California-based Offworld, a company developing smart robots to aid in the human settlement of space, has begun deploying its robots in mines, construction sites, tunnels and other infrastructure projects on Earth to provide insight into how the hardware operates in different environments, CEO Jim Keravala has told Space.com.
It is too early to say when Offworld’s robots will be ready to leave the planet, Keravala said, but he would be pleased if the company’s robots could assist NASA’s astronauts when they land on the surface of the Moon, a mission scheduled for 2024. “At some point in time — I hope it’s before we have our first woman and man on the surface — we will be deploying our lunar variants to the lunar surface.”
Offworld’s “Master Plan” describes the use of smart robots, capable of machine learning, to do the heavy work of readying settlements for humans.
The first thing on Offworld’s agenda is to extract water ice for applications from producing drinking water for humans to making rocket fuel.“They operate in swarms, collaborating together, making decisions on their own,” Keravala said. “They can sense where the minerals and ore exist …. and act accordingly.”
Some excerpts from the “Master Plan“:
Long-term vision: “We believe the best way to reduce the extraordinary risks involved in establishing permanent and sustainable presence on other planetary surfaces is to have a local robotic workforce to do the heavy lifting: build landing pads, excavate underground habitats, extract water ice and materials, make drinkable water, breathable air and rocket propellant, manufacture basic structures and solar cells, produce electricity, and eventually replicate themselves.
Lunar settlement: “Our first revenue-producing business on the Moon will be the extraction of water ice and supply of rocket propellant for use in Earth orbit by commercial space transportation companies (e.g. ULA and Blue Origin for cis-lunar transport, SpaceX for Mars-bound missions) and government space agencies. We will also provide basic construction services for any interested lunar missions (e.g. CNES, ESA Moon Village), and gradually learn to manufacture simple structures and solar panels.
Self-replication: “Assuming we have a stable working population of industrial workforce on Moon, asteroids and/or Mars, our next big engineering challenge is to learn to build an increasing number of robotic components and modules using local resources on the Moon and Mars. Reducing the dependency of our robotic operation on resupply from Earth is a critical factor in being able to cut the cost of the service provided by our workforce. This is a long and challenging process that may lead to significant local deviations in our Earth, Moon, and Mars populations.”
Offworld chips. “We expect that for the next several decades, the one component we will continue shipping from Earth is the computer chip. Not only is this the most critical and most complex component of all, but it is also the enabler of the autonomy of our robots.
It does not matter much what materials the structure of a module is made of — we can certainly improvise with most easily accessible lunar, asteroidal and Martian materials. But when it comes to the processing power, it leaves little space for improvisation — we are not going to reinvent the integrated circuit industry. The pinnacle of our engineering efforts would be to learn to manufacture this ultimate component offworld, with zero reliance on terrestrial supply. It is hard to predict when that day will come but when it does, we will have closed the robotic self-replication loop and established the conditions necessary for establishment of a solar system civilization of millions of people and vast generation of ships bound for the nearest stars.”