Extracting Water from the Moon

-

 

Photo by Allen Kaluzniak


I've always found space exploration fascinating. I still remember the excitement when hearing about our first attempts to orbit the earth, our challenge to reach the moon. I still feel my family's amazement as Neil Armstrong took his first steps there in 1969. 

The moon is garnering new interest lately. NASA's Artemis Mission will establish a long-term presence on the moon to continue scientific discovery and technology innovation. As such, they plan to implement sustainable infrastructure using in-situ resources. 

Understanding the critical importance of water, NASA's astronauts will collect and remove large amounts of water and icy regolith, a loose rocky soil layer, from an area near the moon's south pole. To find the best way to accomplish this, NASA opened the Break the Ice Lunar Challenge in November 2020. 

On August 18, 2021 NASA awarded $500,000 in prizes to the winners of Phase 1. In this phase, teams designed a system to collect and move large amounts of the icy regolith and water. Proudly, the first place finisher was Redwire Space, headquartered here in Jacksonville, Florida. Phase 2 will include demonstration and hardware development.

Photo by Donna Kaluzniak

Harvesting resources from the moon is something other countries may have in mind as well, as China, Russia, Israel, India and Japan are in the game. 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Setback for Cleaning the Ocean of Plastic

-
Image
Dolphin at Marineland, FL Photo by Donna Kaluzniak My last blog post was about The Ocean Cleanup , a massive project for removing plastic debris from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP). After successfully completing Pacific trials in September 2018, the long trip to the GPGP began. On October 16, 2018 System 001, nicknamed "Wilson," was deployed. After tweaking and testing Wilson through November and December, it appeared the system was attracting and concentrating plastic, but could not retain it. At the end of December, the crew found that an 18-meter end-section of the system became detached. The December 31, 2018 Project Update noted the crew planned to return to port earlier than planned, and as soon as weather permitted. This allows them to make necessary upgrades to the system. Even with the malfunction, Wilson and the crew are bringing back 2,000 kilograms of plastic recovered by the system and from ghost net fishing. Some setbacks are to be exp
Read more

The Most Ambitious Project To Rid The World's Ocean Of Plastic--An Update

-
Image
Photo Courtesy of Pixabay  I've talked about The Ocean Cleanup before on this blog. The Ocean Cleanup is the most ambitious project of its kind. The goal is to clean up 50 percent of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP), the largest accumulation of ocean plastic in the world. Located between California and Hawaii, it's one of five gyres (circular systems of ocean currents) that accumulate plastic garbage. Once the plastic is retrieved, it's hoped that most of it can be recycled. The GPGP is twice the size of Texas and contains an estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic with a total weight of about 80,000 tons. The Ocean Cleanup technology includes passive floating barriers to concentrate and capture the debris. Natural ocean forces are used to capture the debris. Electronics used for monitoring and controlling the system are all solar powered. The system is modular, allowing improvements to be made based on experience and funding. What's Been Comp
Read more

Air & Weather: What Does the State of the Climate in 2016 Report Mean to You?

-
Image
I've been hearing a lot lately about the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) State of the Climate Report for 2016 . This is an international, peer-reviewed, annual report summarizing global climate issues. It's assembled by NOAA at the National Centers for Environmental Information. Nearly 500 scientists from around the world contribute data for the report, including air and sea temperatures, ice pack conditions, humidity, number and strength of storms, drought conditions and more. The comprehensive report is then published as a supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS) . You can download the full report  here, or from the link above you can download individual chapters if you prefer. A summary of the report is available on NOAA's BAMS site , plus copies of all the past reports for the last 27 years. An interesting PowerPoint presentation on the report contains good graphics that visually show the report
Read more