NASA Offers Reward for Extracting O2 from Moondust 276
DoubleWhopper writes "Break out the duct tape and paper clips. NASA has announced a $250,000 reward to the "first team of scientists to invent a way to extract breathable oxygen from lunar soil". Wired reports, "Inventors who attempt the Moon Regolith Oxygen (or MoonROx) challenge will have just eight hours to extract at least 11 pounds of breathable oxygen from a simulated form of lunar soil.""
250 grand?? For pulling breathable air from dirt? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:250 grand?? For pulling breathable air from dir (Score:5, Funny)
I've already applied for all the necessary patents.
It really doesn't matter who wins the contest... I'm already the winner.
Lunar Patent Office? (Score:3, Interesting)
Interestingly enough, this discrepency over IP juridiction was used by NASA to organise multi-region DVD players for the ISS.
Re:Lunar Patent Office? (Score:5, Informative)
35 USC 105 [uspto.gov]
Note that 35 USC 102 is novel inventions, 103 is non-obvious inventions, 104 is foreign inventions, and 105 is inventions in outer space. It's no more than 2 statutes away from the critically misunderstood non-obvious inventions statute.
I apologize for sounding like I'm ranting on you. It's not you, it's just that it's really hard to have a positive, upbeat attitude when disseminating information about the US Patent system around Slashdot. Put yourself in the shoes of someone who IS informed about how the patent system actually works and I hope you'll understand.
Have a great weekend.
Re:Lunar Patent Office? (Score:3, Insightful)
And this is like the zillionth time I've said that patent "experts" have completely missed the point about complaints about the US Patent system.
Try to understand: The patent statutes could've been put together by the tooth fairy. It simply doesn't matter. Either what they say or where they came from.
What's relevant are the results. And the results are TRASH, as even a cursory examination of recent software patents [uspto.gov] shows.
The USPTO have been complicit in promoting these bogus statutes and are largely r
It's so simple a child could do it... (Score:3, Funny)
The soil on the Moon basically consists of minerals including aluminum, calcium, magnesium, oxygen, silicon, and titanium. So let's take the first one, aluminum.
It's atom has 13 protons right? So just take those 13 protons and split them up into 13 Hydrogen atoms. Then take those 13 hydrogen atoms and add them together to make 1 Oxygen atom...with 5 extra protons that can be put aside for furture oxygen building. So from just 1 aluminum atom you get 1.5 Oxygen atoms!
Re:It's so simple a child could do it... (Score:2)
Re:250 grand?? For pulling breathable air from dir (Score:2)
Cheep, Cheep, Cheep.
--Mike--
Re:250 grand?? For pulling breathable air from dir (Score:4, Interesting)
use a reducing agent, perhaps? (Score:2)
I was going to say, if you want oxygen from oxides, why not just use a strong reducing agent? Or would that just make water vapor? I know many reducing agents are hydrides (sodium borohydride and such) but even if they do donate proton
Re:250 grand?? For pulling breathable air from dir (Score:2)
I did this years ago in the basement. However, for some unfathomable reason, my oxygen was of the unbreathable kind.
Re:250 grand?? For pulling breathable air from dir (Score:2)
If you knew a way to solve the problem, your best bet would be taking the $250K. Your other choice would be trying to sell your idea when people are in desperate need for it, which is unlikely to happen in your lifetime.
Re:250 grand?? For pulling breathable air from dir (Score:3, Interesting)
One interesting thing I read about half a year ago, I recently was success in electrolysis directly on solid metal oxides instead of having to first melt them or dissolve them in another material (such as molten cryolite for aluminum refining). That might be a promising
Re:250 grand?? For pulling breathable air from dir (Score:2, Funny)
Using the patented George W Bush method, I'll find that 11 pounds of O2, even if I have to put it there myself!
Can I have my check now?
First team of scientists? (Score:5, Funny)
I have a small team, and I do mean small team that is quite good at extracting things from the ground. Does it matter if they are not scientists?
Yours etc.
