The Artemis program is going to put human beings on the moon for the very first time since NASA’s Apollo missions. But Artemis ‘scope is a lot wider than merely bringing people there, carrying out science experiments, gathering moon rocks, playing some golf and then leaving. The aim is to possess a constant presence.
That is going to demand resources, and one of the more essential is oxygen.
Dr. Peter A. Curreri has been a NASA scientist for many years and was a strong advocate of human spaceflight. Curreri continues to be Chief Science Officer of Lunar Resources, Inc. after 2021, along with Lunar Resources is proposing a new idea for Artemis: an oxygen pipeline.
A lasting human presence on Mars calls for several things, and the basis of financial success is built on oxygen and water. The southern polar point of the Moon has huge amounts of primordial water ice, frozen solid in the craters of the area, in which sunlight hardly ever gets to it. This particular ice may be melted down and split into hydrogen and oxygen.
This’s well known by everybody associated with lunar science, and the fundamental concept is the fact that ice would be prepared in situ and oxygen will be placed in cryogenic pressure vessels known as dewars and moved to where it was required. As the equatorial regions possess the best solar power as well as the most sunlight, that is the place that the lunar bases will likely be established.
Lunar Resources has an alternative idea, although it will get difficult, rather than bottling oxygen and transporting it. construct an oxygen pipeline out of the ice deposits in the south pole or perhaps from in which oxygen is gotten from the regolith to facilities elsewhere on the moon. The concept grabbed NASA’s interest, and the Lunar South Pole Oxygen Pipeline (LSPOP) is a stage One project for NIAC, the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program.
In a press release, Curreri stated, “We suggest the Lunar south Pole oxygen pipeline (L SPoP), a gaseous Oxygen Pipeline in the moon’s South Pole. “A lunar pipeline hasn’t been pursued and is going to revolutionize lunar surface operations for the Artemis system and lower cost and risk,” the report stated.
Oxygen is crucial. We require it all over the moon, in automobiles as well as in life support systems. We must have it as well for rocket fuel because it is an oxidant. Getting large amounts of oxygen from the south pole to the equator might be troublesome and require dedicated vehicles, facilities and tanks. The pipeline would eliminate other resources and the vehicles from the process, including human working hours.
“The procedure of moving this oxygen on rovers is much more energy intensive than the extraction process and it is believed to be the MOST costly facet in acquiring in-situ oxygen for use on the moon thinking about the very long distances a source extraction location will be from a human habitat or liquification plant,” Curreri writes.
Significant funding has been poured into the extraction of oxygen and water by NASA. Some efforts show that we could get adequate oxygen out of the regolith. But water can only come through the ice at the poles and it is sensible to get oxygen from there as some of the water will need to be separated to get hydrogen.
Pipelines on Earth are a problem. Yet not on the moon. Leaking don’t make any distinction for a lunar oxygen pipeline. They don’t pollute or harm anything. Oxygen is simply dispersing. No surface is shifting or shifting to disrupt the pipeline. The only real potential risk is an effect.
For its concept of a lunar pipeline, lunar Resources will explore different concepts, although they’re beginning with a 5 km pipeline. “Our starting concept is for a 5 km pipeline to move oxygen gas from an oxygen production source, for instance our molten regolith electrolysis (MRE) extraction site, to an oxygen storage or liquidification facility close to a lunar base,” Curreri said.
LSPOP will be produced in sections on the moon’s surface and then joined together in a five km length. The pipeline could be developed of lightweight aluminum, a plentiful resource on the moon’s surface, especially close to the south pole. Additional in-situ metals that will additionally be analyzed for consideration include iron and magnesium, “Curreri wrote.
The pipeline could be evolvable, doable as well as long lived. Moon manufacturing could also be less expensive compared to some other techniques, but Earth would continue to have to offer some support, although it’d cost more.
The pipeline may be built robotically from metals from the lunar regolith, even though some little use of Earth components will remain required, lunar Resources said. It may be fixed robotically. NASA anticipates that Artemis is going to have 10,000 kg of oxygen each year at first, and the LSPOP is able to get that to provide that with a flow rate of about 2kg/hour. It would require very little power throughout its lifetime, be extremely dependable and its lifetime could exceed ten years in the lunar atmosphere.
The Lunar South Pole Oxygen Pipeline happens to be a type within the NIAC Program of Phase One. Which means NASA is going to fund a 9-month research for the concept. It provides a chance to examine overall viability as well as improve the science Readiness Level (TRL) of the LSPOP. Lunar Resources may apply for Phase 2 funding, which develops concepts for as much as 2 years, once Phase One is finished.
Provided by Universe Today
