Lunar surface materials offer a source of raw materials for space processing to produce structural metals, oxygen, silicon, glass, and ceramic products. Significant difference exist, however, between lunar surface materials in the highlands and those in the maria. In the highlands the soil depth is at least an order of magnitude greater, the Al:Fe ratio is ten times greater, the content of plagioclase as a source of clear glass is three times as great, and the content of Ti is at least an order of magnitude lower. Evaluation of the extractive metallurgy and chemical operations associated with carbothermic and silicothermic refinement of lunar regolith suggests that Fe, Al, Si, Mg and probably Ti, Cr and Mn can be recovered, while oxygen is produced as a by-product. A conservative plant design yields its own weight in oxygen, silicon, and structural metals in less than six days. Power requirements for a throughput of 300,000 tons per year is less than 500 megawatts. The processing is done more economically in space than on the lunar surface.


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    Titel :

    Lunar resources and their utilization


    Beteiligte:
    Phinney, W. C. (Autor:in) / Criswell, D. (Autor:in) / Drexler, E. (Autor:in) / Garmirian, J. (Autor:in)

    Kongress:

    Conference on Space Manufacturing Facilities ; 1977 ; Princeton, NJ, US


    Erscheinungsdatum :

    01.05.1977


    Medientyp :

    Aufsatz (Konferenz)


    Format :

    Keine Angabe


    Sprache :

    Englisch


    Schlagwörter :


    Lunar Resources and their Utilization

    O'Neill, Gerard K. / O'Leary, Brian | AIAA | 1977


    Lunar resources and their utilization

    PHINNEY, W. / CRISWELL, D. | AIAA | 1977


    Utilization of Lunar Resources for Human Mars Missions

    Jones, Christopher / Brown, Chase / Wilhite, Alan | AIAA | 2011


    Utilization of Lunar Resources for Human Mars Missions

    Jones, C. / Brown, C. / Wilhite, A. et al. | British Library Conference Proceedings | 2011