One Small Breath For Man 280
An anonymous reader writes "The New York Times reports on a new technique that may allow Oxygen to be wrung from the soil on the moon. This may pave the way for a moonbase, and allow permanent habitation on Earth's only natural satellite." From the article: "Lunar soil brought back to Earth is in short supply and highly prized, so Nasa researchers have been using matter with the same composition for its tests. The soil contains about 45 per cent oxygen by weight, but it is mostly 'trapped' in the form of silicon dioxide ... At the moment, all oxygen supplies would have to be brought from Earth, which is so expensive and energy-inefficient that it effectively rules out a permanent Moon base. "
Looky here city girl... (Score:5, Funny)
So when we get to the moon for the first time... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The grammar zealot is here. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Neither does radiation shielding (Score:2)
Water (Score:5, Insightful)
I predict that if hydrogen can be extracted from regolith close to the surface, then a lot of that oxygen will be burnt down to make water. During the apollo [nasa.gov] missions oxygen had to be carried but more often than not water for cooling was the limiting factor for stays on the surface.
Its nice to see that people are working directly on this, even if it will be at least 15 years before anybody walks on the moon again.
Re:Water (Score:2)
Re:Water (Score:2)
Re:Water (Score:2)
Re:Water (Score:5, Informative)
Look up 'combustion'.
We use produce CO2 by burning hydrocarbons which contain these little atoms we call hydrogen. These don't magicly disappear, they end up in water molecules.
So you still need to send up food, but the water will be produced by breathing....
Food + O2 => CO2 + H2O + heat.
Re:Water (Score:2)
So yes, it does produce water, but not in any significant quantities and it's likely to be trapped in cells anyway.
Re:Water (Score:3, Interesting)
The hydrogen still needs to come from somewhere, though. Or were you thinking there'd be enough in the food that's sent up?
Of course, if you *can* get hydrogen somewhere on the moon, you could make water and do greenhouse farming. You could also make your own fuel for return trips.
Re:Water (Score:4, Funny)
I predict that if anything can be extracted from the regolith close to the surface, it will run out so fast that after a few weeks, expensive subsurface mining and/or far flung harvesting will be made necessary, thus defeating the point of the entire excercise.
I don't know about you, but I think ore harvesters on the moon is simply not a feasable option. They cost $1400 a pop after the first!
Re:Water (Score:2)
Re:Water (Score:2)
Isn't energy enough? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Isn't energy enough? (Score:5, Informative)
SiO2 + energy -> Si + O2
Is perfectly valid chemistry. In fact, if you go back to the hard sci-fi of the 50's and 60's this is the kind of shit they predicted we'd be doing RIGHT NOW. Building plants on the moon to convert lunar dust to oxygen (and high quality silicon for chip fabs) for both lunar bases and space stations.
Re:Isn't energy enough? (Score:3, Interesting)
After all, we first made it to the moon 37 years ago... I don't think anybody dreamed that far ahead that we'd abandon it once we achieved it.
Re:Isn't energy enough? (Score:2)
Re:Isn't energy enough? (Score:2)
Which is exactly what they propose doing. To do it on an industrial scale; under lunar conditions (vacuum, solar heating) details need to be worked out. The basic chemistry is trivial. Si02 + energy = Si + O2
Still not terribly efficient... (Score:5, Informative)
We continue our inquiry at the wonderful world of Wikipedia. We learn that the Earth's atmosphere [wikipedia.org] is only 21% oxygen, so our 9.765 mL of pure oxygen effectively becomes 46.5 mL of normal air. Our final reference [wikipedia.org] tells us that the average human breath exchanges 450-500 mL of air.
Putting this all together, we get a notably unimpressive result. The "few hours" that it takes to bake oxygen out of moon sand creates only enough oxygen to support one-tenth of one ordinary resting breath for one average-sized adult male.
