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Lunar Oxygen and Water Production Tech Tested

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the bathtub-in-space dept.

savuporo writes "NASA and its industry partners organized a two-week lunar in-situ resource utilization field test in Hawaii. The tested machines included a few different rovers and prototype plants for generating oxygen and water from lunar regolith. Astrotoday has a picture gallery and a video report. This follows on the heels of the recent ESA lunar robotics challenge event held on Tenerife, which tasked student teams to build a lunar robot that would be able to search for water ice in lunar polar craters."

2 of 56 comments (clear)

  1. "TWEEL" seems like a bad design by ryanw · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It looks like "if" it happens to stumble upon water there would most likely be mud causing the holes in the wheels to fill up with gunk. Also I could see rocks and things getting stuck on this holes causing it to weigh more and change how it operates. http://www.astroday.net/Images/MKrovers/PISCES005.jpg

  2. Terraforming tag slightly misleading by lmckayjo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The two oxygen/water producing setups tested out here weren't exactly of the "let's scale up and terraform!! w00t!!!" type...

    In fact, they are more likely to be refined and *reduced* in size, to be able to go to the moon sometime in the next 10-15 years, and put out enough gas (stored under compression, or liquified) to support a crew of 4-6 humans for several months.

    Nothing about giant pressure domes or atmosphere-building just yet... this stuff is way more practical than that.

    -L