Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Image credit: BIG Idea Challenge/NASA/Advanced Concepts Lab

As NASA revs up its plan to “re-boot” the Moon through the Artemis program, a long-term aim calls for explorers to hunker down thanks to “sustainable” infrastructure on the lunar landscape.

The key to doing so is use of on-the-spot lunar resources, known in NASAese as in-situ resources utilization, or ISRU for short.

Cutting the umbilical to Earth for transporting materials is a cost-saver – and also serves as good practice, enabling humankind to take ever-deeper dives into space, such as destination Mars.

For the moment, a top priority for ISRU system development has been the extraction of oxygen, and other volatiles, since they are the easiest to extract from the topside surface called regolith.

Image credit: NASA

The next priority is the extraction of metals from the Moon, making it possible to fabricate pressure vessels, pipes, power cables, as well as roads, landing pads, and other need-to-haves.

Practical, affordable ways

To this end, NASA’s Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative is working to develop and demonstrate technologies to use the Moon’s resources to produce water, fuel, and other supplies as well as capabilities to excavate and construct structures on the Moon.

“We need practical and affordable ways to use resources along the way, rather than carrying everything we think will be needed. Future astronauts will require the ability to collect space-based resources and transform them into the products needed for a sustained presence,” according to the 2023 BIG Idea Challenge.

NASA’s 2023 annual Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-Changing (BIG) Idea Challenge asked college students to design technologies that will support a metal production pipeline on the Moon – from extracting metal from lunar minerals to creating structures and tools.
Image credits: BIG Idea Challenge/NASA/Advanced Concepts Lab

The Breakthrough, Innovative, and Game-Changing (BIG) Idea Challenge is managed by the National Institute of Aerospace on behalf of NASA.

Lunar forge

The 2023 BIG Idea Challenge is “Lunar Forge: Producing Metal Products on the Moon.” It provides undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to design, develop, and demonstrate technologies that will enable the production of lunar infrastructure from ISRU-derived metals found on the Moon.

In early March, NASA announced the selection of seven university teams to develop concepts supporting metal production on the Moon.

NASA’s Artemis program wants to establish a sustainable presence on the Moon.
Image credit: NASAThe awards total about $1.1 million, with values between $120,000 and $180,000 based on each team’s proposed concept.

The challenge is a unique collaboration between NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate’s (STMD) Game Changing Development (GCD) program and NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement Space Grant Project.

Variety of themes

Teams were asked to submit proposals on a variety of themes, such as:

• Prospecting for metal-bearing ores
• Ore extraction from bulk regolith
• Beneficiation/Refining processes
• Smelting and other metal reduction methods
• Feedstock forming and alloying from ISRU-derived metals
• Handling of materials used in metal production
• Additive manufacturing and joining with ISRU-derived feedstock
• Production of metal matrix composites
• Extrusion and drawing methods tailored for use in the lunar environment where a complex infrastructure is not available
• Test and qualification of ISRU-derived metal products such as storage vessels for liquids and gases, extrusions, pipes, power cables, and supporting structures

Once funded, teams are continuing their work on designing, building, and testing their concepts in advance of a November 2023 forum, where their concepts will be showcased to the public and judged by a panel of NASA and industry experts.

What equipment can work well while withstanding the tough lunar environment?
Image credit: Contour Crafting and University of Southern California

Abundant minerals

Wrap your mind around what the Moon has to offer.

There are several abundant minerals containing potential metals on the lunar surface that make them prime targets of opportunity, including, but not limited to:

Ilmenite (FeTiO3) ore, a key lunar resource is the fourth most abundant mineral on the Moon’s surface. Ilmenite is a titanium-iron oxide mineral and is a likely candidate for oxygen production with the byproducts being iron and titanium dioxide. Ilmenite is “paramagnetic, thus it can be sorted with magnetic fields.

Also, iron can be extracted through a smelting process and converted into feedstock. Titanium Dioxide can be reduced to titanium and oxygen. Titanium can be formed into wire feedstock for electron beam free form fabrication production of large objects such as pressure vessels. The lunar near vacuum environment is ideal for free form fabrication production.

Image credit: NASA

On the Moon, look for Anorthite (CaAl2Si2O8), most commonly proposed as a lunar substitute for Bauxite. Anorthite could be separated from the lunar highland material with mechanical methods. It could then be reduced through various chemical and electrochemical methods to produce aluminum.

For detailed information on the 2023 BIG Idea Challenge – “Lunar Forge: Producing Metal Products on the Moon” – go to this informative website at:

https://bigidea.nianet.org/2023-challenge/

Check out the finalists here at:

https://bigidea.nianet.org/wp-content/uploads/2023-BIG-Idea-Finalist-Team-Synopses.pdf