What is Digg?58 Comments
- pype, on 10/12/2007, -3/+73I used a similar scientific process to convert ants into fire.
- Quickbreak, on 10/12/2007, -3/+27Puffarthur's right. Most of our oxygen comes from algae in the ocean.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -10/+34Maybe somebody should figure out a way to extract oxygen from otherwise useless hippies.
- youngerpants, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17rember the Fire Triangle?
no fuel, only oxygen & heat - konkushn, on 10/12/2007, -4/+17It would be freaky to look up at the moon at night and see it totally green with vegetation, cities and crops.
- Progranism, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8konkushn:
The moon doesn't have enough gravity to hold a stable atmosphere. You'd more likely see big green bubbles on the moon, where we've established environment controlled domes. - sinn0304, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7somebody used some old school ant killing technology to turn lunar dirt into oxygen? who says we need higher education...
- puffarthur, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Yes, there is someone who would invest to put a giant lens on the Moon: the US government. It sure beats hauling all of that oxygen in gigantic tanks. This is really important because:
"Nasa plans to repeat the same processs on the Moon to produce oxygen, which could support life and be used to help fuel rockets setting out on deep-space missions.
At the moment, all oxygen supplies would have to be brought from Earth, which is so expensive and energy-inefficient that it effectively rules out a permanent Moon base. "
A PERMANENT Moon base. We would use it as a midway refueling point for manned missions to Mars and other points in our Solar System. And why do we need to go to Mars? Because eventually we want to colonize it in case a huge asteroid comes and wipes out human life on Earth. Don't keep all your eggs in one basket. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Great if it means people basing on the moon, fantastic
- redDC143C, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"There's two big problems
1) atmosphere should be roughly 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen, plus water vapor (1%) and argon (1%). While oxygen is "easy" to produce, I don't think there's a good source of nitrogen or water over there.
2) there's not enough gravity to keep these gases near the surface"
1) That is only if you are trying to re-create Earth's atmosphere. For humans to survive, they really only need oxygen, however, I'm sure nitrogen would be helpful, so the first time someone uses something flammable, the entirety of the moon does not go up in flames (although that would be a rather neat thing to see in the night sky).
2) You're probably right about this - but you're assuming we are planning on just letting it "float around up there". No way - we will most likely have some type of sealable enclosures, like domes, to solve this issue. It would be many many many years before we could create an atmosphere on the moon to provide sufficient protection against radiation from the sun. - quakefiend, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4... so it takes a few hours to make enough oxygen to sustain life for 30 seconds
- vdoogs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Notice there is no credit to any specific researchers or groups in the article, just a comment from "Dr Eric Cardiff, an engineer at Nasas Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland". This discovery was probably made in a graduate lab at a university. Nasa rarely gives credit to the actual researchers, usually just letting its own "engineers" comment, or giving the credit to "research conducted under Nasa's xxxx facility" or "under the guidance of xxxxx at Nasa's xxxx facility".
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3How nice. Scientists finally 'discovered' a method author Robert A. Heinlein wrote extensively about in the late '50s/early '60s.
- lnxaddct, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3redDC143,
You're wrong. Humans need nitrogen and a few other gases too. If you're breathing 100% oxygen for a few days... you'll be dead quickly from oxygen poisoning. There is a reason scuba diver's tanks aren't 100% oxygen, but rather gases of the natural ratios of the atmosphere (nitrogen and oxygen are arguably the most essential though). Your second point is right though, the moon can't hold an atmosphere, so we'd make biodomes. We could even have some kind of closed spinning structure so that humans can walk around and feel like they are under the same forces as earth's natural gravity. In fact, we'd need to do that in order to avoid calcium degradation in our bones and make them fragile. - BlackPhantom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Sounds like something a doped up psychic would come out with in the 70s...
"Dude, we are gonna burn moon dust with a giant magnifying glass so we can breath up there!" - shad0w, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Getting even a 12ft lense up into space would be a bitch. This can't possible be feasible unless they somehow transport the lense in pieces, or set up hundreds of smaller lenses.
- dinoman1989, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Dude. Your oil analogy; it sucks.
We are talking about Silicon Dioxide. Sand. The Moon's crust. It's what its made out of. And it's everywhere. The moon's crust is 50% oxygen by mass, and while it will take a lot of energy to free oxygen and break those tenacious silicon-oxygen bonds, oxygen is not a 'finite' element on the moon by any means. Whereas oil is an energy-rich, exaustable natural resource, oxygen is more like a hard to produce finished product, with energy being the limiting reagent in its production. - JulianMorrison, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Best way to build a hardened bunker (against vacuum, radiation, heat, micrometeors) is to dig down like moles.
- twinklyJesus, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6"If all rainforest is cut down there will be catastrophic side effects."
Yup, no more shade. - tommythetomcat, on 10/12/2007, -16/+18Maybe we could try this on earth after we cut down all the rain forests
- puffarthur, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It gets pelted just as often as any other planet, including Earth. We don't see as many impact craters on Earth because of erosion, plant growth, weather, and human factors that cover them up. But you are correct, since the Moon lacks much of an atmosphere there isn't much friction with gases to burn up asteroids, so we'd have to build some kind of hardened bunker for the Moon base.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Moonbase ahoy.
- illt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2i always wondered, how often does the moon get pelted by space debris due to lack of an atmo, and can it be predicted with sufficient time before hand?
- JulianMorrison, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Nah, Heinlein had it right: building a pressure dome on the moon is dumb, once you actually have the facilities to do more than mere tents and camping. The reason being: why build an expensive, technically complex pressure tight wall that doesn't do much to block radiation, when the moon itself is made of pressure-tight low-tech rock that stops basically everything? Domes may still see some use for farms. People will live underground.
