Mining the Sky, Revisited

A stroll down memory lane here. This was one of the early influences upon the writings in this here blog way back when. Elon Musk may want to go to Mars, but he may want to visit the moon first. The reason being is that the moon has resources that can be used for his Mars ambitions. Mining the moon for its resources is on par with the spirit of that book.

The moon has abundant amounts of oxygen. It may not be made of cheese, but there's plenty of other good things there. One thing that just came to mind is that the solar wind could be responsible for the water on the moon. What if it was possible to mine vast stretches of the lunar surface for its particles coming via the solar wind? Would it be enough?

Over the course of time, yes. But over the time scales that we live in, which could be a matter of days or weeks, maybe not. It could be made up for, maybe, with the use of the materials at hand, which could capture the charged particles which can be used as a resource.

The solar wind exerts a definite pressure. It is the pressure of charged particles traveling at high velocities. This may be the reason for the water traps on the moon. The highly charged hydrogen nuclei could've been initially trapped and converted into water with the oxygen available on the lunar surface. In cold places where there is no sun, the water froze, and couldn't escape. It accumulated over time. It is believed that there could be vast resevoirs of water trapped in these permanently shaded craters.

I was also thinking that since these are electrically charged particles, could it be possible to mine them for electricity? The particles could induce an electrical current if they could be concentrated somehow. It may also be possible to collect them in the metal hydride devices discussed in an earlier post. The hydrogen could be mined to produce electricity and water.

With these resources, you could leverage them into additional resources, such as food. It is much less energy intensive to launch from the moon than from Earth. If there is sufficient reason to stop at the moon on the way to Mars, it may be worth it.