It’s been 56 years since Neil Armstrong plonked a boot on the Moon and made history.
Yet, much to the rest of humanity’s annoyance, they haven’t followed in his footsteps – literally.
The grey, pockmarked orb doesn’t exactly scream real estate, but Nasa hopes to build homes for astronauts and civilians on the Moon by 2040.
Chinese scientists have suggested that this might not be as far-fetched as it might seem – the soil on the Moon could potentially support life.
According to a study, the Chinese University of Hong Kong have invented a way to extract water from the chalky lunar soil.
This celestial water is then used to convert carbon dioxide – such as that exhaled by astronauts – into carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas, which can be used to make fuel and oxygen for the astronauts to breathe.
Just like on Earth, fuel and food would be costly on the Moon, given how expensive it would be flying up essentials into space.
Travelling light is critical to spaceflight, where just one kilogram of supplies can cost well over £74,000 to ship up by rocket.
And this includes water, too. The academics estimated that getting a single gallon of water to the Moon would cost £61,000, barely enough to quench the four gallons an astronaut would drink a day.
But the researchers say this technology could ‘potentially open new doors for future deep space exploration’ by eliminating these eye-watering costs.
Lead researcher Lu Wang said: ‘We never fully imagined the “magic” that the lunar soil possessed.’
(Pictures: Heritage Space/Heritage Images)
Appearances are deceiving when it comes to water on the Moon, where years of being pelted with asteroids and comets have left water on it.
Shadowy craters on the lunar poles, known as permanently shadowed regions (PSRs), never see sunshine, meaning there’s water ice tucked inside minerals such as ilmenite.
The tool developed by the Chinese researchers would involve taking the reoglith – a layer of loose material that blankets solid rock – of ilmenite and heating it using sunlight to release the water.
Carbon dioxide is then chucked in, causing the ilmenite to undergo photothermal catalysis – a novel method that uses sunlight to speed up chemical reactions.
Wang added in a statement that ‘one-step integration of lunar water extraction and photothermal carbon dioxide catalysis’ could make efforts to build lunar outposts or Tescos (we assume) more energy efficient.
Easier said than done, however, the researchers said, given that ‘drastic temperature fluctuations’, radiation and low gravity can make harvesting oxygen and water from the land tricky.
Nasa’s plan to build a colony on the Moon similarly involves making the most of the materials already there.
The plan, first reported on in 2023, will involve blasting a 3-D printer into the heavens that will build structures out of lunar concrete created from the rock chips, mineral fragments and dust that cover the Moon.
This debris is harmful to humans and is easily kicked up into the air – or rather, the lack of it – as astronauts lumber around in their heavy boots.
The first lunar Americans could get some neighbours pretty soon, with South Korea to develop lunar landers by 2040 before building a ‘lunar economic base by 2045’, according to The Korea Times.
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