Extra-Terrestrial Remote Construction

[p77morris]

What about before we colonizes Mars or the Moon we send per-programmed construction robotic units that can use the local materials. To build habitats. They could be powered by either reusable energy like sun, wind, or else nuclear. These robots could have a local communication hub that can send back updates and receive new instructions. And when the colonists arrive they can use the communcation hub to instruct the robots to continue construction.

Currently there is a robot that can build a brick house. https://www.autodesk.com/redshift/bricklaying-robot/
Any thoughts about this and how bricks and be made using the local soil? Also printing bricks.

[Wicky]

Conceptually fine idea - its just a case of overcoming practicalities to make it work reliably.

Just tapping a hole on Mars can be problematic and is a bit trial & error with what's at hand.

https://www.space.com/nasa-insight-mars-lander-mole-stuck.html



If it it breaks down due to wear or tear or needs general servicing  / preventative maintenance such machines would need something to fix it and the fixer uppers would need in turn fixing...

Research on making construction material is underway one such project of the top of my noggin is using human (fixer upper?) urea as a plastiser with moon soil


https://www.sciencenews.org/article/astronauts-lunar-exploration-cement-urine-urea-3d-printing

[sdsds]

One of the first challenges faced by robots deployed to the surface of the Moon is ... lunar night. In short: night time on the Moon is really cold, and lasts about 14 Earth days. A really good plan might start with construction of a "thermal wadi" to help the robots survive multiple day/night cycles. The attached image is from a paper discussing this approach, primarily in the context of robotic exploration lunar rovers:
https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/314555main_AIAA-2009-1339-125_Thermal_Wadi.pdf

[Frogstar_Robot]

I think the first question overlooked in these type of proposals, is how to make bricks (or cement) from Mars regolith. As on Earth, you can't take a random scoop of regolith, feed it into a hopper, and expect usable bricks to pop out the other end.

The second thing is, building the walls is only one part of building a habitat. There is all the other stuff, windows, roof, plumbing, sewerage, electrical, internal fittings. I guess people always revisit building walls because it is the "easy" part.

Building robots to do the hard parts is the real stumbling block. We have robot dogs and bipeds, can we get them to run wiring or plumbing in a house?