I really hope I'm off by an order of magnitude or four, but unless I'm terribly wrong (entirely possible), this technology has a long way to go. The final line of the article does give hope, however: "Alternative methods to extract oxygen from Moon soil are also under investigation, including melting the rocks into a liquid and freeing oxygen with an electric current." Obviously NASA realizes this plan still needs work. Hopefully
Not Quite (Score:5, Informative)
Still not sure how you got that other figure, but perhaps it refers to the liquid form.
Re:Not Quite (Score:2)
Re:Not Quite (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not Quite (Score:2)
Re:Not Quite (Score:2)
Re:Not Quite (Score:2)
Someone thinks they've got heat transfer physics down better than they do: Sure sure, it's eay to concentrate sunlight, but where does one expel the heat to cool the resulting oxygen?
*blinks*
Oh, nevermind. You can use the hot side of the radiator to preheat the feedstock (which would be coming from the now-cooler ring of lens shadow).
Or, the process could be done is cycles based on the lunar day; during the night, the lunar surface is dam
Re:Not Quite (Score:5, Informative)
If you think carefully about the numbers you got:
9g to 9.7 mL gives you a density of ~1 g/mL, which is that of water, not that of any gas at atmospheric T/P.
As a previous poster mentioned, you're much closer to getting 50L of breathable air (at 25% O2). While not a very large amount (1 cubic meter is 1000 L), 100g of rock isn't a whole lot either.
The simple fact is that SiO2 is about 50% oxygen by mass, and you can get a LOT more moon rock than you can either liquid O2 or water.
Mod parent up (Read: I'm flat out wrong) (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the point I should've make clearer is the fact that the energy required to release this (relatively) miniscule amount of oxygen is astronomical (no pun intended). Even assuming that I'm wrong about my interpretation of the article and that a full one fifth of the 100g of the sample becomes oxygen, that we get a total of 20g of O2 or roughly 100L of breatheable air. In order to release this, we need to heat a quantity of 100g of SiO2 to 2500C for several hours. As the article stated, this requires the concentration of sunlight from a 12' wide dish onto a sample of just 100g. I'm not exactly sure how much energy that is (and I'm not about to try and calculate it), but it seems like an awful lot. Hopefully this technique scales incredibly well or the alternate methods of liquifying or electrocuting the sand have more promise. I realize this is fledgling technology were talking about, but it still looks like it has a long way to go.
Re:Mod parent up (Read: I'm flat out wrong) (Score:2)
Re:Not Quite (Score:2)
Re:Still not terribly efficient... (Score:2)
NASA states an adult requires 840g of oxygen. One dish and a 100g of soil in a few hours got 20g of oxygen. The sunlight was going through atmosphere so I'd think it would be more efficient on the moon, but we'll stick with the 20g. 4.2kg of soil and 42 dishes would supply enough oxygen for one adult in a few hours, Maybe? 4-6 adults a day.
The Biosphere 2 lost oxygen at a rate of
Re:Still not terribly efficient... (Score:2)
I think you misinterpreted the quotes you used as the basis for your calculations. The important part of the first quote is After a few hours, one fifth of the substance had turned into oxygen. To me, this says that one fifth of the total mass of the soil ended up as oxygen; you seem to have taken it to mean one fifth of the available oxygen in the substance. The quote says no such thing, and does not reference the 45% number out of the second quote; those two facts (the composition percentage and the yield
Oxygen we breathe is O2 (Score:2)
That's the average atomic weight of Oxygen. We breathe O2, which has a molecular weight of 32. As another reply mentioned, a mole of any gas at STP is 22.4L. So 9g of oxygen is 9/32 * 22.4 L, or 6.2 L.
20% O2 is nice and breathable, so you could make 5x as much air by using "recyclable" nitrogen as filler. That would be over 30L of air from 9g of oxygen.
