One Small Breath For Man

An anonymous reader writes "The New York Times reports on a new technique that may allow Oxygen to be wrung from the soil on the moon. This may pave the way for a moonbase, and allow permanent habitation on Earth's only natural satellite." From the article: "Lunar soil brought back to Earth is in short supply and highly prized, so Nasa researchers have been using matter with the same composition for its tests. The soil contains about 45 per cent oxygen by weight, but it is mostly 'trapped' in the form of silicon dioxide ... At the moment, all oxygen supplies would have to be brought from Earth, which is so expensive and energy-inefficient that it effectively rules out a permanent Moon base. "

Comments

Water

[MichaelSmith]

I predict that if hydrogen can be extracted from regolith close to the surface, then a lot of that oxygen will be burnt down to make water. During the apollo missions oxygen had to be carried but more often than not water for cooling was the limiting factor for stays on the surface.

Its nice to see that people are working directly on this, even if it will be at least 15 years before anybody walks on the moon again.

Re:perhaps this is the wrong solution?

[bobscealy]

I propose a subtle change to your experiment:
1) Take one human.
2) Place human in oxygen free environment.
3) Wait 10 minutes, and measure rate of carbon dioxide production.
(... 4) Profit? ...)
The OP seemed to be suggesting that merely having plants would solve the problem. Plants generating oxygen and humans in turn generating carbon dioxide is all well and good, but you cant avoid the fact that neither gas just happens to be lying about the place on the moon. To start this nice ecosystem some quantity of either gas must either be transported there or produced there.