{"id":394538,"date":"2022-01-15T14:00:30","date_gmt":"2022-01-15T11:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/to-live-on-the-moon-we-need-to-extract-its-oxygen\/"},"modified":"2022-01-15T14:00:30","modified_gmt":"2022-01-15T11:00:30","slug":"to-live-on-the-moon-we-need-to-extract-its-oxygen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/to-live-on-the-moon-we-need-to-extract-its-oxygen\/","title":{"rendered":"#To live on the Moon, we need to extract its oxygen"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_85 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a3df92a2e9a2\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a3df92a2e9a2\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/to-live-on-the-moon-we-need-to-extract-its-oxygen\/#The_breadth_of_oxygen\" >The breadth of oxygen<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/to-live-on-the-moon-we-need-to-extract-its-oxygen\/#One_substance_goes_in_two_come_out\" >One substance goes in, two come out<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/to-live-on-the-moon-we-need-to-extract-its-oxygen\/#How_much_oxygen_could_the_Moon_provide\" >How much oxygen could the Moon provide?<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;<strong>#To live on the Moon, we need to extract its oxygen<\/strong>&#8221;<\/p>\n<div>\n                            Alongside advances in space exploration, we\u2019ve recently seen much time and money invested into technologies that could allow effective <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/isru\/\">space resource utilization<\/a>. And at the forefront of these efforts has been a laser-sharp focus on finding <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0032063319301266\">the best way to produce oxygen<\/a> on the Moon.<\/p>\n<p>In October, the Australian Space Agency and NASA <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/feature\/nasa-australia-sign-agreement-to-add-rover-to-future-moon-mission\">signed a deal<\/a> to send an Australian-made rover to the Moon under the Artemis program, with a goal to collect lunar rocks that could ultimately provide breathable oxygen on the Moon.<\/p>\n<p>Although the Moon does have an atmosphere, it\u2019s very thin and composed mostly of hydrogen, neon, and argon. It\u2019s not the sort of gaseous mixture that could sustain oxygen-dependent mammals such as humans.<\/p>\n<p>That said, there is actually plenty of oxygen on the Moon. It just isn\u2019t in a gaseous form. Instead, it\u2019s tr<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>ed inside regolith \u2014 the layer of rock and fine dust that covers the Moon\u2019s surface. If we could extract oxygen from regolith, would it be enough to support human life on the Moon?<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"The_breadth_of_oxygen\"><\/span>The breadth of oxygen<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Oxygen can be found in many of the minerals in the ground around us. And the Moon is mostly made of the same rocks you\u2019ll find on Earth (although with a slightly greater amount of material that came from meteors).<\/p>\n<p>Minerals such as silica, aluminum, iron, and magnesium oxides dominate the Moon\u2019s landscape. All of these minerals contain oxygen, but not in a form our lungs can access.<\/p>\n<p>On the Moon, these minerals exist in a few different forms including hard rock, dust, gravel, and stones covering the surface. This material developed as a result of meteorites crashing into the lunar surface over countless millennia.<\/p>\n<p>Some people call the Moon\u2019s surface layer lunar \u201csoil\u201d, but as a soil scientist, I\u2019m hesitant to use this term. Soil as we know it is pretty magical stuff that only occurs on Earth. It has been created by a vast array of organisms working on the soil\u2019s parent material \u2014 regolith, derived from hard rock \u2014 over millions of years.<\/p>\n<p>The result is a matrix of minerals that were not present in the original rocks. Earth\u2019s soil is imbued with remarkable physical, chemical, and biological characteristics. Meanwhile, the materials on the Moon\u2019s surface are regolith in their original, untouched form.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"One_substance_goes_in_two_come_out\"><\/span>One substance goes in, two come out<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The Moon\u2019s regolith is <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lpi.usra.edu\/publications\/books\/lunar_stratigraphy\/\">made up of<\/a> approximately <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.wustl.edu\/meteoritesite\/items\/the-chemical-composition-of-lunar-soil\/\">45% oxygen<\/a>. But that oxygen is tightly bound into the minerals mentioned above. In order to break apart those strong bonds, we need to put in energy.<\/p>\n<p>You might be familiar with this if you know about electrolysis. On Earth, this process is commonly used in manufacturing, such as to produce aluminum. An electrical current is passed through a liquid form of aluminum oxide (commonly called alumina) via electrodes, to separate the aluminum from the oxygen.<\/p>\n<p>In this case, oxygen is produced as a byproduct. On the Moon, the oxygen would be the main product and the aluminum (or other metal) extracted would be a potentially useful byproduct.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a pretty straightforward process, but there is a catch: it\u2019s very energy hungry. To be sustainable, it would need to be supported by solar energy or other energy sources available on the Moon.