| Lunar Water and Carbon Some will argue that there is no water or carbon on the Moon for making steel, cement, CN ultracapacitors, acetylene or carbide ceramics. Actually, there is water and carbon on the Moon but not a lot of it, so we must be careful about how we use it and recycle it also. From: http://www.nasa-academy.org/soffen/travelgrant/gadja.pdf We find that a mining machine that can go through six million tons of regolith per year and heat it up to 700 C. will obtain 109 tons of H2O, 201 tons of H2, 16.5 tons of N2, 56 tons of CO2, 63 tons of CO, 53 tons of CH4, 102 tons of He4 and 33 kg. of He3. That's 82 tons of carbon contained in CO2, CO and CH4. If 201 tons of H2 is combined with 1600 tons of O2 that's another 1800 tons of H2O. There might also be water ice in shadowed polar craters and this ice might contain carbon and nitrogen compounds like those found in comets. With 102 tons of helium 4 we will have plenty for cooling systems and solar thermal turbines. Nitrogen is the element that exists in short supply, not carbon, hydrogen or helium. |
 |