Air From Moonrocks

[FLO]

When astronauts return to the Moon, to explore and eventually build a moon base, they're going to need oxygen... and lots of it. Fortunately lunar soil - or regolith - is almost half oxygen. NASA researchers are using a technique called vacuum pyrolysis, where the regolith is heated until it releases oxygen. Light from the Sun was focused by a lens to heat lunar soil to 2,500 degrees C. As much as 20% of the soil was converted to free oxygen, and the leftover slag could be used for bricks, radiation shielding or pavement.

http://tinyurl.com/jyrlm

[Albireo380]

Thanks Steve, Good post. Oxygen from regolith will certainly make exploration / colonisation easire in the long run.

Tom

[GordonCopestake]

I'll just point out for other readers that the oxygen is more useful for rocket fuel than for breathing.

[The Warthog]

Why is that, Gordon? Didn't Gertrude Stein say, "Any oxygen is good oxygen"?

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Will they have to catch it or is there sufficient gravity to let it build up and form an atmosphere?

Captain Chaos

[Naz]

The gravity is to low to hold an atmosphere CC, could be fun to engineer the processing equipment, as it will have to work in a vacuum

naz