Lunar soil could be a rich resource to help astronauts synthesize supplies they need for future missions. Courtesy LRO.
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.
Back from a refreshing long weekend and some more thoughts about future lunar bases and colonies. As a science-fiction reader of long standing, of course, I’ve enjoyed fictional accounts of what it would be like to live and work on the Moon. Writers in the Golden Age of science fiction (Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, and others) never imagined that we wouldn’t consider going to the Moon as a next major step. It seems natural — why NOT go to the next nearest body in space and learn to exist there? It’s not much stranger (although likely as difficult and definitely more spendy) than doing a space station. We’ve had a few of those since the start of the Space Age.
I know there’s something of a debate going on in “official” circles about whether we should go to the Moon next. Or, should we build a lunar gateway? And, of course, there’s the argument that we just head straight to Mars. In my opinion, the first two make more sense. As a Mars fan from early childhood, the Red Planet beckons to me, too. But, as I’ve mentioned in other entries here, we need a training ground for Mars. The Moon and near-Earth space are good, relatively “safe” places for that. I say “safe” because they’re still close enough to mount rescue missions to the trainees if something goes wrong. Trying to “rescue” folks on Mars (or halfway there), is a whole other problem.
A 1.5-ton building block 3D printed using simulated lunar dust. Made at ESA, it’s part of research into using in situ materials on the Moon for habitats. Courtesy ESA–G. Porter, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Why Live and Work on the Moon?
Lunar colonies present a very good chance to accomplish a number of scientific and sociological aims:
learn to live and work in very low gravity environment;
devise ways to use lunar materials as resources for the outposts;
find out more about the Moon from in situ long-term studies, which (in turn) helps us understand more about Earth;
plant humanity’s flag on another world. This would be a perfect salute and follow-up to the men who landed there in the late 60s and early 70s and planted their country’s flag there while declaring that they came in peace for ALL people on Earth;
build a stepping stone to other places in the solar system, using lunar resources;
providing commercial expansion possibilities for space sector businesses around the world;
use the Moon as a scientific outpost, particularly for astronomy and astrophysics.
Those are a few of the many reasons I’ve read about for a return to the Moon. Of course, the sociological issues include political considerations. Those mainly boil down to showing off a country’s technical and financial prowess in getting to space and the Moon. Politicians may not say it that way, but flag-waving is a huge consideration and not one to be taken lightly. Just look at what flag-waving gets used to “sell” in the U.S., and other countries. It’s part of humanity’s makeup to “tribalize” and be proud of our “clan’s” achievements. That’s fine, but as we’ve seen with the ISS, such flag-waving usually takes a second seat to mutual accomplishment and cooperation. And, of course, safety. However, no frontier is completely safe. If we wait until things are safe, we’ll never go anywhere.
The Moon: Not Much Atmosphere
Of course, there are cons to living and working on the Moon. The physical ones are all pretty self-evident. The biggest issues revolve around that word: safety. How safe is it to take up residence on the Moon? In a few words: not very. The environment is far more extreme than any we have here on Earth. There’s no air to breathe, so we have to bring our own (and eventually figure out how to synthesize it from local materials). There’s also no flowing water. BUT, there IS water ice at the lunar poles. And hydrated minerals in the rocks. So, theoretically (since this hasn’t been tried yet ON the Moon), people living there could get their water from lunar sources. There’s the potential for a LOT of water.
A very good article in Air & Space Magazine from 2018 describes the possible amounts of water at the lunar poles. It also describes in detail how scientists know about the water). In essence, there could be up to 200 billion metric tons (estimated) just at the poles. The problem with that number is that it’s a good estimate. We really don’t KNOW yet how much there is. That argues for further study, including some human exploration to do some good old hands-on “geology” on the Moon. But, if all this water is there, that’s a good news scenario for future missions. The bad news is: they have to get there and figure out a way to harvest it. That’s not even really bad news, but it is a technological challenge.
Radiation and Impact Hazards, Shields Up!
The Moon is a radiation and impact hazard zone. There’s no way around that. Not much of a magnetic field to fend off incoming solar radiation. There’s very little to no air to vaporize incoming impactors. Plus, the lunar surface tells a tale of continuous bombardment from meteors and fragments of asteroids since its formation some 4.3 billion years ago. It’s tough to maintain fragile human life there without some kind of shielding.
The best studies I’ve seen suggest that the human inhabitants of the Moon will live underground most of the time. Their homes will be shielded with several meters of regolith and rock to prevent radiation damage to their cells. Of course, when they go out to work on the surface, they’ll wear shielded suits. Even then, I suspect their time working “outside” will be limited to a few hours a day. That will slow down the creation of lunar bases quite a bit.
People have lived and worked on the Moon for short periods; the Apollo astronauts so far are the first and only ones to do so. They have been exposed to radiation while going through Earth’s Van Allen Belts, as well as during their time on the Moon. While not severe, their exposure has exposed astronauts to higher amounts of heart disease. (See this article in Nature from 2016 for more details). Future lunar inhabitants could face much more significant risk both on the way TO the Moon and while living there. So, if we’re going to live and work on the Moon, we have to take health risks into account and design accordingly. Again, this is easily said but presents a technological challenge.
We didn’t evolve to live and work on the Moon in its low gravity environment and heavy bombardment from radiation. Can we figure out a way to do so? I’m sure we can. We can adapt our methods, if not our bodies.
What’s it Worth?
In the final analysis, we have to look at what we gain from living and working on the Moon. What it will cost us financially, politically, and personally? It’s never going to be as easy as the SF stories used to paint it. Nor is simply a matter of sending people as Elon or other visionaries like to make it sound. It’s going to take a LOT of work, a lot of money, and a lot of personal ambition to accomplish lunar bases. And, when we get there? We start to build for the next expedition, out to Mars or an asteroid.
What we learn by doing it at the Moon will almost certainly make those next trips less complex to accomplish. That’s because we can learn valuable lessons from the building of Lunaropolis or whatever we’re going to call our moon outposts. Billions of dollars/Euros/RMB, etc will get spent to get to the Moon and beyond. Whatever we do, we’d better spend that time and our talents wisely.
