Bulldozers On The Moon

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Cat shoots for the moon – Company teams with NASA to build habitats, roads on lunar surface, Journal Star

“Caterpillar and NASA – the National Aeronautics and Space Administration – are getting closer to having the right earthmoving – er, moonmoving – equipment available to put on the moon in less than a decade to build habitats, roads and other infrastructure that could sustain life on the lunar surface. “We’re pretty far along. I would say our partnership with Caterpillar is right on schedule,” said Lucien Junkin, NASA’s chief engineer of the Chariot project the two have been working on since 2006.”

Editor’s note: This is all very cool, but I can’t seem to find the agreement or solicitation whereby this “partnership” between NASA and Caterpillar was put in place. Of course, it is certainly quite logicial for NASA to work with companies who already engage in many of the activities that will be performed on the moon. I am wondering why NASA has not made more public mention of this agreement and the interesting work it facilitates.

Video, Caterpillar (link is sometimes not functioning)

Editor’s update: I have now learned that this partnership is the result of one of the NASA Innovative Partnership Programs (IPP) FY 07 Seed Fund awards.