Mining excavator

[MarkD]

Anyone got any pics of the Hell's Gate mining giant excavator? In the Avatar movie scrapbook tehre is a partial diagram of it. Can anyone find the entire diagram of the whole vehicle? http://images.wikia.com/jamescameron..._Vehi-Cams.jpg

[exostrike]

pisst, here: Art Avatar Land Vehicles :: 1776.jpg picture by Wameyn - Photobucket

On a sidenote Pandorapedia calls this a Heavy Earth Mover Oxygen-Absent Bucket Wheel Excavator suggesting that similiar vechiles are used on the moon and mars back in the Sol system. While the use of them on Pandora is highly destructive/bad, the image of them churning up the red sands of Mars is somehow awesome.

[tm20]

sending the parts to Pandora must've been a pain in the ***. or maybe they just manufactured the thing at Pandora

[exostrike]

sending the parts to Pandora must've been a pain in the ***. or maybe they just manufactured the thing at Pandora

according to the wiki the main parts are shipped to Pandora from earth and then assembled in orbit before being parachuted into a landing zone. Its then possible that they use the factories there to outfit the remaining bits. Though given the weight of earth based ones I suspect that that it must have taken years to ship.

Also I've checked the film and there's actually two of these things on Pandora at the mine, but we only see a close-up of one of them.

[RD-701]

I wonder how they shipped those things to Pandora. They're huge, the kind of thing one would imagine would be ideal for on-site fabrication. It'd probably be far cheaper to manufacture them using the Hell's Gate 'stereolithography' plant... if the plant can't handle it for whatever reason, it'd probably be cheaper to use the stereolithography plant to build a new stereolithography plant to build the excavators than it would be to ship them from Earth. :P

Would such large excavators be needed for the sort of operation going on there? I don't think it is said that unobtanium is at a particularly low concentration, so the ore shouldn't need all that much refining. The maximum payload the ISVs can carry back to Earth is something like 200 tons, and not all of that would be unobtanium. Unless they have to remove huge amounts of overburden, I don't see why there's a need for gigantic bucket-wheels... maybe I'm wrong.

[exostrike]

payload of the ISV's is 350 tons. Whether it would best to manufacure them on Pandora, it might be cheaper in the long run but would the plant be able to produce the larger sections like the bucket wheels?. It may also be quicker to bring the central components via the ISV, already in stock, no need for lengthy modifications.

Why are they even there? so Cameron can play up the environmental message while making RDA's operation even more destructive, I can't really think of anything. Unless the unobtainium forms in layers, such heavy equipment just exhausted the mine quicker (from all the holograms I got the impression that unobtainium only occurred as a shallow lump near the surface) just meaning RDA had to go further afield, setting them on course for conflict with the Na'vi.

[RD-701]

Surely such a mining machine would weigh thousands of tons though. It could take tens, or perhaps even hundreds of ISV flights...

Perhaps some of the larger sections- such as the bucket wheels- could be shipped via the ISV if it is easier that way. But still, you want to minimise the mass carried from Earth as much as possible.

Also, inclusion for thematic purposes makes a lot of sense as the reason for the presence of the bucket-wheels.