(ORDO NEWS) — Although the Moon has an atmosphere, it is very thin and consists mainly of hydrogen, neon and argon. It’s not the kind of gas mixture that can support mammals like humans.
Oxygen is found in many minerals around us. And the Moon is mostly made up of the same rocks that you find on Earth.
However, there is indeed a lot of oxygen on the Moon. It just doesn’t exist in gaseous form. Instead, it resides inside regolith, a layer of rock and fine dust that covers the Moon’s surface.
Oxygen is found in many minerals around us. And the Moon is mostly made up of the same rocks that you find on Earth.
Minerals such as oxides of aluminium, iron, silicon and magnesium dominate the moon‘s landscape. All of these minerals contain oxygen, but not in a form our lungs can adapt to.
The regolith on the Moon is about 45% oxygen. But this oxygen is strongly bound in the mentioned minerals. To break these strong ties, we should make some efforts.
In particular, it will be necessary to carry out electrolysis. On the Moon, oxygen would be the main product extracted from electrolysis, and aluminum (or other metal) would be a potentially useful by-product.
This is a fairly simple process, but there is one catch: it requires a lot of energy. For electrolysis to continue, it must be supported by solar energy or other energy sources available on the Moon.
To extract oxygen from regolith, serious industrial equipment will also be required. We need to first convert the solid metal oxide into liquid form.
Each cubic meter of lunar regolith contains an average of 1.4 tons of minerals, including about 630 kg of oxygen.
NASA states that humans need about 800 grams of oxygen per day to survive. Thus, 630 kg of oxygen will keep a person alive for about two years (or a little more).
Now suppose that the average depth of the regolith layer on the Moon is about 10 meters, and that we can extract all the oxygen from it.
This means that the top 10 meters of the Moon’s surface will provide enough oxygen to support all 8 billion people on Earth for somewhere around 100,000 years.
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