

Mining off-Earth has been a staple of Science Fiction for decades. The Sean Connery movie OUTLAND is a good example of how outer space and hard graft can make for a gritty stroryline. Indeed ALIEN is set on the flying ore refinery, The Nostromo.

Years ago I blogged this masthead which I loved. The Moon Miners Manifesto. I dunno, it just seemed like a Project SWORDesque letterhead to me at the time.

Back in 2010 I first posted a short extract about a Moon Prospector from the short story MASKS by Damon Knight. For some reason I have always associated this description with off-world mining beyond an unwelcome Earth. Rather like Project SWORD!

"The prospector was climbing a crater slope with its handling members retracted and its head tilted up. Behind it the distant ringwall and the horizon, the black sky, the pin-point stars. And he was there, and it was not far enough, not yet, for the Earth hung overhead like a rotten fruit, blue with mold, crawling, wrinkling, purulent and alive."

Damon Knight 1922-2002

If you were describing off-Earth mining operations how would you put it readers?

Maybe a Project SWORD mining memo? A new letterhead? A short paragraph or even a drawing or photograph with some toys maybe!

Here's my starter for ten!

Your contributions welcomed!

MOON RUSH

Just heard on the News there's a so-called Moon Rush underway! Teams and companies around the world are beavering away on new devices to mine the moon for it's rich resources.

 

 

As no-one can own the Moon anyone can land on it, build on it and exploit it. Minerals, Plutonium and water appear to be high on the hit list for future lunar mines.

 

 

It all sounds very Andersonesque and the stuff of Sci Fi. What do you think, will it ever really happen?