/sci/ - Science & Math

>>11788236
You could put together something like a mini-bagger, solar-electric powered. Mount it on a conventional scoop excavator frame modified as needed for vacuum operation. Fold it up as much as it can be folded and simply chuck it to the Moon on a Starship.
Consider something like a CAT 307.5, it's only ten tons and only requires 55 horsepower to operate here in 1G. You would swap out all of the hydraulics for high torque brushless electric motors and you could easily run it from a Tesla car battery. Normally it can dig down to 15 feet or only about 4 meters, double the length of the arm and it can dig down up to 8 meters, and with the high torque of a brushless motor driven excavator I'd imagine it could easily cast lunar soil far outside of the dig. This would very neatly let you bury 16m diameter habs exactly halfway into the Lunar surface, cover them with meters thick shells of Lunar dirt and have plenty left over for other uses (like say baking into solid slabs for a permanent landing site)
>>11788263
I can understand being put off by ledditors and popsci fags fawning over something, but you shouldn't let what they like dictate what you hate. They coom over fusion power too, but I also want it to be advanced as soon as possible in spite of having little in common with them.