Snow White
Re:First team of scientists? (Score:3, Funny)
I'll top that... (Score:4, Funny)
"Turn Lead Into Gold"
(Winning contestants may see light of day again... jk... not really)
Re:I'll top that... (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a report (1972) in which Soviet physicists at a nuclear research facility near Lake Baikal in Siberia accidentally discovered a "reaction" for turning lead into gold when they found the lead shielding of an experimental reactor had changed to gold.
Note: any reaction tranmuting one element into another is by definition no longer chemistry, but nuclear physics.
(I'm a chemist).
Re:I'll top that... (Score:5, Interesting)
You guessed it.
It's back to being lead.
It's the real-life equivalent of fairy gold.
Re:I'll top that... (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, the real downer is the fact that it costs more to make the gold then it is worth.
Re:I'll top that... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I'll top that... (Score:4, Funny)
So what you are saying is that I should give my ex-girlfriend a ring made out of this gold.
I don't see anything sad about that.
NASA's budget cuts are starting to show (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:NASA's budget cuts are starting to show (Score:5, Funny)
Re:NASA's budget cuts are starting to show (Score:2)
Re:NASA's budget cuts are starting to show (Score:2)
Breathing gold may not be the best idea, especially if you're partly mechanical according to this documentary. http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/episodeguide/
Re:NASA's budget cuts are starting to show (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Quantities... (Score:2)
Any company funding this is probably going to want patents. Maybe that's NASA's plan: convince researchers who want to take the prize home themselves to try this with company funding, give the prize to the researchers, license the patent from the company at a cost lower than doing the work themselves, leave the company to make money from other commercial spacefaring entities. It could work...
For something that they can/will depend on this heavily, it seems rather silly to take into account that another
Re:Quantities... (Score:2)
What do you bet that if they had to do it, they could trounce any patents?
Of course, they won't have to do it. With government funding, they would be willing to pay far higher than any corporation for the same thing. It's not like it's real money for them.
Re:Quantities... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:NASA's budget cuts are starting to show (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, the challenge is for 5kg (mass) of O2, but the units just got dumbed down for those who don't to metric. Extracting O2 from soil is done all the time on Earth, we just tend to treat the oxygen as an unnecessary byproduct while we keep the useful things (e.g. most metals); this will probbably not be "the biggest invention in human history"...
Re:NASA's budget cuts are starting to show (Score:4, Informative)
And on this contest it sounds like the byproducts will be aluminium and silicon... and those will be discarded. Which is why I think the contest is poorly worded, and will lead to an inferior 'winning entry'.
Why throw away ultra pure silicon and aluminium just to get oxygen? With a slight increase in complexity you get a sweet refinery that can produce O2, Si and Al, as well as iron and titanium in much smaller quantities.
Sample rock break down, I figure this is *fairly* representative, but I just picked a random rock from the below link (by weight %):
SiO2 - 44.94
Al2O3 - 35.71
CaO - 20.57
Na2O - 0.384
MgO - 0.53
Fe - 0.2
Ti - 0.018
Here is a page on the moon rock samples:
http://www-curator.jsc.nasa.gov/curator/lunar/lsc
Each link is a PDF which contains, amoung other things, a breakdown of the mineral composition of the rock in question.
mass percent oxygen (Score:2)
SiO2: 0.53 * 44.94% = 23.8% .
Al2O3: 0.47 * 35.71% = 16.8%
CaO: 0.29 * 20.57% = 6.0%
Na2O: 0.26 * 0.384% = 0.1%
MgO: 0.40 * 0.53% = 0.2%
-----------
total = 46.9% oxygen by mass in that rock. I couldn't find how much moon dust would be available for processing. I wonder the percent yield necessary to win the contest . .
Re:NASA's budget cuts are starting to show (Score:2)
It's only big if you're founding a lunar colony, and I don't see that happening in our lifetimes. That would require regular, safe passenger and freight service into deep space, and nobody's every been serious about funding that. Instead of we've expensive demos like the Apollo and Shuttle programs, which both have significant accomplishments, but neither of which have done jack towards creating a re
kilograms are mass, not weight (Score:2)
In related news... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In related news... (Score:2)
Re:In related news... (Score:2)
So I suppose that makes it a fair deal...
