Would firing a “lightning bow” over the lunar surface allow us to mine metal and water from the lunar surface at the same time?
For years, the concept of “lunar mining“intrigued scientists, space agencies and entrepreneurs. Our rocky satellite houses precious resources such as water and metals that could be critical to future crew missions, providing water which could be converted into rocket fuel, and other valuable materials. Scientists are also keen to study these resources and the commercial sector has also shown interest in lunar mining. The US government even a policy with green lighting support for lunar mining in 2020.
One new technique called ‘ablative arc mining’, which is part of a project led by Amelia Grieg, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the Aerospace Center at the University of Texas at El Paso, will enable water, metals and to draw on other resources. of the lunar surface material at the same time, which enhances older lunar construction concepts and methods.
The technique uses an arc of electricity, Grieg told Space.com, and would be “like placing lightning over the lunar surface.”
Related: Home on the Moon: How to Build a Moon Settlement (Infographic)
This technique was recently selected as part of the Phase I Fellows program for NASA’s Institute for Advanced Concept (NIAC), a program that nurtures visionary ideas that can transform future NASA missions with the creation of breakthroughs – radically better or completely new aviation concepts – while engaging America’s innovators and entrepreneurs as partners in the journey, ” according to the agency.
In the technique, arcs of electric current across two electrodes will sublimate frozen water from the lunar reformer or surface material and turn it into water vapor. It would also extract other things like metals from the lunar material. The electric arc then breaks apart the water (or other materials such as metals) into ionized particles.
Then electric fields guide the ionized particles into the capture chambers. The technique would therefore at one time suck the resources out of the lunar regolith and collect them for later use.
With the NIAC program, Grieg and her team will utilize this concept, test it in a laboratory environment and work on a technology system based on the concept that can extract approximately 22,000 pounds. (10,000 kilograms) of water per year, among other things.
Previous concepts for lunar mining used ‘thermal ablation’, which heats water frozen in the lunar regolith and takes it out as water vapor which can then be captured. However, with a thin atmosphere like the moon’s, the water vapor just spreads in all directions, and you can not really see which way, Grieg told Space.com. Thermal ablation also does not allow multiple types of resources to be extracted simultaneously, such as arc mining.
But if you ionize this water using the electric arc, Grieg explains, “you can push it [the particles] exactly where you want them to go. You similarly guide them through these virtual electric magnetic fields in a small collection area, and you can capture much more of the water you can extract from the moon. ‘
More: How water on the moon can stimulate space exploration
The biggest challenge in ablative arc mining is that it takes a lot of power to create an electric arc in the moon’s rare atmosphere.
Another challenge is to create a robotic system that can operate autonomously, Barry W. Finger, chief engineer at the aviation company Paragon, which is not involved in this project or research, told Space.com about the general prospect of lunar mining . This is ‘because it will take a while when we get a significant number of people who mainly have labor on the lunar surface,’ he added.
While Grieg and her team work to test this concept in a laboratory and eventually design a prototype to test for actual use in space, conversations here on Earth continue about not just how we use our resources in places like the moon and Mars can not use, but how we should use the resources.
“At least within the community of which I am a part,” Grieg said, “we are looking at the exploitation of the moon, not necessarily for commercial interest, but to help have human moon settlements in the future.”
Grieg further added that it may be ‘impossible to have lunar settlements’ without collecting lunar water and other resources. “And because the moon is such an important gateway to Mars, we will probably struggle to have human settlements on Mars in the future.”
Related: The search for water on the moon (photos)
However, many are concerned that our species are plundering and polluting even more worlds than our own by taking resources from destinations such as the moon outside the earth. That’s why the 1967 Space Convention, which continues to evolve, helps guide space agencies and companies in the use of space resources.
“You can look around the earth where we have not done an excellent job of being stewards of our own planet,” Finger said. However, he added that the moon has been bombarded with radiation and impact for so long and that it is inhospitable for life that arguments to say that we should not treat the moon as we treated the earth do not carry much weight for him. “I do not see it as a problem in the near future.”
Email Chelsea Gohd at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.