Lunar Mining, Processing & Refining
Science & Futurism with Isaac Arthur
00:00
How to Extract Oxygen From Simulated Moon Rock in 8 Hours or Less
NASA is offering a $1 million prize to the first team that can extract 5 kilograms of oxygen from simulated moon rock in 8 hours or less. That might not sound like much, and indeed it is not for fuel, but it is all the oxygen you need for several humans to breathe during that time. We go through a little under a kilogram a day per person, 0.84 kilograms or 1.85 pounds on the space station; presumably the consumption would be similar on the moon. If I wanted to get 10,000 kilograms or 10 tons of oxidizer produced every day during a day cycle on the moon, we are talking over a trillion joules of energy - 16 meg
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