Numerous
studies have been made about how to extract the oxygen from moon
surface rocks. Oxygen makes up about 45% of the weight of moon rocks.
It would be good to be able to fill one's lave tube home with locally
made, patriotic oxygen rather than foreign.
Apparently
the moon may have soaked up a lot of oxygen from the over the ages.
While Earth people are rather careless about their destruction of the
health of the Earth ecosphere, the senseless moon is a collector of
any oxygen leaked from the Earth atmosphere drifting its way.
Senselessness for some physical processes is more efficient than
intelligence in the case of increasing oxygen (the Earth's is
decreasing as a percent because of global warming gases and habitat
destruction; not to mention the Holocene extinction live.
A
motivation for producing oxygen from the moon is to make lox (liquid
oxygen) for fuel. That seems rather dumb to me. The first thing
humans want to do is to make fuel for engines and waste resources. At
least Volvo committed to quit producing fossil fuel vehicles and go
all-electric instead.
The
moon is a useful place for a scientific and habitat construction
experimental station, as well of course as a transportation hub to
the rest of the solar system. Solar energy and super-conductors
working at permanent very cold temperatures should allow a surfeit of
electric engines and transport technologies such mass drivers to
proliferate.
Eventually
fabrication facilities for modular space components could be built on
the moon and perhaps elsewhere exploiting rock from the asteroid
belt, careful brought to the moon. Maybe the mass of the moon should
not be changed in order to avoid increasing or decreasing its
distance from the Earth. Building components that can be put into
space from the lunar surface could be as panels locked in together to
form very large structures. It is not difficult to imagine forming
planetary size object somewhat automatically wit modular components
floating about and guided into designed places with magnetism.
It
would be rather remarkable if one day one could make planets
something like transformers that can assemble, detach and reassemble
as needed. Modules that contain complete Earth terrarium green house
capability could also be shoe-boxed and sent to appropriate locations
around the solar system to grow independently in isolation from the
indigenous environment or grow itself into it.
