Awesome Lunar Mining Vehicle Concept Art
by AdamBurn
D.S.I Surveyor Vehicle
The third image in my own series of Lunar mining is this fun looking thing, the Surveyor Vehicle is one of the smallest vehicles used by the mining team and is considered a general purpose vehicle but it also has one very important task, it is tasked with moving ahead of the main mining fleet and surveying the areas to make sure the giant harvester and H3 transports are not met by impassible terrain.
These vehicles also double as general maintenance units outfitted with a robotic arm with multiple attachments and an assortment of tools and replacement equipment they can conduct repairs on drones, communication arrays, and even minor repairs on the larger transports.
With a top speed of 60 mph and advanced multi direction suspension they are often used by the mining staff during down time taking them out for joy rides.
D.S.I Heavy Harvester Platform
Two things inspired this monstrosity, one was the movie Moon where they have set up a mining operation on the moon to harvest Helium 3 (needed for fusion reactors) and the announcement from Deep Space Industries (D.S.I) that they are going to start mining asteroids and the Moon in the near future.
I thought that seeing as it’s on the Moon you wouldn’t really need to worry about things like pollution and noise so you can build them big and loud. So as part of a running series about strip mining the Moon bare I give you the H.H.P (Heavy Harvester Platform) this one is called Leviathan and is number 2 of a fleet of 10 that slowly move over the surface of the Moon at about 3 mph and rip up the surface extracting the Helium 3 in its on board processing plant. Smaller transports take the Helium 3 to nearby depots where it’s fired at the Earth in large containers.
It’s damn dirty as behind each machine is several miles of dust that takes some time to settle and also it leaves behind a trench about 20 metres deep, but damn does it look awesome… Also it has no brakes.
D.S.I Helium 3 Transport Vehicle
Continuing with my Lunar Helium 3 mining project this image shows the Helium 3 Transport Vehicle. Each one of the huge harvesting platforms has a fleet of 6 H3TV’s which can hold a huge amount of refined Helium 3 ferrying it between the constantly moving behemoths to the transport docks dotted around the Lunar surface. Each of these vehicles will make around 6 trips a day and a fully automated but still hold a small crew for safety and maintenance reasons.
Like the giant harvester these vehicles are fitted with polarising plating which prevents the course and dangerous Lunar dust from sticking to the hull and damaging components, despite these methods each vehicle has to undergo a total deep clean once every month to prevent massive systems failure, to make sure the Helium 3 keeps rolling in on time a stand by fleet of H3TV’s are located at each transport dock.
Visit AdamBurn for more awesome space concept art.
255
![Total Solar Eclipse and Minor Lunar Eclipse to Grace Nov. Skies
November’s a good month for celestial shadow play. Stargazers will get two eclipses in about as many weeks, the first a dazzling total solar eclipse that will showcase the sun’s corona approaching peak activity, and the second a subtler lunar eclipse that will be visible across much of the United States.
Image: This photograph shows the total solar eclipse of Oct. 24, 1995, as seen from Dundlod, India. Credit: Fred Espenak/NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
The theatrics start on Nov. 13, when residents of northeastern Australia get a false-start sunrise. Just an hour after the sun breaks the horizon in the coastal city of Cairns, it will be fully obscured by the moon, whose shadow will darken the sky and bring the stars back into view for 2 minutes there.
The only visible part of the sun during the total eclipse will be its glowing corona, or outer atmosphere, protruding around the moon’s silhouette.
“Occurring as [the eclipse] does within months of the expected solar max, the solar corona should take on a ‘wound up’ circular shape, with a high potential for tongues of pink nuclear fire leaping from the Sun’s edge,” said astronomer Robert Berman, who writes for Astronomy Magazine.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_md19w16wiE1qbn5m1o1_500.jpg)
