On Thu, 20 Feb 2003 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > Lunar soil has silicon, oxygen, and a couple of useful metals.
> > No carbon, nitrogen, or hydrogen, though.
>
> Didn't the Neutron Spectrometer aboard the Lunar Prospector probe detect
> Hydrogen? (Suspected in water ice form)
Correct. Hydrogen of some sort, probably water, possibly as ice. If it's
frozen cometary volatiles, as seems most likely, there might also be some
ammonia there, and maybe even carbon dioxide.
Unfortunately, it's almost all near the lunar poles, which are otherwise
not ideal locations in most ways. (Although one way in which they do win
is that it's probably not too hard to get continuous solar power there.
Building a solar-powered base anywhere else is hard, and nuclear runs into
nasty political problems.)
> If there�s ample water ice, then one only need get there with the correct
> processing materials/tools/initial power supply.
Almost certainly, you will need preliminary scouting expeditions, both to
fill in the details of the hydrogen resources, and to experiment with
extraction and processing technology. (The odds that you will be able to
get the technology right the first time approach zero; serious debugging
is virtually certain to be needed.) Mining and processing cryogenic
permafrost is not going to be easy.
Henry Spencer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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