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Rocket Mining System Could Blast Ice from Lunar Craters
A mix of dust, rocks, and significant concentrations of water ice can be found inside permanently shaded lunar craters at the Moon's south pole. If that water ice can be extracted, it can be turned into breathable oxygen, rocket fuel, or water for thirsty astronauts. The extraction and purification of this dirty lunar ice is not an easy problem, and NASA is interested in creative solutions that can scale. The agency has launched a competition to solve this lunar ice mining challenge, and one of competitors thinks they can do it with a big robot, some powerful vacuums, and a rocket engine used like a drilling system. (It's what they call, brace yourself, their Resource Ore Concentrator using Kinetic Energy Targeted Mining—ROCKET M.)
This method disrupts lunar soil with a series of rocket plumes that fluidize ice regolith by exposing it to direct convective heating. It utilizes a 100 lbf rocket engine under a pressurized dome to enable deep cratering more than 2 meters below the lunar surface. During this process, ejecta from multiple rocket firings blasts up into the dome and gets funneled through a vacuum-like system that separates ice particles from the remaining dust and transports it into storage containers.
Unlike traditional mechanical excavators, the rocket mining approach would allow us to access frozen volatiles around boulders, breccia, basalt, and other obstacles. And most importantly, it's scalable and cost effective. Our system doesn't require heavy machinery or ongoing maintenance. The stored water can be electrolyzed as needed into oxygen and hydrogen utilizing solar energy to continue powering the rocket engine for more than 5 years of water excavation! This system would also allow us to rapidly excavate desiccated regolith layers that can be collected and used to develop additively manufactured structures.
[...] The Phase 1 winners are scheduled to be announced on August 13.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday June 19 2021, @06:20PM (1 child)
To be clear, the magma refinery doesn't require lunar magma - rather it works on ordinary lunar regolith that has been melted to make it more chemically responsive, in a manner very much like current aluminum refineries operate. It is actually a variation on the electrolytic steel refinery Sadoway developed for use on Earth, tweaked to operate on raw molten regolith rather than concentrated ores.
It is interesting that carbon doesn't seem to commonly mineralize without biological involvement - perhaps because it's so chemically active? It does make me wonder where exactly all the carbon ends up on a rocky planet like the moon. Seems like the cold ones often have lots of carbon-rich liquids. And then you've got Venus that's buried in a deep CO2 atmosphere. Did the Moon's carbon get blown away as volatile gasses it had insufficient gravity and magnetosphere to hold on to? Or is it trapped in deposits deep underground?
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Sunday June 20 2021, @12:40PM
> To be clear, the magma refinery doesn't require lunar magma
Thanks for the clarification - I assumed as much.
It's interesting, it seems like the early atmosphere was CO2 until 2.5 billion years ago. Assuming the lava had same composition, I guess that means the Carbon was mostly in earth's atmosphere? I guess if the moon has the same set up, then as there is no atmosphere it has no carbon source.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event [wikipedia.org]
It makes sense chemically - for example limestone, when heated (as in earth's core, or early moon), breaks into CaO and CO2.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lime_kiln [wikipedia.org]