Inspenet, August 12, 2023.
NASA has shown strong interest in extracting water from the Moon’s south pole and appears to have found a viable approach.
NASA has renewed its commitment to exploration and missions on the Moon, as evidenced by the Artemis program. However, in addition to this, the scientists of the US space agency have other objectives, including the extraction of water at the south pole of our satellite. A new study suggests that this “mining” job may be less challenging than previously thought .
It is known, or at least there is a strong hypothesis, of the existence of water deposits at the poles of the Moon. In these regions darkness prevails like a blanket, which has allowed the formation of ice on or near the surface. NASA seeks to take advantage of this frozen water for its future expeditions and missions.
The exploration of water on the Moon is being approached from various perspectives. Recently it became known that the development of a rover by NASA , designed to carry out expeditions to the lunar poles. This one, which is shaped like a golf cart and weighs 450 kilos, will be a key piece in these investigations.
In addition to this autonomous vehicle, there is another approach with a good chance of fulfilling the same mission. NASA chose this plan and study after it was submitted to the Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) in 2019. The author of this proposal is George Sowers, an expert in space resources and professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Colorado School.
The study titled “Thermal extraction of ice in cold bodies of the solar system”, although simply called “thermal extraction” in a Phys article, describes a simple and at the same time innovative technique to obtain water from celestial bodies, which is also applicable to the moon
The NASA extraction process
The process consists of using a large mirror that reflects sunlight and concentrates it on the surface where the ice is . In this way, the ice transforms into water vapor and begins to break off from the surface.
Once the ice has turned to water vapor, it is required to be collected. Being in the air in the form of a suspension, when it is aspirated and transferred to a container, it will condense again in a liquid state. Later, astronauts can use it for human consumption, rocket propulsion and for breathing.
Explained that way it doesn’t seem so difficult. This is how Phys has collected it in the article:
“None of this is a huge technological leap: we don’t need to develop sophisticated technologies to make those three components. However, they have never been put to this use before, so it is worth taking the risk out of them.”
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