Re:Still not terribly efficient... (Score:2)
The article mentions that they would be breathing 100% oxygen. At STP thats not a good idea, but the pressure can be reduced so that the partial pressure of oxygen is the same as at STP (something like 3psi). This allows one to breath pure oxygen without harm, reduces the structural demands of containing normal atmospheric pressure, and the low pressure does not result in the fi
Re:Isn't energy enough? (Score:2)
One of my mentors at school (an amazingly talented man) pointed out to me that with enough energy, there is virtually nothing you can't do if you can can apply the energy the way you want. Efficiency doesn't matter if you have enough.
On the moon, it's a matter of taking the differences in environment (from Earth) and turning them to your advantage. So, for example:
Solar energy: No problem - no atmosphere, no clouds etc.
Nuclear energy: Fission. A lot of the weight of an E
Re:Isn't energy enough? (Score:5, Informative)
The Voyager probes are technically nuclear powered, but it is not the same beast as in a chain reaction fusion reactor. The probes use an RTG [wikipedia.org] which converts some of the heat released from natural radioactive decay into electricity. These do not produce electricty on nearly the same scale as a thermal fission reactor. The RTGs in the Voyager probes are generating about 300 Watts. That couldn't even power some gamers' desktop computers, much less a large scale SiO2 -> Si + O2 manufacturing process. Granted, a large number of RTGs could be used, as well as using larger and more efficient RTGs, but it seems likely to me that the amount of PU-238 (as well as some of the more exotic materials needed to drive the process would be cost prohibitive for any useful amount of oxygen.
All that, and RTGs still need a way to get rid of excess heat, as a thermocouple relies on the difference in temperature to produce electricity. The amount of heat that needs to be removed from a voyager level RTG is not that significant and can probably be accomplished through simple radiation, but the amount needed to drive a major industrial process would require some fairly exotic cooling techniques (although on the lunar night a good portion of the waste heat could be reclaimed to heat living quarters, etc.
Re:Isn't energy enough? (Score:2, Interesting)
I had a physics professor who, when explaining the idea behind a Peltier cold plate, stated that one potential use was for the Voyager missions where a small nuclear reactor was placed at the end of a long tower and in the reactor were the two metallic elements sandwiched together which are used in Peltiers, and that the heat caused current flow and thus powered the spacecraft; hence, fission
Re:Isn't energy enough? (Score:2)
The temperature on the moon reaches -387 Fahrenheit (-233 Celsius) at night.
If we can't figure out how to use that to our advantage, we deserve to be stuck here.
Another addiction (Score:4, Funny)
Campaigns on the line of "Have children, they'll only take n cubic metres of soil per year".
New religions venerating resurrection via burial: "Oxygen you are and in oxygen you'll become".
Mr President Of The Moon declaring "We as a nation have an addiction to oxygen".
Re:Another addiction (Score:3, Funny)
new news or old news? (Score:3, Interesting)
the real challenge to my mind sounds like a)keeping the machinery functioning for more than a few days and b) keeping the furnace's optics from collecting too much dust. I wonder how they plan to address the dust-related issues.
all in all, it sounds way cool. Best of luck to everyone involved.
Re:new news or old news? (Score:2)
Re:new news or old news? (Score:2)
Re:new news or old news? (Score:2)
Re:new news or old news? (Score:2)
Being studied; I recall various schemes to deal with it, such as electrostatic fields, or spraying a clumping agent around the base. It'll probably be the major health risk to colonists.
Re:new news or old news? (Score:2)
I rather doubt spraying water into a vacuum would be effective.
So my taxes will be paying for astronauts making mud pies on the moon? What other summer-time activities should I be supporting, a Martian Slip-N-Slide?
Take it up with your congressman.
Dammit! (Score:5, Funny)
perhaps this is the wrong solution? (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe later (Score:2)
Re:perhaps this is the wrong solution? (Score:2, Funny)
breathe out
there you go... carbon dioxide.
Obviously some would have to be brought from Earth. And obviously, some would leak and need to be replaced. A self-sustainable eco-system is likely impossible, but it would reduce the oxygen requirements
Re:perhaps this is the wrong solution? (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Take one human.