- rm999, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Gaseous elemental oxygen (O2) is not stable - the only reason why we have it in our atmoshere is the life cycle. Scientists know of know way oxygen can exist like it does on Earth without life to continusuosly produce it. If we did something like this on the moon we would have to trap it and use it.
- webcrumb, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3The space shuttle's cargo bay is 60ft by 15ft. So you could very easily transport four on one trip, and that's not packed very efficiently. Once you've set up a permanent moon orbiter station, it becomes a pretty trivial matter.
- JulianMorrison, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1On t'other hand, this has to be an awfully fire-prone process. White-hot pure oxygen is rather unforgiving stuff if it does actually meet up with anything burnable.
- geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"The moon doesn't have enough gravity to hold a stable atmosphere. You'd more likely see big green bubbles on the moon, where we've established environment controlled domes."
You likely wouldn't be able to see them /at all/; a one-hundred meter structure at 385k kilometers away from Earth (on average) will be completely invisible to the naked eye, and to all but the best orbital telescopes. - kb9vgr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1dont we already do that but only with mirrors and its kinda looks like mirror =( or ) water tower=p so it looks like
( ( P ) ) - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Bet the oxygen smelt of burnt moon rock though.
- johndi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Or you could just make it there, glass is made from SiO2. I think that several smaller lenses would be much more practical, without much of an atmosphere to help dissipate the heat you probably wouldn't need as many solar concentrators.
You could also use a parabolic reflector, which would be sturdier and weigh less. It could be sent up as part of the lander to cut back on weight even more (that would however increase the price and limit you on your design). It would work best as an array, and use could mix lenses and reflectors if desired. [edit] I just reread the article it says it's a dish.
The Space Shuttle isn't going to the moon anytime soon. - webcrumb, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3OK, so how about we use this to superheat water and drive some turbines?
Free energy, anyone? - geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Google "Sterling Engines". Same concept, only terrestrial. Using a massive 60 ft parabolic reflector, focused on the input manifold of the Sterling engine superheats the liquid inside, causing it to move past a turbine which then is connected to an electrical generator. One company is already working on a 500MW installation of these devices in California.
- Jutral, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1A point? How about $250,000 :-)
http://www.space.com/news/050519_moonrox_challenge.html - charlietuna, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1'cuz the Chinese are going to land there next?
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/chirbase.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_program_of_China
We didn't go there the first time for high minded reasons, so why should this time around be different? Unless I'm mistaken, international law favors those who maintain a presence in foreign territory (eg. on the moon) over those who arrive and make claims first. So if China lands there, we'll be busting the budget to head back.
I expect we'd want China to loan us the money to do so too. - FuManchu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This article seems like another NASA / US gov't press release recycling decades-old sci-fi for propaganda purposes.
++ to the guys who noted that R.A.Heinlein had already worked out several ideas for lunar colonization.
NASA cannot currently get men to the ISS or back without Russian help. And they're going to send who to the moon when? The US Federal Gov't is already technically bankrupt by any rational [or legal] standard of accounting. - KntckyFrdBnBn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Does this mean that soon we'll get to go where no man has gone before, and then proceed to get it on with the hot alien babes we find when we get there?
Seriously, though: whoo! Making the colonization of space more viable! - olegk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2There's two big problems
1) atmosphere should be roughly 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen, plus water vapor (1%) and argon (1%). While oxygen is "easy" to produce, I don't think there's a good source of nitrogen or water over there.
2) there's not enough gravity to keep these gases near the surface - JulianMorrison, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Nitrogen is substitutable for any other biologically inert gas (eg: helium) and is recycled rather than consumed. Once you have enough, you only have to worry about replenishing leaks. It's also fairly easy to liquefy and trans-ship.
- treelovinhippie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Is there a point to this? ... What so we're going to inhabit the moon and use masses of energy required to turn moondust into oxygen?
Um, wouldn't it be better to just take a tonne of plants up there and get them to cycle the carbon dioxide we'd breathe into O2? - charlietuna, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Why do people constantly confuse science with technology?
From: http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/trinity/watistec.html
...Change in the material environment is the explicit purpose of technology, and not, as is the case with science, the understanding of nature; accordingly its solutions are not right or wrong, verifiable or falsifiable, but more or less effective from different points of view. - daverave999, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I assume you haven't googled 'Sterling Engines' as they don't contain turbines...
- rbowes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0No, it smelt like cheese
- JulianMorrison, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Plants on the moon are hard (seeds, hydroponics, water, air, rad shielding, wait time etc), parabolic mirrors are easy, and energy rains down brighter than Sahara noon from sunrise to sunset.
- cybe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Lunar colony. Loony. We can't even live on planet earth without destroying it rapidly, how could we possibly live on a dead rock?
- ptbarnett, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Humans can breathe 100% oxygen for prolonged periods. The pressure has to be less than 1 atmosphere (14.7 psi).
Normal air is 21% oxygen -- with 100% oxygen, you just need enough enough pressure to match the partial pressure of oxygen (i.e. 0.21 atmosphere, or about 3 psi). As a bonus, it would be much easier to seal an enclosed area with a pressure differential of only 3 psi. - Osjpr, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2Truth hurts
- webcrumb, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3"The Space Shuttle isn't going to the moon anytime soon."
Neither are people using lens-like structures to convert dust to oxygen. :) - puffarthur, on 10/12/2007, -24/+21we will not run low on oxygen even if we cut them all down.
- Osjpr, on 10/12/2007, -10/+7If all rainforest is cut down there will be catastrophic side effects.
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