How to turn lunar dust into oxygen

Inside the giant sphere, engineers looked at their equipment. Before them there was a silver metal thing, covered with multi -colored wires – a box that they hope will once produce oxygen on the moon.

As soon as the team left the sphere, the experiment began. The machine, similar to the box, has now swallowed a small amount of dust regolite – a mixture of dust and sharp sand with a chemical composition that mimics real lunar soil.

Soon, the regalite was Gloop. Its layer is heated to temperatures above 1650C. And with the addition of some reagents, the oxygen containing oxygen began to be released.

“We checked everything we can, on Earth,” says Brant White, head of the Sierra Space Program. “The next step is the flight to the moon.”

The Sierra Space experiment has unfolded at the Johnson Space Center this summer. This is not the only technology that researchers work on, as they develop systems that could provide astronauts living on the future lunar base.

These astronaut will need oxygen for breathing, as well as to make rocket fuel for spacecraft, which can start from the moon and go to further destinations – including to Mars.

The residents of the lunar base can also need metal, and they can even extract it from dusty-gray debris, which falls asleep.

Much depends on whether we can build reactors that can effectively extract such resources or not.

“It could save billions of dollars from the cost of the mission,” says Mr. White, explains that the alternative is the delivery of a large amount of oxygen and excess metal to the moon from the ground – it will be heavy and expensive.

Fortunately, the lunar regalite is full of metal oxides. But while the science of oxygen production of metal oxides, such as well -known on earth, to make it much harder on the moon. Not least because of the conditions.

A huge spherical camera, in which Sierra Space was tested in July and August this year, created a vacuum, and imitated the temperature and pressure on the months.

The company says that over time, she had to improve the work of the car so that she could better handle the extremely uneven, abrasive texture of the regalite itself. “It gets everywhere, wear a variety of mechanisms,” says Mr. White.

And one, an important thing you cannot check on Earth or even in the orbit around our planet, is the gravity of the moon, which is about one sixth gravity of the Earth. Perhaps only in 2028 or later the Sierra Space will be able to test its system on the moon using a true regalite in low gravity.

Lunar gravity can be a real problem for some oxygen mining technology unless engineers do it, says Paul Burke of John Hopkins University.

In April he is with his colleagues published a document With a detailed description of the results of computer modeling, which showed how the relatively weak gravitational force of the moon may interfere with the oxygen mining process. The process that is being investigated here was the electrolysis of molten regalite, which includes the use of electricity for splitting of lunar minerals containing oxygen to directly produce oxygen.

The problem is that such technology works by forming oxygen bubbles on the surface of the electrodes in the depths of the molten regalite. “This is a consistency, say, honey. He is very, very viscous, – says Dr. Burke.

“These bubbles will not rise so quickly – and perhaps their electrodes can be delayed.”

There may be ways to bypass this. One of them may be the vibration of the machine for oxygen production, which can release the bubbles.

And very smooth electrodes can alleviate the separation of oxygen bubbles. Dr. Burke and his colleagues are now working on similar ideas.

Sierra Space technology, carbarter, others. In their case, when the oxygen bubbles are formed into the regalite, they do it freely, not on the surface of the electrode. This means less likely that they are stuck, says Mr. White.

Emphasizing the value of oxygen for future moon expeditions, Dr. Burke believes that on the day of the astronaut the amount of oxygen contained in about two or three kilograms of regalite, depending on the physical shape and level of activity astronaut.

However, the lifelong lifelong) systems are likely to process oxygen that exhales the astronauts. If so, it would not be necessary to handle so much regolite to keep the residents of the moon alive.

The real option of using oxygen production technology, adds Dr. Burke, is to provide an oxidizer for rocket fuel, which can allow an ambitious study of space.

Obviously, the more resources can be made on the moon, the better.

The Sierra Space system really requires the addition of some carbon, although the firm says it can recycle most of this after each oxygen production cycle.

Together with colleagues of the sticks, the Postgraduate Massachusetts Technology Institute came up with experimental The electrolysis system of molten regaliteTo extract oxygen and metal from the moon soil.

“We really look at this in terms of:” Let’s try to minimize the number of replenishment missions, “she says.

Developing her system, Ms Patel and her colleagues turned to the problem described by Dr. Berk: low gravity can interfere with the separation of oxygen bubbles formed on the electrode. To withstand this, they used the “sound apparatus” that explodes the bubbles with sound waves to knock them out.

Ms. The pan says that future resources mining machines can receive, such as iron, titanium or lithium from regalite. These materials can help astronauts that live on the moon, produce a 3D spare parts for their base on the moon or spare components for damaged spacecraft.

The usefulness of the lunar regolite does not stop there. Ms Patel notes that in some experiments she melted the imitation of the regolite into a durable, dark, similar material.

She and her colleagues developed how to turn this substance into durable hollow bricks that can be useful for building buildings on the moon – An imposing black monolithto say. Why not?