2) Place human in oxygen free environment.
3) Wait 10 minutes, and measure rate of carbon dioxide production.
(... 4) Profit?
The OP seemed to be suggesting that merely having plants would solve the problem. Plants generating oxygen and humans in turn generating carbon dioxide is all well and good, but you cant avoid the fact that neither gas just happens to be lying about the place on the moon. To start this nice ecosystem some quantity
Not so hard to bring from Earth (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not so hard to bring from Earth (Score:2)
Re:Not so hard to bring from Earth (Score:2)
Re:Not so hard to bring from Earth (Score:2)
Re:Not so hard to bring from Earth (Score:3, Insightful)
TFA doesn't go into it, but the major use of a lunar oxygen plant would be as fuel, rather than breathing. For return trips to earth, or hopefully to orbit, asteroids, Mars.... Of course, they'd also need hydrogen, but even if that can't be found easily on the Moon, it's a lot lighter than oxygen to haul up.
Re:Not so hard to bring from Earth (Score:2)
Oh, absolutely not. That is a very silly idea for two reasons.
One, you will need every droplet of water you can get. Have you learnt nothing from the droughts that even England (of all places!) manages to suffer from?
Two, if you are going to transport a X litres of water up there just to break it down into oxygen, you might as well be efficient and transport X liters of compressed oxygen instead. Why bother with all the hydroge
Re:Not so hard to bring from Earth (Score:2)
What does England have to do with it? Unlike a Lunar colony, the English climate is an open system; the colony's will be as closed as possible. As far as needing every drop of water you can get, don't you know that one of the byproducts of metabolism is water? Given time, you'll have more than you need. I wasn't thinking about breaking it down right
Re:Not so hard to bring from Earth (Score:2)
True, with one additional requirement, infinite power (or enough so as to make no practical difference). Of course, with enough power and the ability to control it, anyone can make anything and we can skip little issues of where the stuff has to come from or how we ship i
NYT? (Score:2)
Silicon Dioxide (Score:5, Funny)
Fact: Inhaling crystalline silica dust can lead to silicosis or cancer.
I thought they were amusing facts. +1 Important please Mods.
Re:Silicon Dioxide (Score:2)
Fact: Inhaling crystalline silica dust can lead to silicosis or cancer.
I can think of much more interesting things to inhale than sand, such as, say... asbestos.
Re:Silicon Dioxide (Score:2)
There's also been worry about lunar dust getting tracked in to the habitable area on spacesuits. Here on Earth we'd approach problems like that by showering everything with water, but a moon base won't have much spare water.
uhmm, news... (Score:2)
Ramen is Carcinogenic (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Ramen is Carcinogenic (Score:2)
pure oxygen (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:pure oxygen (Score:2)
AFAIK oxygen *chambers* run at low pressures, Oxygen *masks* mix the oxygen with air (so you end up with air with more oxygen than normal rather than just pure oxygen).
soil? (Score:2, Insightful)
Stripmining the moon. (Score:2, Insightful)
Fine, let's stripmine the moon for oxygen and small amounts of water using equipment transported from Earth at immense expense just to prove we can place a few gravity-maimed individuals on a Moon base or "colony" there.
The moon is a desert. It it a desert like no desert on the face of the Earth. We know that. Let's not engage in senseless activities just because we can. Let's not rape the public purse to satisfy bored scientists or political ego.
Re:Stripmining the moon. (Score:2)
Some of us want to go into space. Stop cock-blocking man.
order of problems (Score:2)
Topical paradise (Score:2)
Lotsa Oxides (Score:2)
The Moon, for one... (Score:2, Funny)
What about the nitrogen? (Score:2, Informative)
1.) At 100% atmospheric oxygen, clothing and hair (and lots of other things I'd guess) become highly flammable, even explosive.
