5/8/2023 0 Comments Cave confectioner![]() ![]() The phases for development of the site are expressed in their Lunar Ecosystem and Architectural Prototype (LEAP2) concept. The authors believe the Marius site can eventually be developed for future human settlement. These cave-like formations are plentiful on the Moon and were created billions of years ago when the young satellite's surface, like the early Earth's, was still molten. The Marius Hills Hole is a 45-meter deep hole in the lunar surface that serves as a giant skylight or opening to a potentially extensive cave system that could be part of a large underground lava tube. The San Antonio group recommends launching unmanned spacecraft and robots to explore a cave in the Marius Hills region of the Moon. Recently, much attention has been focused on missions to the lunar south pole region as part of the NASA Artemis mission, and the authors of the paper make the case that other lunar sites are also deserving of, and in contention for, exploration. (image credit: Boston Dynamics)Īs part of the upcoming field tests, the robot that will venture into a Texas cave will be outfitted with laser-based LiDAR visual sensory technology and other instruments that will take a range of measurements similar to those that will be obtained as part of the initial exploratory missions on the Moon. The researchers will outfit a similar robot with various instruments to undertake the exploration of local caves - an essential part of providing additional recommendations to inform some of the first unmanned exploratory missions of the Moon. (image credit: WEX Foundation)īELOW - Conceptual renderings of a lunar lava tube as it is developed as a human settlement. ĪBOVE - Some Texas caves can be used as analogs to caves on the Moon, like the cave in Kickapoo Caverns State Park, about 150 miles west of San Antonio. The partnership by the San Antonio-based WEX Foundation, Exploration Architecture Corporation (XArc) and Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has already produced an initial set of recommendations that were recently published in the prestigious Planetary Science Journal of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in an article titled Leto Mission Concept for Green Reconnaissance of the Marius Hills Lunar Pit. The upcoming venture into the Earth's crust marks the latest step by the group of experts to develop a detailed step-by-step set of recommendations that will allow NASA and other organizations to plan exploratory missions on the Moon using similar technologies to identify, carefully map out and get accurate readings of a lunar lava tube site ahead of human arrival and settlement. SAN ANTONIO, TX - Later this year, a group of three local scientists will take a canine-like robot - the popular Spot model, developed by Boston Dynamics - and venture deep into a South Texas cave. ![]()
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