Lunar Mining, Processing & Refining (Narration Only)
Science & Futurism with Isaac Arthur
00:00
The Cost of Oxygen Production on the Moon
We go through a little under a kilogram a day per person, 0.84 kilograms or 1.85 pounds on the space station and presumably the consumption would be similar on the moon. Around 15 years back, Derek Frey of Cambridge had put together a reactor that could do about a kilogram of oxygen for 142 megajoules. We also have magma electrolysis, where you melt a lunar regolith by running electric current with it, liberating oxygen at temperatures of 1400 degrees Celsius or 2500 Fahrenheit. Given that making big shiny metal panels shaped as parabolic dishes out of native aluminum is not that hard of a process, one could imagine landing with some prebuilt ones to build more in
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