When people begin long-term occupancy of the Moon, they’ll have to depend on local materials (lunar soil, etc.) for resources. It’s pretty expensive to transport everything from Earth to the Moon. So, any future colonies and science labs will need to become self-sufficient as soon as they can.

So, what resources will lunar citizens need? Water. Oxygen. Fuels. Materials for habitats. Some of that will be brought from Earth, at first. But, it’s gonna get expensive. So, other resources have to come into play.

We all know that there’s no running water on the Moon, and no air, and those are first-order priorities. Once lunar colonists establish their “beachheads”, they will have to synthesize what they need. That’s going to require quite a lot of infrastructure development beyond what gets brought in the first wave from Earth. At the moment, there are no manufacturing plants, labs, or even habitats on the Moon. Just robots and orbiters. That’ll change, of course.

Using Lunar Soil and Astronaut “Exhaust”

As it turns out, oxygen and water can be generated from lunar rocks and soil. And, of course, the lunar polar regions do harbor water ice. So, those resources are there, although they will take some work to unlock.

So, how do we get life-supporting substances from the Moon? First, look at all the resources available. Lunar soil is rich in materials that can convert carbon dioxide into oxygen and fuels, according to scientists at Nanjing University in China. They’re analyzing materials brought back to Earth from the Chang’e 5 mission. The sample seems to be abundant in iron and titanium. So, that’s one source of raw materials.

Another source is lunar astronauts themselves. As they work, they breathe out water vapor and carbon dioxide. That can be captured for use—it would be a shame to just let it escape, right?

The team at Nanjing analyzed those resources and proposed a strategy they called “extraterrestrial photosynthesis”. It would use water processed from lunar soil, plus that from the astronauts, and the elements in the soil itself. The process would then create such compounds as methane, which can be a fuel. Tweak the process another way, and you get oxygen and water. The beauty of this procedure is that it uses local materials. You don’t have to pay to bring stuff from Earth on a rocket.

The leader of the Nanjing team, Zhigang Zou, described the system they hope to develop for use on the Moon and h ow it would work. “We use in-situ environmental resources to minimize the rocket payload,” he said in a press statement. “Our strategy provides a scenario for a sustainable and affordable extraterrestrial living environment.”

Future Lunar Resources Synthesis Machines

The Nanjing team is testing different configurations of equipment to allow future lunar astronauts to create their fuels, oxygen, and water. In addition, they’re studying ways that the lunar soil can supply resources for materials useful in creating livable environments. If all goes well, future lunar inhabitants will become self-sufficient. According to Zao, that future isn’t all that far away.

“In the near future, we will see the crewed spaceflight industry developing rapidly,” he said. “But, if we want to carry out large-scale exploration…we will need to think of ways to reduce payload, meaning relying on as little supplies from Earth as possible and using extraterrestrial resources, instead.”

Zao described the team’s work in a peer-reviewed paper, “Extraterrestrial photosynthesis by Chang’E lunar soil”, published in the journal Joule, May 5, 2022.