by Rob Schorry

With the discovery of ice deposits in some Near Earth Asteroids in 2049, Asteroid Mining International was formed to harvest this off-Earth resource to support near-Earth and cis-Lunar development. The early AMI drill rigs were used to test harvesting methods for sub-asteroid ice. After emplacement by reusable boosters, the rigs set about drilling into subsurface pockets of ice, injecting steam, and then filtering the effluent for H2O. Dominated by their 65 meter tall gantries and massive solar panels, their automatic pipe handing equipment could drill up to 1.5 kilometers through solid rock to tap the valuable deposits of “liquid gold.”

Asteroid Miner 17 was the most successful of these early robotic drill and mining ships, mining some 1500 tons of water from asteroid ES2032A. Normally operating autonomously, these first rigs were occasionally serviced by human crews when their own robots faced a problem they could not repair. Here, a crewed repair shuttle is shown making a low flyby of “Old 17”, prior to docking.

The Model

Asteroid Miner 17 was scratch built from styrene tubes, sheet, strips, and channels. The large gold plated processing vessels are 25 mm gold Christmas tree ornaments. Epoxy was used to make domes on the drill stand and pipe magazine ends. The solar panels are styrene 1/8 inch tile sheet, with rear mounted thermal radiators of Plastruct corrugated sheet. A brass rod allows the solar panels to swivel. A straight pin allows the panel assembly to rotate on top of the drill gantry.

The gantry was built up of 5/16 inch styrene channels, and detailed with bits of styrene. The man tended habitat/operations center is a ¾ inch diameter tube with Plastruct dome end. It carries radiators and hatches of styrene.

The tank farm is a ¾ inch diameter aquarium tube, covered in gold foil. The legs are styrene strip with feet of 10 mm plastic discs. The repair shuttle was made of two ¼ inch basswood strips, glued together and plated with 0.02 inch styrene sheet. The four fuel tanks are 10.5 mm ball bearings from the scrap bin at work. The large thruster is the end of a Bic mechanical pencil. Radiators and antennas are styrene, with viewing ports of black plastic tape.

Paper decals were made in MS Word, and printed on an inkjet printer. The model stands 345 mm tall, and based on the size of the crewed repair shuttle is 1/250 scale. The 6x8 inch base is Durham's Water Putty over carved Styrofoam. The entire model was painted with enamels, both from bottles and spray cans. Total time to build AM17 and her asteroid home was eighteen hours.

Image: Front view

Image: Left side

Image: Fly-by

Image: Product farm

Image: Rear view

Image: Shuttle

Image: Top view