2.) People aren't designed to breathe pure oxygen for extended periods. While it's essential for life, it's also rather toxic - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen#Precautions [wikipedia.org]
So, unless there's another element up there to dilute the
forgot to add (Score:2)
Cause the article sure doesn't!
Re:Can this article be even more pretentios? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Can this article be even more pretentios? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Can this article be even more pretentios? (Score:5, Funny)
Science Ability Down in U.S. High Schools
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/
How true.
Re:Can this article be even more pretentios? (Score:5, Funny)
The reaction is: Earth+Fire=Air.
Don't they teach proper alchemy anymore?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Can this article be even more pretentios? (Score:5, Interesting)
This lowers the temperature required to disassociate the SiO2, making the engineering sufficiently feasible.
Well, that's what _this_ group says to the funding body within NASA, anyway!
Re:Can this article be even more pretentios? (Score:2)
Re:Can this article be even more pretentios? (Score:2)
Are you shortsighted ? Silicon "fucking sand" dioxide is SiO2. One atom of silicon (Si) and two atoms of oxygen (O2). The scientists' idea is to extract oxygen atoms from SiO2 molecules by heating them up in order to break them up.
Re:The oxygen already on the moon... (Score:2)
But this gas is rocket exhaust. The hypergolic fuels used on the apollo LM are highly toxic both before and after being burnt in the engine.
Most of that gas will have gone by now, anyway. Either by escaping into space or freezing out in cold traps.
Re:The oxygen already on the moon... (Score:2)
Re:Please pay attention (Score:3)
How about laser [reference.com] (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation)
Re:Please pay attention (Score:3, Informative)
I hated having to remember AP Style.
Re:Please pay attention (Score:5, Informative)
That modded "informative"? How about "ignorant flamebait"?
The usual UK rule is to preserve caps when you pronounce the letters: (B-B-C) but to use normal case when you pronounce it as syllables. Thus: Nasa, UN, Nato, snafu, UK.
Re:Please pay attention (Score:3, Informative)
I wasn't aware that the English used here was to be based solely on U.S. rules or else be subject to flaming. I'm American, but I know that the English tend not to use all caps if an acronym is pronounced like any other word, like NASA or NATO. Will you flame them for using "colour" (a mis-spelling!), "lory" (a girl's name?), or "fag" (how dare they be so insensit
Re:Please pay attention (Score:3, Funny)
Hmm.. Thank you - I think.
I'm English and I speak with so-called "received pronunciation" - essentially no regional accent. (No, not like the Queen) and this reminds me of a conversation I had with an American friend. It went something like this:
F: "...AND you talk funny"
Me: "Oh, really? What language are we speaking at the moment?"
F: "English!"
Me: "And what nationality am I?"
F: (Seeing the trap) "Err.. English."
Me: "So, who is the one talking fu
Re:Moon Gravity (Score:2)
Nobody is talking about terraforming the moon, except Stephen Baxter. [wikipedia.org]
Lunar exploration so far has made extensive use of Containment Structures.
Re:Moon landings are so 70's (Score:2)
Currently, when building spacecraft, everything has to be constructed either completely or mostly on earth. We thus expend a massive amount of energy to get these things past the earth's gravity and into space. It's a waste of energy and severely limiting.
With a moonbase, we would be able to build spacecraft in an environment with fa
Re:Moon landings are so 70's (Score:2)
Here is an idea, lets forget the whole space colonization thing coz it aint happening a
Re:now that is brilliant (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:now that is brilliant (Score:3, Insightful)
Socialists hate it when people want to leave.
Re:If the mass changes (Score:2)
2. Send toxic waste to moon and store in used-up mines
3. ???
4. Equilibrium!!
Re:If the mass changes (Score:2, Informative)
Re:anyone else remember Apollo 1? (Score:2)
If you're shipping it up, argon or helium might be preferable short term; they're both lighter per mole than molecular nitrogen. Longer term, you'd want nitrogen for plants to get a working closed ecology.