Would firing “lightning arcs” across the moon’s surface allow us to simultaneously mine metal and water from the moon’s surface?
For years, the concept of “moon mining“has intrigued scientists, space agencies and entrepreneurs. Our rocky satellite harbors precious resources such as water and metals that could be critical to future manned missions, such as water, that 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 an interest in moon mining. The United States Government even a green-lit policy support lunar mining in 2020.
A new technique called “ ablative arc mining, ” which is part of a project led by Amelia Grieg, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Texas Aerospace Center at El Paso, allowing water, metals, and other resources to all be pulled from it lunar surface material all at once, an improvement over older lunar mining concepts and methods.
The technique would use an electric arc, Grieg told Space.com, and would be “like lightning throwing across the moon’s surface.”
Related: At home on the moon: how to build a lunar settlement (infographic)
This technique was recently chosen 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 creating breakthroughs – radically better or entirely new space concepts. – while engaging America’s innovators and entrepreneurs as partners in the journey, ” according to the agency
In the art, arcs of electric current across two electrodes would sublimate frozen water from the lunar regolith or surface material and turn it into water vapor. It would also pull other things like metals out of the lunar material. The electric arc would then split the water (or other materials such as metals) into ionized particles.
Subsequently, electric fields direct those ionized particles to capture chambers. So the technique would suck resources out of the lunar regolith in one fell swoop and collect them for later use.
With the NIAC program, Grieg and her team will be engaged in this concept, testing it in a lab environment and working on a technology system based on the concept that can mine and collect approximately 22,000 pounds. (10,000 kilograms) of water per year, among other sources.
Previous lunar mining concepts have used “thermal ablation,” which heats water frozen in the lunar regolith and pulls it out as water vapor that can then be collected. But with an atmosphere as thin as the moon’s, “the water vapor just diffuses in all directions, and you can’t really tell which way to go,” Grieg told Space.com. Thermal ablation also does not allow multiple types of resources to be extracted simultaneously, as ablative arc mining does.
But if you ionize this water with the electric arc, Grieg explained, ‘you can push them [the particles] exactly where you want them. You lead them through these virtual electric magnetic fields into a small collection area, and you can collect a lot more water that you can get from the moon. ”
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The main challenge in ablative arc mining is that it takes quite a bit of force to create an electric arc in the moon’s barely-there atmosphere.
Another challenge is creating a robotic system that could potentially operate autonomously, Barry W. Finger, chief engineer at aerospace company Paragon, who is not involved in this project or research, told Space.com about the general prospect of lunar mining. This is “because it will be a while that we will essentially get a significant number of people to work on the lunar surface,” he added.
While Grieg and her team work to test this concept in a lab and ultimately design a prototype to test for actual use in space, the talks here on Earth continue not just about how to use resources in places like the Moon. and Mars, but also how to use those resources.
“At least within the community that I’m a part of,” said Grieg, “we’re looking at moon mining, not necessarily for commercial interests, but to help have human settlements on the moon in the future. . ”
Grieg added that it “might be impossible to have settlements on the moon” without being able to collect lunar water and other resources. “And because the Moon is such an important gateway to get to Mars, we would probably struggle to have human settlements on Mars in the future.”
Related: The search for water on the moon (photos)
Still, many are concerned that by extracting resources from destinations outside of Earth, such as the moon, our species is plundering and polluting even more worlds than ours. This is why the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which continues to evolve, helps guide space agencies and businesses in the use of space resources.
“You can look around the Earth, where as stewards of our own planet we haven’t done a great job,” Finger said. However, he added that the moon has been bombarded with radiation and impacts for so long and is so inhospitable to life that arguments for saying we shouldn’t treat the moon the way we treated the Earth don’t hold much weight to it . “I don’t see that 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.