/sci/ - Science & Math

>>15716143
>weird freaky ice planet
>home

>>11026663
a drill for digging down may be different from a TBM which digs horizontally. Besides, we can just use an excavator, which can perform multiple different tasks unlike a TBM.
>>11026734
the idea behind melting it and using a hot knife is that we have less parts that wear. This means we don't need to keep importing tungsten carbide bits from earth.
>>11026767
>>get a kilopower reactor and run water through it directly instead of relying on passive heat pipes, and generate a LOT of fission heat very quickly
Looks like you can. There's a proposal to use one to make a probe that can tunnel into Europa:
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20190026714.pdf
Descent rate's less than 1 meter per hour though. You'll probably make the ice radioactive too, which is bad cause eventually you'd like humans to live in the tunnels you're making.

>>10864683
ORANGE TRANSPARENT CHAINSAW