There's enough oxygen on the Moon to last us all, but there's a catch.
Near-vacuum atmospheres on the Moon don't contain enough oxygen to support human life. Southern Cross University soil researcher John Grant said that the Moon's top layer of rocky soil (regolith) likely has enough oxygen to sustain 8 billion people for around 100,000 years.
The problem is that you can't breath rocks.
This is where the Australian Space Agency (NASA) and NASA's new joint program comes in. Inked in October, the deal will send an Aussie rover to the Moon via NASA's Artemis program to collect lunar rocks and, as NASA put it in a press release, "attempt to extract oxygen from lunar regolith." The results have the potential to be civilization-shifting -- because if lunar settlers can synthesize breathable air in situ, a long-term Moon base would become vastly more feasible.
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Grant stated that the technology to extract the hair, also known as electrolysis (no, not laser hair removal) is already available and "a fairly straightforward process."
He wrote that "on Earth, this process is common in manufacturing, such like to produce aluminumm." An electrical current is applied to a liquid form aluminium oxide (commonly known as alumina) via electrodes. This allows the oxygen to be separated from the aluminium.
Grant stated that oxygen makes up approximately 45 percent of lunar soil. However, to extract it from other elements such as aluminum, silicon, and magnesium, scientists will need to use a lot more energy and industrial equipment.
Southern Cross University soil scientist said that "to be sustainable", it would need to be supported with solar energy or other sources of energy available on the Moon.
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Grant said that while the logistics of extracting oxygen from the lunar surface is a "mighty challenge", Space Applications Services, a Belgian startup has announced plans for three reactors to be built and sent to the Moon to produce oxygen by electrolysis.
If all goes according to plan, it may happen very soon. According to the company, it intends to send its experimental reactors to Moon by 2025 with the European Space Agency's in situ resource utilization (ISRU).
It's amazing to think of a human presence on the Moon. But, the hoi polloi won't be invited.
Continue reading: "The Moon's top-layer alone contains enough oxygen to sustain 8 million people for 100,000 years." [The Conversation]
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