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Ask HN: Who's working on making Moon oxygen?

1 points by avmich ↗ HN
The Starship of SpaceX is getting more and more ready for orbital flights. However the design of the rocket is such that for any flights except to the low earth orbit (LEO) Starship needs refueling, which means a lot of propellant mass also needs to get delivered to LEO, in addition to the Starship itself and its payload.

This is partially because Starship (2nd) stage is relatively big for the Super Heavy (1st) stage. The benefit is that Starship, once fueled, can add large delta-V to large masses. The drawback is that great need of refueling.

It's long known that from energy standpoint it's much easier to get mass to LEO from the Moon than from the Earth. The Moon has plenty of oxygen, in form of oxides on the surface, and oxygen part is about 3 times bigger than methane part in the total propellant mass. So as soon as Starship flies to LEO and needs to fly further - instead of just returning to the Earth from LEO - that oxygen would be needed.

The technology of producing oxygen on the Moon is being developed for a long time - energy sources, chemical plant, packaging and delivery (possibly with electromagnetic guns) to a high Moon orbit and then to LEO. It's not ready of course but no significant scientific roadblocks are expected there. So as soon as we can move reasonably sized equipment on the Moon, we can start building an oxygen production and delivery system.

We have maybe a few years before Starship will be ready to move masses to LEO, so the subsequent destinations would come into question. I wonder if some organization is pursuing this opportunity, which may become an interesting milestone in development of space technologies and markets.

3 comments

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cratermoon
> in form of oxides on the surface

It takes a lot of energy. 3 hours at 1050°C seems to be the optimum[1]. This might be easy to achieve in labs with small quantities, but don't discount the massive infrastructure to do so at production levels. By 'massive', I mean just that: lots of mass. What's the break-even point where the energy out exceeds the energy put in?

avmich
Yes, it will require a plant on the surface of the Moon, but the technological chain is rather short, so maybe it could be somewhat limited in mass.

You'll need energy, which could be collected with solar panels, the system, like bulldozers and excavators, for gathering regolith, pulverizing rocks, the reactor, the collector for volatiles, the oxygen separator and oxygen liquifier. Next you'll probably need containers for oxygen, maybe electromagnetic mass driver to accelerate those containers to about 2.4 km/s, which will also need some energy.

All these components are rather well known technologically and discussed for long time; I don't remember a forbidding level of energy being mentioned.

gregjor
No one. Most likely this won't happen in our lifetimes. No Starship refueling in orbit, no lifting larges masses into orbit, or to the moon, much less Mars. It's not "maybe a few years," but not anytime soon, not anytime worth planning for or fantasizing about.

You can continue to believe in the ever-moving Musk goalposts, the sci-fi future always a couple of years away. Come back in those "few years" and let's see who got it right.

I watched the first moon landing on TV as a child. Like many people I have wanted to see orbiting space stations, moon colonies, travel to Mars and beyond my whole life. Watching a narcissistic grifter hijack those dreams with bullshit and lies to feed his own ego and bank account makes me feel more than disappointed.