#ice mining

NASA has recently invested in 18 potentially revolutionary space tech concepts.  

Here are some of the cool ones:

SOLAR SURFING. You read that right. Nasa is trying to find materials that would allow them to get closer and closer to the Sun and create space crafts that could theoretically SURF THE SUN. Or something like that?

SMARTSUIT. Yep. They are basically trying to make IronMan a reality. They are creating an intelligent spacesuit with soft-robotics and a self-healing skin that could be put on extreme environments in order to collect data. We will do anything for that data.

MOON ICE MINING. Remember the opening scene of Frozen with all those men harvesting ice? That is basically what they want to do on the moon. Except they will be extracting something in the ice that will allow them to make propellant. Woahh!! Those crazy scientists.

Text:

Day in, the crew freezes. Day out, our suits stay old, our airtanks stale. But we stay sharp, we must.

As Jason Kottke writes, “Baltazar Ushca is the last ice miner of Ecuador’s Mt. Chimborazo. Dozens of men, including Ushca’s brothers, used to mine Chimborazo’s glacial ice but commercial ice production has rendered the arduous process obsolete.”

“When he was young he would work hard. He would go up with seven or eight donkeys,” Ushca’s wife says in the film. “His friends are always telling him to stop. He’s already old and he doesn’t react as quickly.”

The POS fuel rule: whatever happens in the Mackinaw stays in the Mackinaw.

The second fuel rule: whatever happens in the Mackinaw STAYS in the Mackinaw.

Ice mining was a switch. It turned over the ore like the bait it was. Ice sells, drinks spill, cynos burn and POSs rick-roll the next probe looking for a good time.

Asteroid ice gave life to the planets. The stars owe the ice their wonder. We don't see the ice, we see the stars.