{"id":101091,"date":"2020-01-19T22:44:03","date_gmt":"2020-01-20T06:44:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/01\/esa-opens-plant-that-turns-moondust-into-oxygen"},"modified":"2020-01-19T22:44:03","modified_gmt":"2020-01-20T06:44:03","slug":"esa-opens-plant-that-turns-moondust-into-oxygen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/01\/esa-opens-plant-that-turns-moondust-into-oxygen","title":{"rendered":"ESA opens plant that turns moondust into oxygen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/esa-opens-plant-that-turns-moondust-into-oxygen.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>If humans are going to have a long-term <a href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2019\/03\/26\/vp-pence-vows-us-return-to-moon-by-2024\/\">presence on the Moon<\/a>, they\u2019re going to need breathable air and rocket fuel \u2014 and the ESA might just have a way to create both using the Moon itself. The agency is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.esa.int\/Enabling_Support\/Space_Engineering_Technology\/ESA_opens_oxygen_plant_making_air_out_of_moondust\">running<\/a> a prototype plant that converts moondust (currently simulated, of course) into oxygen that could be used for air and fuel. The technique unlocks the high amounts of oxygen in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2014\/11\/07\/3d-printed-moon-base-video\/\">regolith<\/a> using molten salt electrolysis that superheats the dust and migrates the oxygen along the salt until it\u2019s collected at an anode. The basic process has already been used for metal and alloy production, but the ESA tweaked it to ensure oxygen was available to measure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If humans are going to have a long-term presence on the Moon, they\u2019re going to need breathable air and rocket fuel \u2014 and the ESA might just have a way to create both using the Moon itself. The agency is running a prototype plant that converts moondust (currently simulated, of course) into oxygen that could [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1497,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101091\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}