Darn, I was only able to extract ozone (Score:4, Funny)
this looks too easy... (Score:2, Informative)
Deoxygenating SiO2 and CaO (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Deoxygenating SiO2 and CaO (Score:3, Insightful)
Except for the 14-days of night.... (Score:2)
Yes and no, unfortunately. Unless they put the installation where they get almost perpetual sun [bbc.co.uk] they are going to face a long night every lunar month. The plus side of the polar regions might be the availability of hydrogen, which might be in the form of water (easily separated in to O2 and H2) or in some other form. Hydrogen could be used to help reduce the lunar rock oxides to release the oxygen. Of course, perching a moon
Re:Deoxygenating SiO2 and CaO (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Deoxygenating SiO2 and CaO (Score:2)
As another poster pointed out, it'd probably be electric - but I would think that the waste heat from a nuclear reactor might be enough. Unless our battery technology improves radically - or unless we locate the base at one of the permanent sunli
Pounds? (Score:2)
Re:Pounds? (Score:3)
Re:Pounds? (Score:5, Informative)
From wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
So the answer seems pretty clearly to be mass. It's even more clear if you read the actual NASA page [nasa.gov] about it, which gives it in kilograms, rather than blaming NASA for Wired's use of a marginally ambiguous unit.
Re:Pounds? (Score:2)
Just one kilo.
To get the force needed to lift, just multiply with your local gravity, e.g. 9.81 N/kg on earth.
Is the concept of "mass" so difficult to grasp?
Re:Pounds? (Score:2)
Given that one of the Mars probes crashed because NASA mixed up metric units with a set of units derived from the ancient British empire, I think your tough call may not be so tough anymore.
That was my science fair project! (Score:3, Interesting)
Space.com (Score:2, Informative)
Why do I get the bad feeling... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why do I get the bad feeling... (Score:2)
Re:Why do I get the bad feeling... (Score:2)
Why bother? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Why bother? (Score:2)
How to obtain Oxygen from moon rocks (Score:2)
2. Offer to trade moon rocks to a medical supply company for a tank full of oxygen
3. ???
4. Profit!
I will find the answer (Score:2)
P.S. I am not a crank.
Easy... (Score:2, Funny)
Now what's this I hear about some reward?
Sample material? (Score:2)
Already a solution? (Score:5, Informative)
seems like they know what they're doing, and that they have been working on it for a while!
Re:Already a solution? (Score:2)
Poorly writtten story (Score:3, Informative)
This should be rewritten to something along the lines of:
"To win, a team will have to develop a process that can extract at least 11 pounds of oxygen in an eight hour period" The deadline is June 1, 2008.
Re:Poorly writtten story (Score:2)
If they are still alive, it obviously works
Cheap Bastards (Score:2)
Re:Cheap Bastards (Score:2)
> more than a quarter mill off the deal.
I think I've already figured out how to make it inhabitable. Give me $10,000 and I'll tell you.
Finding the actual rules (Score:2)
Anyway to sign up, you send an email with no subject and containing only the word "subscribe" to "majordomo@spinoza.public.hq.nasa.gov".
Here is the result of the list comma
rough numbers - chem 1C (Score:2, Interesting)
156.25 moles O2
625 moles e- (assume electrolysis, starting oxidation state -2)
28800 seconds (8 hours to get it done)
3.76375E+26 no. electrons (you've got to xfer these)
6.24E+18 electrons/coulomb (def.)
60316506 coulombs
2094 total Amps (C/s)
-->262 amp-hr equivalent battery necessary to make 5 kg O2 in 8 hrs assuming perfect efficiency.
Will be interesting to see what contraints NASA set on the system design. One assumes that they would not reward sol
Wha.....? (Score:2)
Re:Wha.....? (Score:4, Insightful)
Really? I know how to manufacture a quiche, but I don't think I could get just the eggs back out of it.
