Photonbelt

The Moon, once considered a desolate wasteland with very little chance of life, has suddenly become a celestial body with potential life support – from its dust.

Researchers working for PISCES (Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems) conducted a number of tests for ISRU, which is the NASA In Situ Resource Utilization Project. The main purpose for this research was to find ways to use the Moon for life support. This would allow astronauts to be able to produce new oxygen, food, and even water from just the Moon’s rocks and dust. NASA has been looking into this due to the fact that the Moon’s mass is made up of almost 1/2 oxygen.

The experimentation took place at the Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii since the volcanic ash produces terrain that can be used to simulate a lunar environment. The characteristics of the soil are very similar to that of the Moon and the remoteness of the area only helps to make the tests more realistic. The dust found around this volcano in Hawaii is called “tephra” which is a very fine dust  released during volcanic eruptions.

NASA’s rover, SCARAB, was used to show how a drill could be used to dig below the surface and process the soil underneath to extract oxygen. This would allow astronauts to produce their own oxygen and enable long term stays on the Moon. NASA also has their eyes set on other similar contraptions that will be able to extract ice, hydrogen, helium, and nitrogen from the soil, only adding to the life supporting characteristics of the Moon’s surface.

NASA and Lockheed Martin are also hard at work building similar, larger versions of these rovers that will be able to both extract more of each of the resources and store more of it at the same time. NASA’s version is called Roxygen, and Lockheed Martin’s is PILOT (Precursor In Situ Resource Utilization Lunar Oxygen Testbed).

Tom Simon, based out of NASA’s Johnson Space Flight Center who is also head of the OPTIMA program expressed NASA’s view for the future of possible life support on the Moon.

We want to produce oxygen, but we also want to extract oxygen from the regolith so that we can combine it with what’s left of the residual hydrogen from the descent tanks and make water. Our goal is to never send a tank of oxygen or a tank of water to the moon.

NASA estimates that the lunar resources could produce up to two metric tons of oxygen per year, which would end up being enough to provide enough oxygen for 4-6 people each year. New methods may begin to be tested in June which would allow up to 20 kg of oxygen to be gathered from 100 kg of the Moon’s soil. This would be a massive increase compared to the 100 kg of soil just to get 1 kg of oxygen currently.

This project is a joint venture between the Canadian and German space agencies, four NASA space centers, as well as Carnegie Mellon University, Lockheed Martin, and Michelin North America, which signifies the importance of these findings towards future lunar exploration.

Via Space Marauder