<\/p>\n<p>Extracting oxygen from regolith would also require substantial industrial equipment. We\u2019d need to first convert solid metal oxide into liquid form, either by applying heat, or heat combined with solvents or electrolytes. We <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2019-10-oxygen-metal-lunar-regolith.html\">have the technology<\/a> to do this on Earth, but moving this apparatus to the Moon \u2013 and generating enough energy to run it \u2013 will be a mighty challenge.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this year, Belgium-based startup Space Applications Services announced it was building three experimental reactors to improve the process of making oxygen via electrolysis. They expect to send the <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/technology\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"4\" title=\"Technology\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">technology<\/a> to the Moon by 2025 as part of the European Space Agency\u2019s in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/exploration.esa.int\/web\/moon\/-\/60127-in-situ-resource-utilisation-demonstration-mission\">mission<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"How_much_oxygen_could_the_Moon_provide\"><\/span>How much oxygen could the Moon provide?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>That said, when we do manage to pull it off, how much oxygen might the Moon actually deliver? Well, quite a lot, as it turns out.<\/p>\n<p>If we ignore oxygen tied up in the Moon\u2019s deeper hard rock material \u2014 and just consider regolith which is easily accessible on the surface \u2014 we can come up with some estimates.<\/p>\n<p>Each cubic meter of lunar regolith contains 1.4 tonnes of minerals on average, including about 630 kilograms of oxygen. NASA says humans need to breathe about <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/pdf\/166504main_Survival.pdf\">800 grams<\/a> of oxygen a day to survive. So 630kg oxygen would keep a person alive for about two years (or just over).<\/p>\n<p>Now let\u2019s assume the average depth of regolith on the Moon is <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lpi.usra.edu\/publications\/books\/lunar_stratigraphy\/\">about ten meters<\/a>, and that we can extract all of the oxygen from this. That means the top ten meters of the Moon\u2019s surface would provide enough oxygen to support all eight billion people on Earth for somewhere around 100,000 years.<\/p>\n<p>This would also depend on how effectively we managed to extract and use the oxygen. Regardless, this figure is pretty amazing!<\/p>\n<p>Having said that, we do have it pretty good here on Earth. And we should do everything we can to protect the blue planet \u2014 and its soil in particular \u2014 which continues to support all terrestrial life without us even trying.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;\" alt=\"The Conversation\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" class=\"js-lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/counter.theconversation.com\/content\/170013\/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic\"\/><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https:\/\/theconversation.com\/republishing-guidelines --><\/p>\n<p><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;\" src=\"https:\/\/counter.theconversation.com\/content\/170013\/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic\" alt=\"The Conversation\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" class=\"\" srcset=\"\"\/><\/noscript><br \/>\n<em>This article by <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/profiles\/john-grant-1280894\">John Grant<\/a>, Lecturer in Soil <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/sciencee\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"5\" title=\"Science\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Science<\/a>, <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/institutions\/southern-cross-university-1160\">Southern Cross University<\/a> is republished from <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\">The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/the-moons-top-layer-alone-has-enough-oxygen-to-sustain-8-billion-people-for-100-000-years-170013\">original article<\/a>.<\/em>\n                        <\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more like this article, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/technology\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Technology category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/news\/live-on-the-moon-extract-its-oxygen\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;#To live on the Moon, we need to extract its oxygen&#8221; Alongside advances in space exploration, we\u2019ve recently seen much time and money invested into technologies that could allow effective space resource utilization. And at the forefront of these efforts has been a laser-sharp focus on finding the best way to produce oxygen on the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":394539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/img-cdn.tnwcdn.com\/image\/tnw?filter_last=1&fit=1280,640&url=https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/12\/Moon-space-station-hed-shutterstock_1862726671-e1642174759612.jpg&signature=57eb5af476cdef8a43a7b84fb432e81e","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-394538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}