Trigon Surface Operation Scenarios 2007-01-3055

This paper presents four scenarios for Trigon surface operations representing a phased approach for the establishment of surface infrastructure: 1) Self-constructing Trigon units will autonomously build useful structures and vehicles out of stacks of imported units; 2) Self-assembly can be accomplished by “cassette factories” configured from the Trigon units that fabricate additional Trigon units from smaller imported parts using a series of modular processes; 3) Self-manufacture can be implemented by extending the “cassette factories” to process some local materials, such as found soils, sands, water, etc. to produce some of the smaller crude parts, while other finely machined parts and electronic components are still imported; 4) Self-replication can be achieved by gradually extending the “cassette factories” one process at a time to cover even fine machining and the production of electronic parts until all processes necessary for self-manufacture of its own parts (including the parts required in the factories) can be facilitated using only local raw materials and energy. The scenarios are presented as a proposed sequence of operations and events, delineating the establishment of a first outpost, and continuing expansion of the outpost and the spread of infrastructure to additional remote locations.

This research is significant because it describes a practical scenario that may be achievable with current seed technology, using concepts that have the capacity to take into account new technologies as they are developed.