Re:Wha.....? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wha.....? (Score:2)
This is some volcanic ash that has a chemical composition that is very similar to the samples that were brought back during the Apollo missions. You know, gas chromatigraphs and other methods to identify the chemical composition in a piece of rock. This was done quite thouroughally when the lunar samples came back, and a major effort was done to try and come up with some similar earth-based mineral ore that could be used for experimental purposes in a laboratory
Just remember... (Score:4, Funny)
Wonder if they're allowed to use carbon... (Score:2)
Obviously, there is no elemental carbon available on the moon, but the problem of extracting oxygen may be relatively simple if one is allowed to use carbon brought in carbothermic reduction of the lunar soil in an airtight solar furnace.
I should clarify... (Score:2)
The CO and CO2 products would be electrolysed in a separate step to yield C(s)(which could then be recycled back to the process), and breathable O2.
The carbon would be reacted with various metal oxides present in lunar soil. FeO, which is up to 5% of lunar soil, is the most promising source of oxygen, given that it can be reduced more effectively at lower temperatures than SiO2, and the astronauts would likely find the resulting Fe useful. The most cumbersome part is probably be the furnace itself, whic
Re:I should clarify... (Score:2)
Turn that sh^t into plasma and seperate it magnetically. Or not.
Re:I should clarify... (Score:2)
For large-scale municipal oxygen plants of Tycho City, yeah, they might use such a system, but not likely for Ra III (assuming they use another sun god for the names of lunar missions).
Details lacking (Score:3, Interesting)
The lunar environment is so radically different there that it changes a lot of the design parameters. Structures weigh 1/6 as much there as they do here. Build a structure that is strong enough for Lunar gravity and it'll collapse here. You've got both a 250 degree F heat source and -250 degrees heatsink readily available on the Moon which makes for a nice heat engine but again, it only works on the Moon.
There are other significant differences so I'm curious whether NASA plans on testing the machines using Earth design rules or Moon design rules.
Re:Details lacking (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7403 [newscientist.com]
The big deal is that you are going to be given a lunar soil simulant (they say that getting the real stuff is just too expensive to do anything but a final proof test with) that comes from a volcanic ash deposit near Flagstaff, AZ. For a small fee a research team can obtain samples of this simulant for experimental purposes.
It must put out at least 5 kg of oxygen (assuming that the time to produce this is limited to a short period of time... 24 hours or less), and the whole device must weight less than 25 kg. I would also guess that space considerations are also something to worry about, but that the weight of the device is a bigger deal.
I guess the Wired news article says 11 kg in 8 hours.
In short, it is something that should fit in a foot locker that astronauts could pull out and set up once another lunar mission actually occurs.
This is a bigger deal than the tether challenge, and something that has some hard short-term practical applications in the space industry. Also, the $250,000 is something you can pay a research team to do more than hold a pizza party afterward with when you win. If you already have a minerology lab, this would be worth pulling a couple of interns/lab assistants over to wrap their energies around. And potentially some very nice contracts in the future if NASA gets off their behind and gets back to the moon.
Re:Thinking "out of the box" (Score:2)
Re:not really (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:not really (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:not really (Score:2)
It is unlikely that anyone in their right mind would try to create a regular atmosphere around the moon.
Re:not really (Score:2)
Re:not really (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Moon Sweet Moon? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Moon Sweet Moon? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:One of these days, Alice (Score:2)
Re:When can I get a condo? (Score:4, Funny)
Would you be able to handle the crushing loneliness, the bleak emptiness, and the lack of human culture? Oh wait, right, Minnesota, you probably would...
Re:1337? (Score:2)
There's less gravity on the Moon than on your Earth; I don't know if your feeble mind can comprehend that. Our vertical leap is beyond measure.
Re:1337? (Score:2)
Earth Men Can't Jump. Coming to a theater near you!
Re:How about plants? (Score:2)
I know they couldn't live out in the open on the moon, but maybe in some sort of dome?
Re:How about plants? (Score:2)
Re:How about plants? (Score:2)
So if we put them under a dome, and breathe on them?
We can use the solar energy to cool/heat the dome, and the plants would receive sunlight through the dome and O2 from us.
Might that work?
Re:On a tight budget are they? (Score:2)
Put another way, this is engineering, not science, if you try to idealize a dist
Re:Sweet. (Score:2)
Re:what's the point? (Score:2)