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Tre-Ursus t1_j8t21wm wrote

Reply to comment by invol713 in Nasa wants to build an oxygen pipeline on the moon by FlingingGoronGonads

Mining's a messy business, and regolith is nasty stuff that sticks to everything. You're going to want to keep that far away from any sensitive equipment and people.

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invol713 t1_j8uwtq9 wrote

Fair enough. It does make me wonder which is a worse environment for regolith mitigation… no atmosphere Moon, or light-atmosphere Mars?

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FlingingGoronGonads OP t1_j8xg61d wrote

I'm not sure that we know enough about Martian regolith to answer that yet. We really need those samples Perseverance is collecting back here in the lab...

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Tre-Ursus t1_j8v5yxx wrote

No atmosphere on the moon means weather doesn't blow it around like on Mars. But the moon is uniquely oxygen rich from circling the earth. The same technology won't be feasible on mars.

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FlingingGoronGonads OP t1_j8xfvkw wrote

Oxygen production is quite a bit easier on Mars, as it turns out. We've already produced O2 from the CO2 atmosphere. That's a lot easier than importing oxygen from Earth or extracting it from Lunar rock, as per this NASA proposal.

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Tre-Ursus t1_j8xmrjx wrote

The oxygen extracted from lunar rock is a byproduct. The main goal is the aluminum, iron, and silicon that's leftover.

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