Very interesting

via Transterrestrial Musings, Tapping the Richness of Space

quote:

Jerry Sanders from NASA’s Johnson Space Center said that the agency has developed a robot processor that can break down lunar soils and extract oxygen for use in life support and as a rocket propellant. Sanders says that it doesn’t take a huge refinery to do this. A device the size of a lawnmower, processing just 4 cups of soil per minute, will produce 10 metric tons of oxygen annually. NASA has already put a prototype of the oxygen processor through its paces in Hawaii. [emphasis added]--- article by Tom Jones, who is a veteran NASA astronaut, planetary scientist, and co-author of Planetology: Unlocking the Secrets of the Solar System.

comment:

Something the size of a lawnmower would not take a big rocket to get it there.  That means existing rockets could probably do the job.  In turn, it means that it wouldn't be too expensive of a project.

The benefits would be an oxidizer for a liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen type propulsion that was used on the shuttle.  Here's how it could work.  You would carry the hydrogen down to the station, but without the oxygen on board for the trip back up.  For that, you would gather that from the lunar surface station just mentioned in the above quote.  This reduces the mass needed to carry down, which in turn reduces the size of the rocket system to get you down and back up.  In other words, it simplifies the task of landing on the moon and getting back.  Seven eighths of the mass needed would be the oxygen, and you are getting that from the surface for the trip back up.  That is a significant savings.

Of course, if you found a hydrogen source on the moon, then you wouldn't even need to carry the hydrogen for the return trip, which adds to the benefits.  For the moment though, saving on the oxygen mass is the most  significant thing.  It gets you started.

You could place one of these robots near a lava tube.  This would be a suitable location for exploration, because a robot may not be sufficient for the job of determining if these are suitable for shelter against radiation.

If lava tubes have water, like permanent shaded craters do, you could really have something to work with.