Drilling in Extreme Environments: Penetration and Sampling on Earth and other Planets

Uniquely comprehensive and up to date, this book covers terrestrial as well as extraterrestrial drilling and excavation, combining the technology of drilling with the state of the art in robotics. The authors come from industry and top ranking public and corporate research institutions and provide here real–life examples, problems, solutions and case studies, backed by color photographs throughout.
The result is a must–have for oil companies and all scientists involved in planetary research with robotic probes.
With a foreword by Harrison "Jack" Schmitt –– the first geologist to drill on the moon.


1 Introduction
2 Principles of Drilling and Excavation
3 Ground Drilling and Excavation
4 Ice Drilling and Coring
5 Underwater Drilling
6 Extraterrestrial Drilling and Excavation
7 Planetary Sample Acquisition, Handling and Processing
8 Instruments for In–Situ Sample Analysis
9 Contamination and Planetary Protection
10 Conclusions

Yoseph Bar–Cohen is Senior Scientist and Supervisor at the JPL. Part of his research focuses on artificial muscles. He (co) authored more than 300 papers and co–edited books. Two NASA Honor Award Medals prove his standing.
Kris Zacny is Senior Research Scientist and Director of Drilling and Excavation Systems at Honeybee Robotics Spacecraft Mechanisms Corporation. Prior to this assignment, he served as engineer in the South African Mines and participated in two Arctic Expeditions where he performed drilling tests.
The authors team the editors have recruited consist of top notch experts from Colorado School of Mines and JPL.

"Uniquely comprehensive and up to date, this book covers terrestrial as well as extraterrestrial drilling and excavation, combining the technology of drilling with the state of the art in robotics. . . Beautifully illustrated with half tone reproductions, and drawings and graphs and tables with 26 pages of color plates, the volume will be found to be a significant addition to drilling." (Current Engineering Practice, 2011)