| A Spartan Scenario for a Lunar Mining Base |
| by David A. Dietzler 2007 The late Dr. Larry Haskin wrote about a spartan scenario for a lunar base. See: http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=1985lbsa.conf..435H In my view, this would consist of using: 1) unfluxed molten silicate electrolysis to produce oxygen, iron, iron-silicon alloy, silicon and ceramic blocks. Silicon could be zone refined to high purity for solar panels. Zone refining does not require chemicals that must be upported from Earth and will be done more easily in the low gravity and vacuum of the Moon than on Earth where it must be done in inert gas filled chambers and rods can't be too massive lest they fall apart at the motlen zone. 2) cast basalt tiles and linings. Cast basalt can resist 96% sulfuric acid so it could be used to line metal chambers used for acid leaching of regolith, but first we must develop the base to a point at which we can make H2SO4 leaching equipment on the Moon We'd have to mine sulfur present in regolith at about 500 ppm from vast areas of the mare to make the sulfuric acid. 3) sintered basalt bricks/blocks. It's my impression, based on discussion with an associate, that experiments were done on large cast basalt bricks or blocks and as they cooled various minerals solidified and settled at different temps, ruining their quality. However small cast basalt bricks have been made. See: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/publications/reports/TR98-01/98-01.abstracts.pdf BRICKS AND CERAMICS. C. C. Allen, Lockheed Martin Space Mission Systems and Services, 2400 NASA Road 1, Houston TX 77058, USA. Thus, sintering basalt may be the better ways to make large bricks and blocks. These would be porous enough to bond with cement mortar for wall construction. We must wonder how well cement mortar will hold up under the temp extremes of the lunar day/night cycle. While indoors this might not be a problem, out vac we might want to stack sintered basalt bricks and blocks and sinter them together with microwave heat to build radiation shields for habitat, solar furnaces (support structure for graphite crucibles), foundations for mounting machines, etc. It may eventually be possible to hew large solid basalt blocks out of the walls of lava tubes. 4) glass, fairly clear, from nearly pure beds of highland anorthosite, made by melting this regolith with concentrated solar energy. Glass could also be made from volcanic glass deposits. It may also be possible to extrude these glasses into fibers and bind them with a glass matric to make glass-glass composites also called GGC or Glax. 5) There are from 0.15% to 0.5 % elemental iron fines containing some nickel of meteoric origin in the regolith that could be extracted magnetically. Some of these iron particles are fused with glass (called agglutinates). Grinding could break up the glass and metal particals and magnets used to draw off the iron. This iron could be melted with solar heat and cast into various forms. Iron powders could be pressed into molds and sintered to make various parts. 6) Crucible steel. Iron from electrolysis and iron fines could be melted, cast into slabs in sand molds, hammered to drive out silica, then rolled into thin sheets. The sheets would be laid in a box made of ceramic blocks from molten silicate electrolysis and/or sintered basalt with correct amounts of carbon dust obtained by volatile harvesting in between them. This would be heated to red heat. about 1100 C. for 7 to 10 days and the result will be steel. To clean it up further the steel could be melted along with some CaO flux if necessary. This steel could be alloyed with titanium and/or silicon produced on the Moon. 7) Titanium. Ilmenite (FeTiO3) could be extracted electrostatically from mare regolith and reduced with hydrogen in a fluidized bed resulting in titanium dioxide and iron. Water produced would be electrolyzed to recover hydrogen and gain oxygen. Fused slag particals of TiO2 and iron could be ground up or the iron could be extracted with acid leaching. The TiO2 makes and excellent high temp ceramic and particals of it could be sintered in forms heated by microwaves. TiO2 could also be put into FFC cells to get titanium metal and oxygen. Titanium powder could be used to manufacture all sorts of small complex parts with electron beam of laser 3D additive sintering. 8) Volatiles. This should be at the top of the list! Dr. Kulcinski of U Wisconsin and his associates have designed volatile harvesting machines that could extract H2O, He, CO2, CO, CH4, N2 from the mare. Solar wind implanted H, C and N will react with oxygen in regolith and carbon will react with hydrogen to form these compounds when heated to about 900 C. in the miner's on board furnace. see: http://www.nasa-academy.org/soffen/travelgrant/gadja.pdf 9) Cement, concrete. According to Dr. T. D. Lin cement can be made by heating anorthostic regolith to 2000-2200 C. to drive off oxides of magnesium and iron and some silica too to increase the CaO content for cement. See: http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=1985lbsa.conf..381L Solar energy would be used to heat the anorthosite. Low mass foil or sheet metal reflectors could be used. Of course, to make cement and concrete we need water and that could be obtained by volatile harvesting and possibly from ice deposits in shadowed polar craters. Ice on the Moon has yet to be verified, and this is one of the most tantalizing indications made by Clementine and Lunar Prospector. 