One day, there could be a pipeline of oxygen flowing from the moon’s south pole

The Artemis program intends to place people on the moon for the primary time since NASA’s Apollo missions. However Artemis has a bigger scope than simply touchdown folks there, establishing some science experiments, gathering moon rocks, enjoying somewhat golf, then leaving. The intent is to ascertain a constant presence.

That may require sources, and a type of crucial sources is oxygen.

Dr. Peter A. Curreri has been a NASA scientist for many years and has been a powerful proponent of human spaceflight. Since 2021, Curreri’s been the Chief Science Officer for Lunar Sources, Inc. Lunar Sources is proposing a novel idea for Artemis: an oxygen pipeline.

An ongoing human presence on Mars requires a couple of issues to succeed, and the muse of success is constructed on water and oxygen. The lunar south pole comprises huge portions of primordial water ice, frozen strong within the area’s craters the place daylight by no means reaches it. That ice might be melted and separated into hydrogen and oxygen.

Everybody concerned in lunar science is aware of this, and the established thought is that the ice could be processed in situ, and oxygen could be put in cryogenic stress vessels referred to as dewars and transported to wherever it was wanted. For the reason that equatorial areas have probably the most daylight and probably the most solar power, that is doubtless the place lunar bases can be established.

However as a substitute of bottling oxygen and transporting it, which may get sophisticated, Lunar Sources has one other thought: assemble an oxygen pipeline from the ice deposits on the south pole or from the place oxygen is being extracted from the regolith to amenities elsewhere on the moon. That concept has caught NASA’s consideration, and the Lunar South Pole Oxygen Pipeline (LSPOP) is a Part One mission at NIAC, the NASA Progressive Superior Idea program.

“We suggest the Lunar South Pole Oxygen Pipeline (L-SPoP), a gaseous oxygen pipeline on the moon’s south pole,” Curreri writes in a press launch explaining the thought. “A lunar pipeline has by no means been pursued and can revolutionize lunar floor operations for the Artemis program and cut back value and threat.”

Oxygen is crucial. We’d like it in human habitats, in automobiles, and in any life-support programs anyplace on the moon. We additionally want it as an oxidant for rocket gas. Ferrying giant portions of oxygen from the south pole to the equator may very well be cumbersome and would require devoted automobiles, tanks, and amenities. A pipeline would remove automobiles and different sources, together with human work hours, from the method.

“The method of transferring this oxygen on rovers is extra power intensive than the extraction course of and is regarded as the MOST costly side in acquiring in-situ oxygen to be used on the moon contemplating the lengthy distances a useful resource extraction space can be from a human habitat or liquification plant,” Curreri writes.

NASA has already invested important funding in oxygen and water extraction. Some efforts present that we may get sufficient oxygen from the regolith. However water can solely come from the ice on the poles, and it is sensible to get oxygen from there since a number of the water will must be break up to get hydrogen anyway.

Pipelines on Earth are an issue. However not on the moon. For a lunar oxygen pipeline, leaks do not matter. They do not pollute or trigger any injury. The oxygen merely escapes. There is not any shifting or altering floor to disrupt the pipeline. The one potential hazard is an affect.

Lunar Sources will discover totally different concepts for its lunar pipeline idea, however they’re beginning with a 5 km pipeline. “Our beginning idea is for a 5 km pipeline to move oxygen gasoline from an oxygen manufacturing supply, for instance, our molten regolith electrolysis (MRE) extraction website or another supply, to an oxygen storage/liquification plant close to a lunar base,” Curreri explains.

LSPOP could be manufactured in segments on the moon’s floor after which joined collectively in a 5 km size. The pipeline would doubtless be made from aluminum, which is plentiful on the moon’s floor, particularly on the south pole. “Different in-situ metals which may also be analyzed for consideration embody iron and magnesium,” Curreri writes.

The pipeline could be long-lived, repairable, and evolvable. It might even be cheaper than different strategies, although lunar manufacturing would nonetheless want some assist from Earth.

Lunar Sources says the pipeline may very well be constructed robotically from metals from the lunar regolith, although some minimal use of Earth supplies would nonetheless be wanted. It may be repaired robotically. NASA tasks that Artemis will want 10,000 kg of oxygen per 12 months initially, and the LSPOP can attain ship that with a circulation fee of about 2kg/hour. It wants minimal energy over its lifetime, could be very dependable, and its lifetime within the lunar setting would exceed 10 years.

The Lunar South Pole Oxygen Pipeline is a Part One choice within the NIAC Program. Which means NASA will fund a 9-month-long examine for the idea. It gives a possibility to discover the general viability and advance the Know-how Readiness Stage (TRL) of the LSPOP. After Part One ends, Lunar Sources can apply for Part Two funding, which develops ideas for as much as two years.