Chris Dreyer

@DrPhiltill @UNSW That's good to know Phil. I know Nick and Andrew. They do good work. We need to be careful about the message.

@ChrisSciEng @UNSW He did discuss this and the posible failure modes. He wasn’t saying it is a gotcha, just that it is a problem that hasn’t been assessed or managed yet. This is the grad student of the space mining group at UNSW—he has a good advisor, I think Andrew Dempster?

Nicholas Barnett of @UNSW throwing a grenade in the Moon Village meeting. A handful of icy lunar soil would kill everybody in a spacecraft, because it contains hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide. How can we bring samples into the Lunar Gateway without endangering everyone?

Imagining a sustainable human presence in space? It's becoming reality! Over $291B invested since 2015 is making lunar travel accessible. CEO Justin Cyrus says, "What was once NASA's responsibility is now enabled by commercial companies." #TheNextLeap bit.ly/3O3GUHI

Pending some final approvals, our Aerospace major will start in Fall 2025. We are busy developing the course details for this exciting new program at @michigantech . We are hiring 4 tenure track positions (open rank) and 1 instructional track faculty. Please join us for

The @aiaa Space Resources Technical Committee Space Resources Webinar Series is hosting @Frankiequations (@uhmanoa) on August 22 at 4:00 PM US ET / 1:00 PM US PT! Registration (free!) required at the following link: aiaa.zoom.us/webinar/regist…

Great summary from @DrPhiltill on the history of VIPER.

The @aiaa Space Resources Technical Committee Space Resources Webinar Series is hosting @ChrisSciEng (@coschoolofmines) on May 24 at 3:00 PM US ET / 12:00 PM US PT! Registration (free!) required at the following link. See you then and there! aiaa.zoom.us/webinar/regist…

“I discovered, to my amazement, that all through history there had been resistance ... and bitter, exaggerated, last-stitch resistance ... to every significant technological change that had taken place on earth. Usually the resistance came from those groups who stood to lose influence, status, money...as a result of the change. Although they never advanced this as their reason for resisting it. It was always the good of humanity that rested upon their hearts.” - Isaac Asimov

@kmcannon It looks very patchy.

Pic at the top is a plan view of a 12x12 km area, with relative ice content (not quantified in wt.%) present within the upper 50 cm.

I've finally created computer simulations that satisfy all the constraints we have on lunar ice deposits from neutron spectroscopy, VNIR spectroscopy, LCROSS etc.

@DrPhiltill I'm on the other side of the city. When is your flight?

@DrPhiltill Phil, you should have given me a call...

Had a major disruption of the traveling flow this past day. Missed a flight. Got rerouted to Denver (going from Houston to Orlando). Got an unexpected layover of 30 hours in Denver. Tried to find a hotel — all sold out. Tried to find a spot to sleep in the Denver airport — /1

@LucasSa54749430 @rjward1775 @JaraySzabolcs @AlaskaLawlor @The_JoeBob @NASA_Technology @NASA_Johnson @ESA_Tech That's probably not what it means. Full disclosure, I have not read the paper. Looks like this was taken with a mass spectrometer and it could not see the difference between CO and N2, which have the same atomic mass (28 amu). Any mixture of CO and N2 is possible.

@rjward1775 @JaraySzabolcs @AlaskaLawlor @The_JoeBob @NASA_Technology @NASA_Johnson @ESA_Tech If I understand correctly, carbon monoxide and nitrogen can be extracted between 700°-900°C and between 1000°-1200°C!

Thermal analysis-inorganic gas release studies of lunar samples by Gibson & Johnson, information about CO2 and CO Can we consider the production of methane? @AlaskaLawlor @rjward1775 @The_JoeBob @JaraySzabolcs @NASA_Technology @NASA_Johnson @ESA_Tech adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1971LPSC.…

@hichammohsen1 @NASAAmes @NASAArtemis The regolith (Moon dust) is 10s of meters deep. The foot pads sunk in only inches because they compacted the top low density layer of the surface, only an inch thick.

@NASAAmes @NASAArtemis But the moon dust is not that deep. Neil Armstrong mentioned it in the first moon to earth broadcast right after the one giant leap thing: ‘The LM foot pads are only depressed in the surface about 1 or 2 inches’

Mobile on the Moon That’s what our VIPER rover will have to be. These extreme mobility tests help ensure that our robot is ready for the lunar South Pole. More about the mission: go.nasa.gov/45nk2tb

@DrPhiltill @thoreauawhelan @byzantiumcast This makes sense.

@thoreauawhelan Every 2 or 3 days, probably. I’m a bit of a history nerd and have listened to Roman Empire podcasts for over a decade now 😅. The current podcast: @byzantiumcast

My teenage daughter just asked me how often I think about the Roman Empire.

@paulvans @george_sowers @LunarOutpostInc @coschoolofmines We cleaned up our site but still have to go back to dispose of the concrete. It was a big effort to run 15 days straight.

@george_sowers @ChrisSciEng @LunarOutpostInc @coschoolofmines Agreed. It was a huge ask and it is a huge accomplishment to just do it and finish. With the start of the semester I am not sure if I have fully recovered from all of it. Still have a tend and concrete to clean up too.

We are approaching the critical phase of this challenge. With full scale prototype hardware, we have to excavate and transport 800kg of icy regolith simulant per day for 15 straight days. The simulant is low strength concrete.

Last regolith simulant delivery of the 15 day #breaktheicechllenge. The @LunarOutpostInc and @coschoolofmines team and the Outpost Digger system performed magnificently. Today, the 15th day of the test, we hit 800kg in a little over 4 hrs. 12,600kg delivered!

@george_sowers @LunarOutpostInc @coschoolofmines @redwire @hello_offworld Two more days to go now. Thanks to @NASA for the opportunity @NASAPrize. The Break the Ice Challenge is a great learning experience! #BreakTheIceChallenge

4 days of regolith simulant deliveries by our Outpost Digging System for NASA's #breaktheicechallenge. The @LunarOutpostInc and @coschoolofmines team is cranking along. @redwire and @hello_offworld, how are you doing?

@LorettaPFJ @robert_zubrin @elonmusk Fortunately there are many people, although, a small fraction of the population, who are willing to go and built cities that are comfortable enough for the rest of humanity.

@ChrisSciEng @robert_zubrin @elonmusk Humans didn't expand out of sheer hope, they traveled because the grass was greener at the other side. You don't settle out of adventure. We will have researchers on Mars. Maybe even tourists. But no one will settle there before it's a comfortable place to live.

Lunar Cold-trapped Ice Amounts Revised Drastically Downward. The Moon might be dry. I think that rather than take a chance, we should just play it safe and go to #Mars. We know there is ice there.⁦ @elonmusk⁩ leonarddavid.com/coming-up-dry-…

@LorettaPFJ @robert_zubrin @elonmusk Humans would have never left Africa if we had that attitude a few 100,000 years ago. ...also there is no need for new treaties. The OST is fine. Just look at the US, Luxembourg, UAE, and Japan laws regulating space resource extraction and the Artemis Accords.

@ChrisSciEng @robert_zubrin @elonmusk Yes, we need an international treaty to regulate resource extraction outside Earth. But that's not the reason why no one lives there. There's just no reason to permanently settle there.