10) Aluminum, aluminum-copper alloy and lithium-aluminum alloy from scavenged ETs or other rocket upper stages. Producing aluminum on the Moon is not simple. Purified (by heating) anorthosite must be melted, cooled and ground fine, leached in H2SO4, the Al2(SO4)3 filtered off, roasted to aluminum oxide, then electrolyzed. Fluxed electrolysis (LiF/CaF flux) of purified anorthosite can produce O2, Si, Al and Ca. These processes are complex and require equipment that must either be upported or made on the Moon, but more challenging is that they require chemicals from Earth that must be recycled efficiently. Solar carbothermal reduction of Al2O3 obtained by acid leaching is also possible and seems simpler than these other processes. We must have electrical wires and cables. The Moon has almost no copper. If we can recover ETs or upper stages of a rocket like the Falcon 9 should it ever go into production, transport them to the Moon and melt them down and extrude aluminum and Al-Cu wire, we can get started wiring the Moon base. A 30 ton ET will yeild a lot of electrical wire! 11) Precious metals and other materials from scavenged satellites. Orbital debris is becoming a real problem. It threatans expensive commercial and defense satellites. Any future space program must involve orbital debris removal. There are thousands of pieces of space junk from old upper stages to dead satellites in orbit. Proposals have been made to zap them with lasers and such, but it would be better to use electrodynamic tether systems to snare these objects and collect them and deliver them to lunar orbit. ED tethers require no propellant; only solar energy. A veritable mountain of gold is already in high orbit! The development of electrodynamic/momentumn exhange tether systems would be of immense value not only for orbital debris removal but for transportation of cargos to LLO without propellant. See: http://www.spacetethers.com/ http://www.tethers.com/ Eventually, lunar industry will progress to a point at which very sophisticated machines can be built like cascade electrostatic mineral separators, perhaps CO direct reduction furnaces that can smelt large amounts of iron from silicates, high temperature plasma separators, electrophoresis devices for extracting trace elements, even bioleaching in microbial farms under well controlled conditions. But what good are these materials? We will use them to build fleets of helium 3 and volatile mining machines, drag lines, vehicles, more processing devices to increase materials production without upports from Earth of molten silicate electrolysis units, microwave furnaces, solar furnaces, fluidized beds, FFC cells, grinders, crushers, extruders, rolling mills, tilt hammers, etc. We will build modular underground manned bases with iron, titanium, steel and glass with interior furnishings, floors, and everyday items made of cast basalt. We will build extensive solar panel farms and eventually ring them around the Moon, first at high latitudes in polar regions where the Moon's circumference is not so great, connected by calcium cables (Ca is a better conductor than copper) for constant power during the lunar day/night cycle. We will build dirt roads with bulldozers and graders built on the Moon, cut and fills into rilles, perhaps even roads paved with basalt slabs and someday even monorails on the Moon. We will build mass drivers to launch lunar materials into space for the construction of solar power satellites, robotic asteroid mining ships and even spaceship fleets for the colonization and terraforming of the planet Mars and exploration of the solar system. Someday we will even engage in megascale engineering in space and interstellar travel. The Moon truly is our platform to the galaxy. |
 |
| This device requires no chemical reagents and has no moving parts. Oxygen purification will of course involve a gas cleaner and liquefaction will require pumps and space radiators shielded from the Sun and storage tanks. It operates at 1400-1600 C. and produces iron, Fe-Si alloy, silicon and ceramic bricks as well as O2. To extract Mg, Al and Ca would require higher temperatures and voltages and this leads to container and electrode materials problems as the molten silicate is very corrosive. |
 |
| Primary Lunar Construction Materials Dave Dietzler 2007 1) Iron (carbon free) from molten silicate electrolysis and iron fines mining. Nickel and cobalt can also be derived from iron fines. 2) Steel produced by the “blister” process, also called crucible or cementation process. Practicality of DRI is unknown. 3) Titanium from ilmenite separated electrostatically from mare regolith, reduced with H2 gas, yielding TiO2 and Fe, Fe removed with CO gas, TiO2 electrolyzed in FFC cells 4) Cast basalt 5) Glass from melted anorthite, volcanic glass deposits, possibly sulfuric acid leaching and vacuum volatilization from anorthite 6) Ceramics: TiO2, spinel-silicate blocks from magma electrolysis, fused calcium aluminate? 7) Glass-glass composites 8) Concrete inside of pressurized habitations and lava tubes made by high temp. roasting of anorthositic regolith to obtain cement, some calcium sulfate by acid leaching, and crushed slag, gravel, screened regolith for aggregate. Secondary Materials 1) Aluminum for wiring by roasting anorthite to CaAl2O4 and fluxed electrolysis. Calcium can also be used for cables out-vac 10 gauge Al wire can carry 25 amps. At 14.2 gr/m we need 14.2 kg/1000m and only14.2 metric tons per 1000 km! We could do plenty of wiring with that. 0000 cable 165 amps 290 gr/m 290 kg/km 290 tons/1000 km AWG 1000 cable 380 amps 1813 gr/m 1813 kg/km 1813 tons/1000 km Enormous quantities of aluminum are not needed since it will be used mainly for wiring and cables rather than structural purposes. Thus, the masses of flux upported to the Moon will be limited and not represent an excessive cost. 2) Magnesium for mining explosives 3) Chromium, manganese, sodium, potassium, chlorine, flourine, phosphorus have important uses but will not be required in huge masses. Possibility for extraction from lunar regolith exists. |